AuthorTopic: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability  (Read 7969 times)

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile
I'm curious if any members here have experience with different game creation packages such as game maker or construct 2, etc.

I have programming experience and have made my own engine using ruby and some gfx/sound libraries. I have around a dozen fully functional tech demos in different genres. But that was when I was a teenager with a lot of free time.

I would rather spend my time on art and game design rather than programming these days. I am also attracted to the concept of HTML5 and porting for console and mobile. With ruby I was limited to Windows, Mac, and Linux.

I have a couple of them installed, namely GameMaker and Godot (a new opensource Unity alternative), but I'm apprehensive to pour time into learning one of their custom languages and more importantly, their interface. In the past my hobby time was spent 95% on coding and 5% on art, I want that to flip.

I'm deciding between Construct 2 (native Spriter scml format support!!!) or GameMaker (powerful because of gml and 3d support). If anyone has used these or dipped their toes into these waters I'd love if you could share your insights.

Offline Probo

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 317
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #1 on: February 16, 2014, 08:28:43 pm
Im not a programmer, but ive been learning code using GameMaker: Studio and its very user-friendly. I think the language is similar to C and its derivatives, if you have experience with those i imagine youll be right at home. My friend who used C+ at uni saw some of my code and recognised pretty much all the syntax.

Its got a thriving community on the game maker forums where help is really easy to get in my experience, and theres tonnes of tutorials and stuff around whether its forums or youtube etc

Unfortunately i cant compare to other software for you, as ive only really used GM:S

Offline Carnivac

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 269
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Mayhem Attack Squad
    • View Profile
    • Doctor Who - Retro Sprite Gallery

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #2 on: February 16, 2014, 08:32:05 pm
I'm a total idiot when it comes to coding and stuff yet I've learnt enough using Game Maker (been using it for years and am currently using Game Maker:Studio) to get my projects going and anything I struggle with I simply ask at the actually very helpful forum.   I haven't really thought about the export module options to Android, iOS and all that yet but if I ever feel like making some silly game that doesn't suck to play with touchscreen phones then I'd probably purchase one and hopefully have it pay for itself in sales.
NES, Amiga & Amstrad CPC inspired
I know nothing about pixel art
http://carnivac.tumblr.com/

Offline Indigo

  • Administrator
  • 0011
  • *
  • Posts: 946
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Artist, Indie Game Dev
    • DanFessler
    • DanFessler
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/849.htm
    • DanFessler
    • DanFessler
    • View Profile
    • Portfolio

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #3 on: February 16, 2014, 08:51:35 pm
if you want a super quick game *programming* tool, then use unity.  If you want a super quick game *scripting* tool, then use gamemaker.  At least that's my opinion.  And what do i mean by programming tool vs game scripting tool?  Unity allows you to define your confines as it exposes it's guts to you in the form of a raw compiled programming language (several actually) - whereas making a game in gamemaker you are confined to the boundaries it gives you.  Scripting is not as flexible as programming, but often faster to prototype.  So it just depends on the complexity of the project you're setting out to do.

Offline Carnivac

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 269
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Mayhem Attack Squad
    • View Profile
    • Doctor Who - Retro Sprite Gallery

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #4 on: February 16, 2014, 09:13:46 pm
whereas making a game in gamemaker you are confined to the boundaries it gives you.

You might have to explain what you mean about boundaries :P
I mean cos Game Maker is capable of a lot these days.  Is reasons why many GM games have started appearing on PSN and XBLA and such.   :lol:
NES, Amiga & Amstrad CPC inspired
I know nothing about pixel art
http://carnivac.tumblr.com/

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #5 on: February 16, 2014, 09:17:31 pm
Thank you for all the replies!

Game maker is closest to what I was using before, I had written my own map editor and had a sort of event system going. GML is not confusing at all. I nabbed it when they were offering it for free a few months ago.

I looked around in Construct 2 and I can't see using it for anything other than quick mobile games. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait for good scml implementation in other engines.

I'm downloading Unity at the moment. I remember reading someone on TIGS say they've used GM for the past 8 years and would recommend Unity to new game devs.
--------------------

I have an angel investor interested in funding my startup studio at the end of the summer and my potential programmer is graduating with Unity experience. Perhaps it would be best to learn that, then, even if game maker is the better personal choice. However because of these circumstances I am still working as a freelancer in most of my time, and if I want to concentrate on actual game development Game Maker seems to be the better option.

So thank you Indigo, I'll spend some time with GM and Unity tonight and see how easy it is to get a little guy moving around and interacting with objects. Likely I will go with GM for my actual development and experiment in Unity to make sure I know my way around it, but we'll see.

I have played around in Godot, which is apparently extremely similar to Unity, and I really liked it. It's still in beta so I'm not using it for anything real. Anyone into open source and 2d/3d game dev should check it out: http://www.godotengine.org/

Offline Probo

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 317
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #6 on: February 16, 2014, 09:35:52 pm
yeah if youve got cool prospects involving unity on the horizon, it seems like common sense to get a head start on getting comfortable with that software. and yeah you can use GM for quick prototyping. I remember seeing a post on TIGS by derek yu of Spelunky fame, espousing the merits of using GM for just that.

have you thought about entering some game jams like ludum dare in the meantime?
« Last Edit: February 16, 2014, 09:37:49 pm by Probo »

Offline yaomon17

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 660
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • YaomonKS
    • taiya.sun
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28472.htm
    • yaomon17
    • valedev
    • playvale
    • View Profile
    • portfolio

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #7 on: February 16, 2014, 10:14:52 pm
C2 is super simplified. A bit restrictive but is capable of the basic stuff. It is still pouring out patches so maybe you can wait a bit to see. Idk about GM, never used.

Offline Indigo

  • Administrator
  • 0011
  • *
  • Posts: 946
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Artist, Indie Game Dev
    • DanFessler
    • DanFessler
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/849.htm
    • DanFessler
    • DanFessler
    • View Profile
    • Portfolio

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #8 on: February 16, 2014, 11:17:50 pm
whereas making a game in gamemaker you are confined to the boundaries it gives you.

You might have to explain what you mean about boundaries :P
I mean cos Game Maker is capable of a lot these days.  Is reasons why many GM games have started appearing on PSN and XBLA and such.   :lol:

I'm not suggesting Game Maker isn't capable in the slightest.  More and more it's becoming a commercially viable tool.  I simply mean you have to code within the box - and this is true for even Unity (since it's basically a game engine in itself) - the box is just bigger.  As far as I know, game maker doesn't give you access to lower level stuff.  You can't really control how things are rendered to the screen under the hood (draw batching, shader tech), or do proper memory management (how efficient objects are made and utilized throughout your code), or create your own object types or "classes", etc etc.  You have to very much play by their rules and their roles only in a very rigid system.  You're trusting them that they're doing it right.  One other thing to note is I haven't been very impressed with game maker's cross-platform stability.

Unity handles a lot of this stuff for you too, but it's still exposed for you to do it a different way if you like.  In that sense, Unity is a much more flexible engine - not to mention you have the option of going 2D or 3D

Offline Probo

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 317
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #9 on: February 16, 2014, 11:46:28 pm
One other thing to note is I haven't been very impressed with game maker's cross-platform stability.

do some of the available platform port options result in buggy software? id like to hear more about the trials and tribulations of exporting to android/ios etc with GM if you have time, as thats something id interested in doing down the line.

Offline RAV

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 293
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blackbox Voxel Tool

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #10 on: February 17, 2014, 12:29:46 am
The potential for smart creativity within those confines is still staggering, even for Construct, such that it takes greatest talent to fully explore. This is in spirit of pixel art, to make do with what you got; limitation as spark. I don't see how you can stick to 95% design and 5% code, with the expectation to do "anything other than quick mobile games"; to do even that really well you have so much to learn still about game design -- doing exactly that.

It's "compiler versus interpreter" / "binary versus script", but for a computer scientist / professional engineer there is only programming on either. The brunt of the work is about the math and algorithm independent from any one language of implementation; the difference utility.  A script language is not just a weaker programming language, it has programmatical strengths of its own. For this reason, a script might as well outgun the usual binary in power and competence; it really depends who's doing it for what.

Likewise, a game in Construct can easily outgun a game in Unity in terms of art, design and writing -- this is your brunt of work, and it is overwhelming all on its own. Or in other words, if you can't make a good game in Construct, what makes you think you'll make one in Unity. A designer learns and works mostly outside any box. If you look at Construct and are not daunted by your imagination and workload, you're not good enough yet at this job, you might as well start learning there.

However, if you're not interested into studying professional design, as a general appliance, but amateur development of a specific vision of game, you must choose what fits closest.


« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 12:44:21 am by RAV »

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #11 on: February 17, 2014, 01:14:48 am
@RAV: The 95% 5% split was hyperbole, but anyone that has tried to create their own game engine will tell you that it feels like that because the engine becomes an obsession. Spending time on the engine vs spending time on the game, the time on the engine always takes longer. Actual game development within an engine and all the coding that comes with it isn't the problem, it's the constant battle to get my codebase working and updated and interwoven and optimized. With something like GM or Unity you pay to have that time vacuum removed.

Construct creates game logic from events and is not expandable via code. Since I am already familiar with programming, I don't see that as anything but limiting myself in the event I need a complex system within the game. I also have a lot of code systems written in Ruby that I can easily port to one of the other proprietary languages.

I don't doubt people can create amazing things with Construct's event system, but for me it's less intuitive than writing a few code blocks.

I will admit I never took to languages other than Ruby and Python, it didn't make sense to go lower level than what I needed to accomplish, and Ruby itself was extremely fast for prototyping, but it doesn't have portability.

I know I wouldn't try for anything less than a good game in any engine. But time is the resource, and I don't want to fight systems. The more open the software is, the less you have to fight it, kind of like that Large box Small box analogy Indigo made earlier.

The way I see it, everything is independent of the software or code used to create it. The only thing that really changes is platform availability and the time it took to create it. The less time I spend fighting a system the more time I can spend on the actual game assets.

@Probo: I have participated in Ludum Dare in the past, it was a lot of fun and I'll definitely participate in the future.

Offline RAV

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 293
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blackbox Voxel Tool

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #12 on: February 17, 2014, 01:29:00 am
But the limitation is to your programming, not game design. Which is what you said you wanted to get at more. Now read your own reply, you still obsess about the topic of programming, not one word relates to design. Honestly, for the most part I don't think most people have a good idea what game design is about; most see it just as an extension of their work on art or code, though it is something very different; much has been written here about games or design, nowhere I have read someone talk actual game design.

But anyway, you seem to have your own idea about what you want to do, no point in arguing about that.

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #13 on: February 17, 2014, 01:39:09 am
I'm sorry if I seemed obstinate, I don't intend to come off that way. I'm mainly confused as to how one software will improve game design. As far as I know the tools only influence the speed of implementation, and construct's event system is a roundabout way of doing stuff that I'm more comfortable doing with code. You can design game concepts in your head or on paper, it really is independent of implementation, right?

Edit: If you have experience in Construct and would like to make a case for it, I am still open to using it. I am very skeptical however. I used to do RPGMaker stuff a decade ago and a lot of that was fighting the system to get what you want.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 01:42:49 am by Atnas »

Offline RAV

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 293
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blackbox Voxel Tool

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #14 on: February 17, 2014, 02:00:26 am
Yeah, that's my point. It's not about how it will improve game design as such, it's about what gets you to concentrate on your papers and playtest; you have so much else more important to figure out about game design before an advanced event system and further coding has any bearing; can you truly tell me that you understand playable level design enough, mapping out parkour flow, item distribution, enemy patterns, damage/health/armor statistics, etc pp, from start to finish? Only few I'd believe. The prove is in the pudding, not a demo. This is the real deal,  the bread and butter, not to be treated an afterthought, as it ends up so often, sadly. The right course of action depends on why you're really doing this, what you want to learn and exercise, what gets you quickest to the real matters, and what the real matters really are first. I'm not telling you about Construct as such, but the line of thought that guides your choice, what skills you need to work on before getting carried away in ambition that ends up just another demo not game, or another bad game with a rad event system. Getting real games done so you know games really, learning the most important lessons from many simple games, getting confident in the meat of games, no matter your choice, not having the wrong fixation factor in.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 02:15:43 am by RAV »

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #15 on: February 17, 2014, 02:24:19 am
Thanks RAV. That makes it clearer. I'll include Construct in my test list, without dismissing it. Maybe it will be the easiest to implement new ideas in, I shouldn't knock it til I try it.

Offline RAV

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 293
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Blackbox Voxel Tool

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #16 on: February 17, 2014, 03:29:33 am
Personally I don't care about any of those engines. I just took the opportunity to rant a bit about game making.

I think it depends on what you mean by testing new ideas. I guess what I meant to say was that people are not having/testing new ideas in the basics of actual game design enough. Like, "Hey today I test out three of those kind of enemy archetypes sitting in that kind of room layout; ah and maybe I should try a different formula for armor". You know, a good game designer needs years of intensive experience with that kind of basic problems to get really good at setting up scenarios and campaigns tying it all together, and goes really structured and straightforward about it.

So I see it as an educational tool; most people are so bad at the basics, I just don't know what they are trying to achieve going beyond without mastering that first.
And on the other hand you can sit a lifelong on these basics and make fantastic games, never really mastering it yet.

If you think you got nothing to learn in that anymore, and your new ideas mean trying to do something fundamentally "different / complicated / advanced", and you need headroom for going freelance indie, you probably don't need to bother with Construct. There's exceptions of dudes making good on that, but I know what you mean with not feeling comfortable coding wise. It's why I write custom engines/libraries/frameworks; but I'm not interested in being something else than a coder.

I like stumbling on Carnivac's update tidbits from time to time when he's turning GM inside out creatively, good stuff.

« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 03:42:47 am by RAV »

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #17 on: February 17, 2014, 03:51:43 am
Bit of an update.

Unity is far too vast for me to learn in my free time and expect to get things done quickly. It's an amazing program but it's something I'll tackle at another time. It's a bit too powerful to take in all at once and I'm not as comfortable with any of the languages used to script with than I am with gml. I'm only targetting 2d at the moment anyhow.

I made simple things in construct and game maker, I'm a bit torn. If it weren't for GM's slow compile times I would go with it in a heartbeat. I am spoiled by scripting languages like ruby which launched instantly. So that's one area that Construct seems to be better for my purposes... I will take my tests a bit further and see if Construct is lacking in any key areas. Until Spriter 1.0 there wont be an official GM plugin for that, and development is so slow I don't know when that's coming. Another win for Construct.

@RAV: Oh, I don't profess to have mastered anything. I've finished a few games as an early teenager but they were awful. I did something for ludum dare and it wasnt fun. I was so obsessed with the coding and getting it To Work that I ignored making it Fun To Play. They were personal triumphs but public failures, I suppose. The reason I'm doing this is because I feel incompetent in execution and yet I have funding coming. So yeah, I agree with what you're saying, and I doubt I'll become any sort of master but I know I will improve from trial and error.

I just want to clear up that when I said freelance, I meant that I am a freelance animator. I've never done freelance development. These will be personal games I make in my free time off from freelancing in preparation for directing a small team to make games that turn a profit from an investment(maybe thats not even very indie). I think you might have gotten the wrong impression judging from when you said "and you need headroom for going freelance indie".

Anyway thank you for the helpful advice, you have me giving Construct a second chance. Likely I will use Construct for a few short projects and move up to GM as I increase the scope of my projects.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 03:53:18 am by Atnas »

Offline yaomon17

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 660
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • YaomonKS
    • taiya.sun
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28472.htm
    • yaomon17
    • valedev
    • playvale
    • View Profile
    • portfolio

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #18 on: February 17, 2014, 04:02:46 am
Small addition - Spriter on C2 is still a bit buggy. I would take that into consideration though the devs at the C2 forums are immensely helpful if you run into any problems.

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #19 on: February 17, 2014, 05:27:43 am
@yaomon: Aw :/ Well at least it's supported officially unlike GM

I learned you can use Javascript in C2 so it's not a complete black box. I am happy about this, very very happy. Going to continue using C2 for the forseeable future because of the fast debugging and spriter integration. Thank you RAV for making me look back to it and get rid of my preconceptions. I'll keep poking my head back into Unity every now and then to stay familiar. I haven't found any problems with C2 yet, and if I do I will just script around them. Wii U supports HTML5 now and that's kind of the only console I'm interested in ever maybe porting to.

Offline PixelPiledriver

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 997
  • Karma: +6/-0
  • Yo!
    • View Profile
    • My Blog

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #20 on: February 17, 2014, 01:55:51 pm
Unity is really cool.
I use C# for coding and basically HLSL for shaders in it.
No time to further comment.
Maybe later.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline ErekT

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 330
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • fistful of pixels
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #21 on: February 18, 2014, 06:21:23 pm
Construct 2 is very good for quick prototyping. There's really a lot in place to take care of the tedium behind game programming for you. Save system? Just use save state and slap a no-save behaviour on objects that don't need saving to keep filesize down. Asset importing? Super-simple too.

Quote
I looked around in Construct 2 and I can't see using it for anything other than quick mobile games. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait for good scml implementation in other engines.

I'd say speed-wise it's a lot more feasible for desktop games than mobile stuff. The one big short-coming I've come across which seems to be a problem with html5 in general is you can't control screen resolution with it. The resolution is always whatever your desktop or device resolution is set to. Everything gets scaled to fit with that resolution which isn't always ideal. Another is the event system. You can do most things with it that you could do with regular script, but it's very pointy clicky. Also, not as modular as I like it.

Offline Atnas

  • Moderator
  • 0100
  • *
  • Posts: 1074
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • very daijōbs
    • paintbread
    • paintbread
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #22 on: February 18, 2014, 10:13:48 pm
ErekT: I actually decided to go with Construct 2. After learning the hotkeys and memorizing the placement of things it's actually kind of faster than typing things all the way out for mundane stuff. Less syntax errors, anyhow. I'd prefer the ability to execute custom blocks of javascript in the event editor itself, but I'll settle for the plugin system.

The javascript plugin extensibility is really good. For the screen resolution problem: Couldn't you put it in a wrapper .exe for desktop use that has a different resolution set? That's not a huge concern of mine because most of my work is scalable anyway.

Offline yaomon17

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 660
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • YaomonKS
    • taiya.sun
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/28472.htm
    • yaomon17
    • valedev
    • playvale
    • View Profile
    • portfolio

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #23 on: February 19, 2014, 12:32:51 am
Another note, looks like they are working on official multiplayer support in C2
http://puu.sh/71ywI.png

Offline Lanarky

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 38
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #24 on: February 24, 2014, 05:10:21 am
At the moment, Game Maker Standard is free. Luckily I snatched a copy this time. I've bought it twice before and I lost them both to softwrap. :ouch: But now that softwrap was killed, I can use my code on any number of computers I want, instead of losing (now $100) when my old computer died.

As of now, I'm trying to make some html5 with Phaser. It's simple to figure out, but it takes a little time to move from Game Maker 8, and newb level Python.