I think that the option is included to make it seem like an even more authentic NES game, although it's off by default to make the game more playable. It's a neat little addition though.

How do high level languages work?  All the opcodes in assembly are like "MOVE A,B" which moves A into B, and "ADD A,B" which adds A into B.  All the assembly opcodes speak for themselves.  For high level opcodes you have instructions like "int" and "def" and "segren" and "felneb," what the heck do those supposed to do?

Wow. The only programming languages you've ever used are assembly languages? Interesting.
Higher-Level languages are basically all about simplifying things that would become ridiculously complex in assembly, mostly though the use of variables. A higher-level language has many more commands but requires far fewer lines of code to write something substantial.

Gamemaker is not free, it's nor platform independent, and also, it's programming language is not something you will be able to use later for, say, a job interview.

True. The main reason that I recommended it is because it is a simple way to create a game very quickly. Most people have the patience to build something in GameMaker, whereas most people don't have the patience to program something substantial from scratch. Even if you can't use it for a job interview or something like that, it's a good way of working yourself up to other game-creating methods. Also, the demo is free, and if he wants to produce a 2D game, then the demo isn't really missing too much.

I really like this. The explosion and mine activation animation are both really nice.
My only criticism would probably be that I find the backgrounds distractingly noisy, at least in these screens.

Wow. I just realized how rarely I actually draw things from life. It's like I go months without actually drawing anything that exists in reality... Gotta change that.

Okay. So I tried doing a few quick pencil sketches of my left hand a little while ago, maybe about 5-15 minutes for each.

(apologies for terrible quality- my scanner wasn't working so I had to use my webcam)


I can tell just by looking at it that my palm is too small in the last one. Did I mess anything else up? I don't really know any of the anatomy rules for hands.

well i found some of my grandfathers ink pens, so i thought i'd try them out on a new anatomy sketch.

I'm not sure if anyone's pointed it out yet, but one thing that keeps catching my attention is that the feet on your people seem to consistently be a little on the small side. I think that the length of a foot is supposed to be roughly half of the distance from an ankle to the bottom of the knee, or something like that. Yours look to be closer to a third of the distance in most cases.