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YoYo Games Glog: Happy New Year (but not for the Help Desk)

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:20:14 -0600

2009 is very much upon us and we are all looking forward to what will happen here at YYG in 2009.

Unfortunately it’s started with a Flu bug that has been working it’s way round the UK and now arrived at YoYo Games Corporate HQ .

This means, amongst other problems that the Help desk is understaffed and we won’t catch up with the backlog until later this week. By Thursday I expect we’ll be back to our new service level commitment to deal with any initial requests within 24 hours, so bear with us.

GameMaker Blog: GMKing Podcast #5

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:08:51 -0600

I refuse to call this an ‘Audcast’ but thankfully this once-in-a-blue-moon GameMaker discussion has re-branded itself GMCast after taking the name from a rival to GameMaker TV which never materialised.

Listen as Robin Monks, Dan Eggers and myself make fools of ourselves while talking about topics such as the best GameMaker games of 2008, the security issues effecting GameMaker and YoYo Games’ instant play and a summary of the events last year.

Cringe at the cheesy opening and at my reluctance to speak as I find that recording a podcast with people I’ve never met is much harder than writing a blog or magazine article. Disagree with our thought-up-in-10-minutes round-up of the best games of the year and complain that the entirety of my pre-record is taken from previous GameMaker Blog posts.

But above all tell us what we can do to improve. What kind of features would you like to see on the show?

GMNews: Important Announcement from Scorptek

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:04:47 -0600

Hello readers,

We appreciate your continued support of GMNews and we want to assure everyone that we have NOT abandoned this website. We understand that some users are concerned about the apparent lack of articles over the holidays and we want to put your concerns at rest. However I feel that in order for you to fully understand what is making it difficult for us to maintain this news blog, I must inform you of the major ‘behind the scenes’ projects that we have been working on over the past year(s) and what Scorptek has planned in store for the near future.

We realize “we’ve been busy” just doesn’t cut it anymore, but to be honest we have been; and here is why:

Over the past year or so, Scorptek has devoted significant time and effort into researching, planning and building business relationships with other companies so that we can begin to venture out into the world outside of Game Maker News and develop a profitable business model. Some of you may remember some time ago when we conducted a survey of your knowledge, experience and use of Internet and phone services. At the time, many of you were puzzled and were unable to see how the results would be beneficial to us. If you recall, I responded by saying that the simplest explanation is probably the best one.

That’s exactly right, the simplest explanation is the best explanation. Drum roll please….. Scorptek will be offering DSL Broadband Internet and Phone services across North America and possibly in other countries in the future. This is exciting for us, and hopefully for you to. We couldn’t have done this without the Game Maker and GMNews community and we appreciate your support.

As we get closer to offering our beta program, we of course will be looking closely here and at other Game Maker communities for users who are eager and willing to test our services at largely discounted rates. After the beta program has ended and our service is fully open to the public, registered members of the GMC, YoYo Games or GMNews will in most cases be eligible for a discounts or rebates on the services we offer.

We are also in contact with a UL listed alarm monitoring company, and we may (if we can negotiate a contract/agreement) also be providing self-install home security systems and 24/7 monitoring services with dispatch. The monitoring services also work with your existing security system (if you have one) and are fully compatible with VoIP and broadband phone lines such as Vonage or our Scorptek service.

Finally we may also form a partnership and affiliation with Dish Network Satellite TV resellers to provide you with affordable TV services to accompany your Scorptek Internet, Phone and possibly alarm monitoring services.

So as you can see, this is really taking a large chunk of our time and we definitely hope it will be worth while. Please leave feedback on what you think of our business project and any questions you have. If you are interested in becoming a (volunteer) writer for GMNews, feel free to email me personally at pythonpoole /at/ gmail /com/ and include a paragraph about yourself and what Writing/English/English Lit. qualifications you have or a sample of your work.

Thanks for being patient, and we hope to serve you in the near future.
Please remember to leave comments.

- Benjamin Poole
Managing Director of Scorptek

Posted in Uncategorized

GameMaker Blog: 5 Reasons why Construct is better than Game Maker

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:12:31 -0600

Construct is a free open-source DirectX game creator with a drag-and-drop interface.

Last weekend I spoke with one of the people behind the project, Ashley Gullen, who asked me why I thought Stencyl [official website] was so much more well known than the Construct project which has got considerably further along its development. Unlike Stencyl who consistently refuse to give details of their release schedule Construct is available for public download now.

Clearly I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to take a look at Construct (current release 0.98.3), and I liked what I saw. Construct, which has support for integrated Python scripting, has a PowerPoint style layout and several advantages over Game Maker.

1. Behaviors

Frequently used object actions are precoded in Construct as ‘behaviors‘.

Want your player to to have 8 directional movement - simply select the ‘8 direction’ behavior and set up properties such as maximum speed and the rates of acceleration and deceleration.

This saves time when you want to prototype or make a quick start to a project without having to set 8 different events and actions as you would in Game Maker. A physics behavior is also bundled.

2. Layout Editor superior to Game Maker’s room editor

Whilst Game Maker may require different sprites for each direction an object is facing Construct doesn’t.

All objects can be rotated after you have placed them on a Layer (Construct’s equivalent of Game Maker’s rooms) and at any angle you desire. Resizing an object can also be done directly on layers and you can also zoom in and out of layers - something not possible in Game Maker.

3. Built in Object types

Construct has built in object types that make it easy to add different elements to your games.

Want to add text to the screen? Simply drag the text module to where you want it and change its properties. Want to use input from a webcam or output data in a Bar Chart? - easy. There are currently 60+ and anyone can write a plugin to add functionality to Construct.

4. Active development

Construct is actively being developed based on the suggestions and ideas of users of the software.

5. 100% free and Open Source

Game Maker is neither of these and Stencyl have announced that their project will no longer be promoted as open source.

I await your ‘10 reasons why Game Maker is better than Construct’ posts…

GameMaker Blog: $225 up for grabs in Retro Game Competition.

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:22:38 -0600

Zerosoft have launched a retro-style game contest with $225 in cash prizes.

We are looking for old school graphics and game play. The prizes have been raised but with that our expectations have been raised as well. We will judge this competition strictly so follow our guide. We want to see pixellated graphics, action, and superb game play. The competition begins today and it will end on February 28th. This is approximately two months time. You will be judged on graphics, sound, originality, the story and implementation of it, and gameplay. If you feel you can’t follow the guidelines below, or you might be angered if you do not place in the top three places, or if you in the end can’t meet the deadline … do not enter this competition. Competition is exactly that … there are rules, there can only be a few winners, and there is a predetermined time.

- Zerosoft’s Jess Horton

This is the largest prize fund for a non-YoYoGames GameMaker-specific contest for a long time.

GameMaker Blog: GameMaker Blog 2008 Award Winners

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:12:56 -0600

Voting in the four remaining categories of Game Maker Blog’s Community Awards has ended, with a total of over 250 votes being made. The results have been checked and the final figures are posted below.

The voting in “Best source of Game Maker tutorials and/or examples“ surprised me as this was the award that had received the most votes, despite one major player being the Official GameMaker Community which was not campaigning.

In the end it was a pretty comfortable victory for the GMC, 12 votes clear of runner-up MarkUp which was well ahead of both other websites.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I really wasn’t sure how the “Best periodical publication“ vote would swing. GMB has often seen heated debates between GameMaker Tech and MarkUp, however these have mainly been carried out by those in command of the magazines! I didn’t know if secretly you all loved Russell’s Quaterly or GMWeekly - two vastly different publications with entirely different target audiences, content and yes, release schedules.

In the end it was a battle between the mailing list subscribers of GameMaker Tech and MarkUp with GMKing’s publication coming out on top by a slim margin of 4 votes.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

“Best non-English Game Maker website” was a strange category. Partly because I nominated all three sites myself and partly because, as NAL pointed out after voting, the result may be largely be dependent on which languages have the most GameMaker users.

It appears people didn’t vote purely on their own language though, many of the votes came from people outside any of the nominated countries, and several people voted for a site in a language other than their own national tongue (perhaps by mistake?).

In the end it was a comfortable win for the German Game Maker Domäne who received over 50% of the total votes, although I can’t help feeling I could have promoted this category in a way that would attract more entrants and votes as it had considerably less than some of the other awards.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The “Most exciting launch of the year” title goes to GMWeekly. After the magazine had produced its second issue MarkUp editor Robin Monks and GameMakerTV host Dan Eggers discussed the arrival of the publication in a top secret conversation (Episode 4 of GMKing’s podcast). Their thoughts on the future of the magazine back in September can be found below.

Okay they were proved right about the weekly release dates, but this schedule was stuck to for 13 weeks which I think is a big achievement.

“Basically copied blog posts” or a worthy winner of the Launch of the Year title? You decide - whilst I sit in the middle of the flying toys because I just can’t make up my mind.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

11 suspicious votes were removed between the four categories (less than 4% of total votes) - however these did not affect the placing of any nominee.

I am pleased with how the Awards worked out and the way in which nominees conducted themselves when campaigning for votes. There certainly hasn’t been any foul play as I believe plagued last years awards at the GMC. I would also like to thank everyone who voted for their favourite websites, games or publications, whether they are a GameMaker Blog regular or were a first time visitor to the site.

GameMaker Blog: Happy new year!

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:00:08 -0600

It has come to our attention that all real blogs should make a new year post. So here it is, with a fancy photo of fireworks, too!

So we at GameMaker Blog wish you a happy new year. Or something.

(This post was scheduled to be published at New Year server time, like last year.)

GameMaker Blog: GM Station “Magazine”

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:09:16 -0600

A new GameMaker magazine website has been launched. GM Station takes the form of a single webpage.

Included:

Copy of Sandy Duncan’s introduction to the Save our Planet competition (which ends in four days).
Screenshot of the Mubbly Tower page on the YoYo Games website.
Reviews: ”This here is a really good pinball game. The sounds are great, the music is great, the graphics are average, and the game play quite enjoyable” [sic]
3 interviews with identical questions.
Apparently a pro copy of Game Maker and $10 are up for grabs as prizes for sending a static ‘Lucky code’ to the magazines owner.

GameMaker Blog: Seasonally short mid-week community links

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:13:15 -0600

Voting has closed in GameMaker Blog’s very own community awards for the year 2008. The votes will be verified and the final results published tomorrow (January 1st).
WillHostForFood is currently blacklisted by Google, resulting in nice warning messages everytime I try to view a page on the GMC which contains something hosted at WHFF in a contributors signature…
There are less than five days until entries close in YoYo Games’ Save the World competition.

GameMaker Blog: GM-Cast is back, ehhh maybe?

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:39:22 -0600

So, a few months back Caniac had announced that he was starting a competing Game Maker web show similar to GMTV. For those of you who don’t know I then hired Caniac onto the GMTV staff.

Well, somehow Caniac was given the impression that he would instantly rise to the top of the GMTV staff and become a co-host, when he was told no, he then told us how childish the entire GMTV staff is because episode 5 isn’t out. I mean seriously, you quit for not getting your way; but we are the childish ones?

Caniac has then recently informed me that his new show will not be called GM-Cast and will in fact be called GMVision. Hey who wants to go and buy gmvision.com?

He stated that his show will come out every month, that was GMTV’s original plan, worked out wonders for us. So now Caniac is gone ( ) and he’s going to make a, SUPER SWEET WEB SHOW THAT WILL MAKE HIM FAMOUS, AND PUT GMTV IN THE DIRT, funny considering the kid who spells, Copyright, ‘Copywright’. Well can’t wait to see how this works out for you bud.

EDIT: Oh, and did I mention that he was going to try to get the British morning show GMTV to sue GMTV for using the same abbreviation?

GameMaker Blog: 2008: Most Popular Posts

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:34:12 -0600

They were requested for 2007, so here they are for 2008 - the most popular posts of the year on GameMaker Blog.

Most discussed posts (comments this year):

Prodigy GM gone for good? (51 comments) - “Everyone’s favourite” GameMaker site appeared to be gone. It didn’t last.
YoYo host GameMaker 7 Pro Crack (44 this year) - YoYo Games resources section enabled someone to upload a crack for their software.
Why I dislike GMFetch (41) - You didn’t all agree with me.
GameMaker Scope reaches a new level of professionality (27) - Airing dirty laundry in public.
Not using a cracked version, honest (25 this year)

Most viewed posts this year:

GameMaker Blog: (Nearly) New Year - New Theme

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:00:14 -0600

For a while now I have been looking to update the theme on GameMaker Blog to give it a fresh look and, more importantly, a better implementation of listing post comments.

So from today we are using a new theme suggested by GMB writer gamez93. The new look gives a wider portion of the page to the main content, and reduces the size of the sidebar.

Comments left on GMB are now displayed next to an avatar belonging to the comment poster. These are Gravatars (globally recognised avatars). To get one next to your comments on GMB (and on thousands of other blogs) you will need to register and upload a picture at gravatar.com.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to the site over the past year, be it by commenting, blogging or simply reading what others have written. I am especially greatful to tuntis and gamez93 for their contributions.

GameMaker Blog: 2008 Review: Competitions

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:59:51 -0600

2008 has probably been the best year for Game Maker competitions yet. This is mainly down to the three high-profile contests launched by YoYo Games this year, and the results of last year’s winter-themed competition being announced which has seen over $5,000 given out to game creators.

The themes of the competitions launched this year have been Ancient Civilizations, Co-Operation and Save The Planet, the latter of which is still open for entries. Each YoYo Games contest has succeeded in attracting more entries than the previous.

YoYo Games aside there have also been several competitions with worthy prizes as well as the usual smattering of smaller contests.

TIA Productions held a Limited Graphics Game Contest with a $100 first prize, Zerosoft handed out $150 in their Christmas Competition. GMTutorials also held several tutorial-writing contests with prizes including $75 cash, hosting and domain names.

July also saw the return of GMC Cagematches, in which two top games are pitted against each other with the winner being decided by a public vote.

Some of the competition winning games this year:

GameMaker Blog: 2008 Review: Game Maker Magazines

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:45:28 -0600

Over the past year the fate of different Game Maker magazines has contrasted. The year started with two strong magazines, GameMaker Tech and MarkUp, going head to head with their January releases. However in 2008 these often praised publications had a troubled year, with both magazines releasing less frequently than they had done so in 2007 with both magazines managing just five releases in twelve months.

In February the well established magazines were joined by two new magazines - GameMaker Magazine, later renamed GameMaker Scope, and Tom Russell’s Quaterly magazine albeit not entirely focused on GameMaker. Whereas Russell’s Quarterly has received acclaim for its high quality in-depth articles GameMaker Scope has been confined to the GameMaker Magazine graveyard - producing a commendable 5 issues in its short and often controversial lifespan.

Throughout the year we saw the usual dribble of low quality one-bored-preteen magazines releasing an issue or two before vanishing into the GameMaker wilderness under a torrent of abuse (some handed out by GameMaker Blog). Highlights this year included GRandER and the perhaps inevitable return of Prodigy GM with a follow up to their 2007 attempt at Gnazine, two issues of Prodigy Game Magazine. Do you even remember GMFetch?, it all seems so long ago.

August saw the launch of GMWeekly which, until recently, released a GameMaker newsletter every Friday which has included tutorials, game reviews and puzzles.

Content wise the best was probably saved until the end of the year and the release of GameMaker Tech’s 14th issue which included an exclusive interview with YoYo Games CEO Sandy Duncan and a giveaway of 10 GameMaker Pro Licenses.

There is still time to vote for your favourite periodical publication of 2008 in the GameMaker Blog awards. GameMaker Tech, GMWeekly, MarkUp and Russell’s Quarterly are the magazines in the final vote. GMWeekly is also nominated for launch of the year.

YoYo Games Glog: Merry Xmas/Happy Holidays

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:49:11 -0600

Many thanks to all of you for your help, feedback and support over the last twelve months.

Best Wishes from everyone at YoYo Games for 2009.

The team is on vacation now until January 5th. We will do our best to answer queries on the helpdesk in that time, but our recent 24 hour response target is postponed until then, so please be patient over the Holiday season if you have problems.

GameMaker Blog: Mid-week community links

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 08:11:35 -0600

GameMaker Tech magazine have completed their giveaway of 10 free GameMaker 7 pro licenses. The winning entries in their competition were submitted by T-Dub, Peter Colborne-Veel, Manuel, Giorgio Sotiropoulos, Rigoberto Juarez, Mariano Ariel de la Torre, Schalk, Jatz, Newbguy and Matthew Kremer. Congratulations to all the winners and to GameMaker Tech for organising a competition with $200 worth of prizes.

The Creations section at the Official GameMaker Community is to be split into 8 different sections to make it more difficult for people to see the latest games - I’m sure this wasn’t the intention, but I for one will not be checking eight different sub-forums to see recent releases.

Respected GMC member Mr.Chubigans has released his first major commercial game designed with GameMaker. Spirits of Metropolis is a twist on the Match-3 gems genre which pollute the Internet with their unoriginality. A demo is available - but it is a 40MB download.

This sounds like GMWeekly material…

GM Tech Magazine: GM7 Pro Contest - Winners Revealed

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:24:25 -0600

The GM7 Pro contest reached an end a few days ago and we have been going through and sorting out who gets the prizes. I can now tell you that we have decided on the final ten and they have all confirmed and have received an activation key.

They are now all enjoying GM7 Pro for free, what a great way to end the year. There were a lot of great entries, however we could only pick ten and they are;

The Winners

T-Dub
Peter Colborne-Veel
Manuel
Giorgio Sotiropoulos
Rigoberto Juarez
Mariano Ariel de la Torre
Schalk
Jatz
Newbguy
Matthew Kremer

Thanks for all your support to GMTech Magazine, look out for our next issue and further competitions that we will have going on.

GameMaker Blog: “We’re running out of time”

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:48:40 -0600

The spiraling effects of the credit crunch means that ThePlaySource may soon* be offline! In a shameless plea for GMC users to fund his failed project ThePlaySource’s owner writes “I really don’t want this website to go down”

“100% of the money donated will go to paying for the website, and for contests. Absolutely none of it will go to me.

Please donate soon, I don’t want allot. If you want, you can contact our website after you donate any amount of money, and you will have your link in the links section for atleast a month without you linking back, or you can remove all the ads on theplaysource.com..

Once again, please donate, I really am not asking for allot, $3 or $4 from 3 or 4 people would be good.”

I think from that we can conclude he wants us to bail out the project, like he also did last month when he claimed the domain would expire in March (it expires in May). *Not all that soon then.

As you can probably guess I am not a fan of the site and especially not the attitude of its owner who if we are to believe the WHOIS data is one “annanoumys annanoumys” [sic].

Not sure why he doesn’t ask his close GMC friend and fellow Canadian anonymouss on that note. Anonymouss is after all the man that claims to have “put $100 into advertising a website before, and it quickly turned into a $5000 gain” and “right now has $2000” in his PayPal account. This fellow also says he “fix[es] known security flaws for a living”, but that didn’t stop his own site iWannaPlay being hacked on more than one occasions.

Here’s to the GMC - providing us with entertainment all year long.

YoYo Games Glog: Deleting Games

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:26:07 -0600

As people have noticed, and complained about, it is no longer possible to delete a game that you uploaded to YoYo Games. Even though Sandy has already indicated we will add this option back in in the future, I would like to indicate why you should not need it.

First of all, there are three release types for your games: Complete games, Work in progress, and Beta games. You should carefully pick the release type for your game in the first place. I see many games appearing under complete that are works in progress. The creators often even indicate this in the description. You really don’t do yourself a service by release it as a complete game. You game will actually be played more often if you release it as Beta or Work in progress, and in general people will give it higher ratings and better comments as they will indeed judge it as an incomplete game. Only when the game is really ready should you release it as Complete.

Secondly, you can update your games. So when you improve a game (which should not really happen when it is released as Complete but sometimes you do find bugs when a game is finished) you should not upload a new game but simply update the existing game. Instant Play will notice the game is updated and will indicate this to players. So don’t add a new version of the same game as a new game. This is also nicer to the existing players of your game. They don’t have to find the new location.

Of course I also see some reasons to delete games, but none of them are really valid. People delete and re-add games to bumb them to the top of the new games list, which is definitely bad behavior and will not really help as in general people look at the number of ratings and plays of games. Secondly, people might want to delete and re-add a game because it will remove bad ratings/remarks for earlier versions. But really, the earlier version should not have been there in the first place (at least not as a complete game). And finally, people sometimes want to remove a game they made in the past because they are no longer proud of it. Don’t do this. In the future it is always good to see what people did in the past and how they developed. Simply add a note to the description that this is an old game of you.

So the only real valid reason for deleting a game is when you move a game from Beta or Work in progress to being a Complete game. Probably in that case you indeed want to start with a fresh rating and empty set of comments and reviews. But again, there is no problem to keep the incomplete version in the other category. Simply add a remark to the description where the complete game is available, and maybe remove the tags. That will actually attract more players to the complete version.

We will add the delete option again in the future. But if you stick to the ideas above you should never need it.

Markup Magazine: Vote for MarkUp Magazine

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:56:54 -0600

Dear Readers!

We invite you to participate in the voting round of the Game Maker Blog Community Awards, in which MarkUp is listed in two different award categories!

You can vote for MarkUp Magazine as the best source of Game Maker tutorials and/or examples and the best periodical publication awards.

We have worked hard to produce a publication that is worthy of your vote. We believe that -- with our latest developments and improvements -- we are worthy of your decision. MarkUp Magazine is the Game Maker Magazine with the highest amount of released issues, and the publication with the most frequent issue releases (out of the 'heavy' content magazines).

Not to mention, MarkUp Magazine is the only Game Maker magazine that caters for the elite expert developers and strives to present content that is beneficial for advanced developers, including advanced tutorials, editorials, guides, and other articles.

We hope you give us your votes!

Thanks,
The GMking.org Staff

GM Tech Magazine: The Awards are Here

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:45:50 -0600

Ladies and Gentlemen, GMTech has been entered into the Ga me Maker Blog Community Awards. We have been entered into ‘Best Periodical Publication‘ section and we would like to get as many votes as possible not only for GMTech, but also to support Game Maker Blog. They are a great source for news and information, everything and anything that you need to know regarding GM is posted there for you to have your say on.

So take some time to visit the Game Maker Blog Community Awards and vote for the best periodical publication, along with all the other categories that are there.

Why not, just a little bit of fun to end the year. Don’t you think we have deserved your votes, after over two years of service to you and all Game Maker around the world.

Thanks

GMking Blog: GMking’s MarkUp is a Game Maker Blog Community Awards Nominee

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:16:29 -0600

We’ve been nominated in two categories:

Best source of Game Maker tutorials and/or examples
Best periodical publication

So, all you MarkUp lovers out there, go and vote for us!

GM Tech Magazine: GM7 Pro Contest - Closed

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:58:59 -0600

The GM7 Pro contest has reached an end. We have received several entries and we are now going through each of them and deciding on which ten people will get an activation key to GM7.

Although the form is still online, any entries that are received after this message has been posted will not be counted, therefore you won’t stand a chance in winning.

We received more entries that we originally thought were going to come through, so it will take us a little bit longer to sort out the final winners. However if you are a winner you will either receive an email on the 21st or 22nd at the latest. In that email we will ask you to confirm a few things regarding your entry, then we will send you the activation key. There will be a deadline for ‘accepting’ the key, if you don’t reply to us within the given time you will forfeit your key and it will be handed to the next person on the waiting list.

That’s how it will all work, so keep checking your inbox over the next few days.

Thanks for all your support to GMTech Magazine, look out for our next issue and further competitions that we will have going on.

GameMaker Blog: Vote in our Community Awards!

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:45:04 -0600

Voting has now closed! The results will be announced on January 1st

The nominations process has now closed and voting can commence in GameMaker Blog’s very own awards which hopes to showcase the producers of the best Game Maker resources.

You may vote once in each category upto the 31st of December. The votes will then be verified (not rigged) with the winners announced on January 1st.

I will accept write-in votes (at my own discretion) as the nominations were not very well publicised.

Voting has now closed! The results will be announced on January 1st

Russell’s Quarterly was the only publication nominated in the category “best reviews of Game Maker games” so takes this title.

Voting has now closed! The results will be announced on January 1st

And finally, due to the vague nature of my nominations post, there is quite a variety to choose from for best launch of the year.

Voting has now closed! The results will be announced on January 1st

GameMaker Blog: Prodigy Game Magazine, issue 2

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:33:21 -0600

FUN FACT: Did you know that its almost been a year since the Nazi-zine post?’

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for… the PGM is back.

We here at the ProdigyGM would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Christmas is the time to show love, because God showed love to us by bringing him his son Jesus Christ. Now that was the good news, here is the bad news. We will not be providing a January 2008 issue. Issue #3’s planned release date is in February or March 2009. We are strong believers that January of 2009 would not be a very good month for online game magazines.

I think that’s a bit obvious, but with the Prodigy Game Magazine, mistakes like this are just natural. Ironically, the second issue of Gnazine actually had a similar goof:

I want to see who can make the best screen saver before January 15, 2007!

But what’s next? Awesomeness Watch, that is! Awesome GMC members get their very own section in the PGM (magazine): and this time, it’s Team[Logo]. Free logos for people, apparently:

They do it in a timely manner, but after reading this issue, it may take a bit longer, lmao!

Har har har, lmao!

They created the new logo that we are using on our site and in this magazine.

While it’s true that the logo (which looks decent) is in their website, I can’t seem to find it anywhere in the magazine. But that put aside, what do we have next?

FLAME WAR!

Today’s victim is Tdub. Tdub is one of the biggest noobs ever! His games are meant to be “complex” but they are just horribly made. If he thinks he is jigsaw, he is not. This noob has called so many people noobs they there needs to be a lower category for a noob. Shame on you Tdub! Shame on you!

Wow, we’re already off to a great start.

It would be best if you disconnected your internet, so no one would know you exist. I am not just playing this time, I am dead serious! If I was the president of the United States, I would probaly [sic] use executive powers to ban you from all social networks, chatrooms, and forums.

I’m sure a lot of people think the same about you, Nate.

Interview Game Makers is a joke site. Just because of that site, I will not be interviewing anyone in this magazine.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

The competitions gives out money, but a game that is sold commercially is probably better. I’m sorry for getting you alls hopes up, but Super Mario V. Sega will most likely not be on this list. All fangames are illegal, so watch it. If you did not know that, then disreguard [sic] this update, because you are too nooby to even be considered. Thanks.

What??

Next, we have a preview of Crime Life 3, a GTA clone. I think you know what it’s made in.

I wish we could play as the police, because shooting the cops seems very unpatriotic.

I’m sure Nate will like the real Grand Theft Auto.

Sakisa [the game's creator] is even working on a railroad system, hopefully we can get killed by the train, lol.

lol

The game is pretty funny. Killing innocent civilians is hilarious…

So it’s OK to kill innocent civilians, but not cops? You have a twisted mind, Nate.

But now:

It’s the PGM 2009 AWARDS.

…Whatever.

At this point, I have to tell you about this awesome platform game. George W. Bush: Quest for Oil and Glory.

Thats [sic] not Change! Thats [sic] more The Same!

Welcome to one of our new sections. This section was inspired by Joe Biden’s speech during the 2008 Presidential election. This section is essentially to show GM Games that resemble tutorial edits, other GM Games, and low amount of features. We know this may sound rude, but the truth must be told. This is a mini-review for games that do not show change.

I think you’ve already guessed - the game I mentioned above is the poor target in this section. Basically, here’s what they think is wrong with it:

Resembles a Super Mario example
You know, it’s a platformer game. That’s the point.
Shows the corrupt media.
…

And then there’s “stolen music from Green Day” and “music does not loop”. Yeah, those are real problems with it.

By now, I’m wondering when this section is going to feature some ProdigyGM games. I think they’d be great examples for the section, no?

OFFENSIVE CODING (WITH NOOBWARE)

Here is another section, kinda like flamewar, but its codes that are meant to offend people, yeah, we don’t care. Check out the two codings:

I’m not sure if we care either.

1.
if (Adam+Eve) {
human+=1;
}
if (Alice+Eve)
{
hot=true;
}
if (Adam+Steve)
{
human+=0;
game_end();
score-=score;
health-=health/4;
exit;
}
2.
if rod_blago=il_governor
{
corruption=true
}
3.
if snowing=true
{
ditch_school=true;
grades-=letter;
}

I actually had to indent these snippets of “code” myself. Why did I even bother?

This issue will be seen as the most offensive issue, but we don’t care. lol . Also, Merry Christmas. We will be on a long vacation, so you will have to wait a while for the next issue.

We don’t care either, lol

Don’t worry, we’ll be waiting patiently.

GameMaker Blog: Mid-week community links

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:15:41 -0600

Check out: James Rhodes has launched the third version of GM-Resources, with an easy to use AJAX front-end. GM-Resources makes it easy to search for sprites and scripts on the Official Game Maker Community.

Play: Block Maneouvres 2.2 [ gmc | yyg ] is a fun block-pushing game with 50 pre-built levels, plus a level editor so you can create your own and challenge friends or family members!

Get Involved: FredFredrickson’s cut scene creation contest runs until December 21st.

YoYo Games Glog: Emergent Game Design

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:47:06 -0600

Last Friday I attended a workshop on emergent game design by Joris Dormans from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Emergent game play appears when a relatively simple set of rules leads to complex game play involving strategies on different levels. For example Tic-Tac-Toe does not lead to emergent game play. But four on a row (which just adds one more stone and an element of gravity) suddenly does lead to emergent game play. Emergent game play is difficult to design. You need to add the correct amount of complexity. To little and there is no emergence. Too much and the game becomes too difficult. The goal of the workshop was to demonstrate that by keeping an eye on the right structural qualities and patterns in game systems, it is possible to consciously steer in this direction.

The methodology of Joris Dormans uses an extension of UML to describe the global game mechanics. In this approach there are objects, states, and pools of resources. There are different game elements, like drain (which removes resources), source (which creates resources), trader (which changes ownership of resources) and converter (which turns one type of resource into another type). There are different interactions and there are feedbacks which can be neutral, positive, negative, and uncertain. And of course there is the element of chance.

people working on the games

During the workshop we had to experiment in creating a game with a particular set of game elements. Our team got a drain, a converter, and a trader element. Also we got a positive and a negative feedback loop to use. The theme of the game had to be “Escape”. So we devised a board game in which each player started with a number of chips of his own color. (Note that we got no source so we had to start with resources.) The player had to get rid of all his chips by either leading them to an exit (the drain), by letting them switch places with chips of other players (the trader) or by turning them into chips of another color (the converter). Positive and negative feedback occured because switching places could bring you further or closer to the exit and turning chips into another color reduced your own number of chips (positive) but gave the opponent more possible moves (negative).

We had great fun designing the game. The approach helped us understand some formal game design techniques, even though it turned out to be hard to put our resulting game in the formal framework. I can recommend that you also try to play with such elements. More information about the workshop and the methodology used can be found on the following page:
http://www.jorisdormans.nl/article.php?ref=workshopdigra

GameMaker Blog: YoYo Helpdesk to Change (Finally!)

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:44:44 -0600

As stated in a recent interview with GameMaker Tech magazine YoYo Games will be upgrading their online help desk which provides support to GameMaker users.

1. We promise to respond to every help desk request within 24 hours on weekdays. Weekend requests will normally be dealt with on Mondays.

2. The existing queues have been archived. THIS MEANS THAT ALL OUTSTANDING REQUESTS WILL POSSIBLY REMAIN UNANSWERED UNLESS YOU REMIND US. TO DO THIS, PLEASE RESUBMIT AS A NEW TICKET, it’s OK if you just reference the old ticket number and we should be able to retrieve it from the archive.
- Sandy Duncan, YYG Blog

In other news I have still not received a response to an e-mail I sent Softwrap on November 22nd regarding the DRM in GameMaker 7.

YoYo Games Glog: Help Desk URGENT update

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:36:53 -0600

We’ve been working on improving the Help Desk… it’s obviously long overdue. We’ve also made some staffing changes, but the existing help desk was in a shocking mess, SO here is the GOOD and BAD news

1. We promise to respond to every help desk request within 24 hours on weekdays. Weekend requests will normally be dealt with on Mondays.

2. The existing queues have been archived. THIS MEANS THAT ALL OUTSTANDING REQUESTS WILL POSSIBLY REMAIN UNANSWERED UNLESS YOU REMIND US. TO DO THIS, PLEASE RESUBMIT AS A NEW TICKET, it’s OK if you just reference the old ticket number and we should be able to retrieve it from the archive.

3. PLEASE DO NOT SEND EMAIL EVEN IF YOU HAVE HAD MAIL FROM US IN THE PAST. PLEASE RAISE A NEW TICKET ON THE HELPDESK.

GameMaker Blog: A Long Overdue Update

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 09:34:22 -0600

After almost five months since the last update from the team at GMTV, we have finally got some news on the latest episode of GMTV.

Just wanted to keep you guys updated, and we haven’t posted any news in a very long time! First of all, you all are probably anxious for episode 5. I can’t tell you an exact date of the release, but I can assure you we are done most of it and all we need to do is overcome a small difficulty and we will be back on track. Keep checking back for updates!

Source: Game Maker TV Website