Gamemaker Studio

Working on my new game in Gamemaker Studio 2

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Like with my Pixel Kitchen, I decided to work on this new project with Gamemaker Studio, but I am using the updated version, Gamemaker Studio 2. So far I have found working in Studio 2 a very pleasant experience and thankfully most of what I had learned in 1.4 directly translates over to 2.

The first thing that immediately jumped out at me is that the User Interface is so much better when compared to the previous version. Instead of having a horrible mess of windows and popups layered on top of one another, items are organized into a single work-space. You can specify if your project is going to be a Drag and Drop project or a GML (aka coding) project, this lets you bypass the step of having to drag a code action into a game object.

I am still doing pixel art in Aseprite instead of the built-in graphics editor; but, the new graphics editor is still a very useful pixel art and animation editor. I have found myself making quick modifications to sprites directly inside of Gamemaker Studio 2 because it is faster that having to open up Aseprite, export a sprite sheet and re-import into Gamemaker.

Speaking of pixel art, I have been trying to work around my limitations as an artist. I have been designing characters and enemies out of really simple and basic shapes, but complex enough to still give them some character. Most of my enemies are built out of a series of circles, but sometimes I walk on the wild side and throw a triangle into the mix.

Environments have been a little bit more of a challenge for me. What I ended up doing to be able to make the different levels was designing an incredibly simple pattern and repeating it for the whole level. It looks simplistic and basic, but this game is designed to be a clone of a NES game that I liked as a child, so on some level I think that it fits the aesthetic perfectly.

Development of this game is progressing smoothly and I hope to have more to discuss about it sometime soon.

Until Next Time
– Steven

Gamemaker Studio

My Next Solo Game

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I am at the part of my game development “career” where I still consider myself to be learning. My inexperience leads me to try projects that are not too ambitious, which, ideally, will allow me to complete them. To make these projects easier I have been trying to recreate video games that I was fond of in my youth.

Now that I have successfully completed Pixel Kitchen, my very first independently developed video game, I am moving onto something that is inspired by another game, but is larger in scope than the previous one.

I had spent many happy hours playing Snow Brothers with my younger brother when we were children. I have decided that I will try to build a game that is mechanically similar to Snow Brothers, which itself was heavily inspired by another title, Bubble Bobble. In Snow Brothers, the player controls one of the two titular snow brothers, they spawn into a room that is full of monsters and the objective is to clear the room to progress to the next.

Enemies are defeated by shooting show at them to turn them into snow balls and rolling them down the platforms. Items and power ups can be earned by hitting enemies with a rolling snowball. The game features 100 stages, if my memory is correct, and every 10 stages there is a boss battle. The bosses are defeated by rolling enemies into the boss.

Because I am working on this title independently I am going to be scaling back the features. I am going to be limiting the amount of stages to 10 instead of 100, and I am going to be eliminating the power up mechanic completely. This means I will need to complete

  • Player having multiple lives
  • Different states for the player and enemies and the behavior changing based on what state they are in
  • A Boss Fight
  • Intro Cut Scene

All of these features are ones that I have never attempted before in a solo project. My previous game was a single screen / room, with a single state for the player. I am also going to be doing all of the artwork myself and to challenge myself I am going to increase the colour palette from the Gameboy monochromatic palette to something a little bit more robust, like the NES colour palette. These changes will help me improve my skills as an artist as well as a game designer / developer. After all, these projects / exercises are meant to help me learn and improve so that I can bring these skills back to my group over at Elektri.

Until Next Time
– Steven