Beginning Games Programming
How to Use the Free GameMaker Software and Share Games with Others
Games programming is fun for all ages. GameMaker has a user-friendly, intuitive interface and is free to download. Make your first game and share with others on the web.
Learning games programming is fun for everyone. GameMaker version 7 has a very user-friendly visual, intuitive interface and can be downloaded for free from Yoyo Games. Users don't have to write a single line of code and may create their own first game within the hour, then become hooked to learn more.
After downloading and installing the software, one may run the program but a dialog appears giving various choices. To get through this screen, select “Don't Upgrade Now” to open the program. Under the File Open menu, users can find a list of games that come bundled with the software. There is also a number of free online tutorials (in pdf format) to get started, and a large range of resources that includes sprites (icons), sounds and backgrounds. Tutorial game samples are free but the more advanced games may require running them on the upgrade version of the software.
Programmable Interface
Figure 1 shows the loaded Space Cleaner game (included in the download) into the programmable environment. The left hand menu contains all the available elements, which create the parts of this game.
Only objects can have programmable instructions. The right hand window of Figure 2 shows the instructions attached to the rocket object. One can see that these are high level language instructions -visual and intuitive icons. Parameters are set by double clicking icons, for example, setting the friction of the rocket. Various rooms that can be set for different scenes are shown in the list menu of Figure 3 and one room is open in the right window. There is also a facility to document instructions for the game, which is accessible from the Help menu from the first screen. Clicking the green, right-hand arrow at the top compiles and runs the game for a first screen as presented in Figure 4.
My First Game
Many well designed and resourced and documented online tutorials are provided for the beginning games programmer. There is a tutorial on the design of games in general. It’s quite easy to get started with the first games tutorial: Catch the Clown, a very readable first tutorial to get the user to setup, program, test and play a simple game within the hour. This is followed by a maze game, a scrolling shooter game, platform games, 3-D games, and multi-player games, etc. All for free!
Sharing Games on the Internet
To discuss topics and share resources with the games community, the user needs to register for free on the forums page.
Where to Next?
GameMaker is a free, simple, entry level to games programming. The novice programmer will discover that GameMaker has a certain level of sophistication, provided one is willing to keep learning. There are other games products the user might be interested to pursue. For example: Scratch from MIT and Kahootz. Microsoft XNA and Microsoft VB.Net are more advanced games platforms.
The copyright of the article Beginning Games Programming in Computer Programming is owned by Harry P. Schlanger. Permission to republish Beginning Games Programming must be granted by the author in writing.
 |
 |
 |
 |
