Sunday 13 March 2011

Game Maker -- some simple, yet powerful examples

It's unthinkable that a person who grew up with games did not at one point contemplate designing one of his or her own. A decade or so ago, however, developing games required a grasp of various elements of game design in order to even think of starting one's own project. Nowadays, there are a multitude of ways in which games can be made with very little programming knowledge, with tools similar to those that can aid in the development of Android apps. One such example is Game Maker, a software that allows users to create games, both simple and complex, without even touching a line of code. Let's look at some examples of what you could end up making with this program.

Crash Bandicoot 2D
Jump&Run at its finest. I think.
This gem of a game was originally released on the first Playstation, and gave platform-game lovers many hours of quirky entertainment. Using Game Maker, a guy named Virtanen recreated the Crash Bandicoot experience in "glorious" 2D, but the elements of the original games are all there. In one way or another. But platformers aren't the only type of games you can make.



Park Racer 3D
3D? You heard that right. Besides fancy graphics it has everything you expect of a basic racer, including a practice mode, time attack, single races as well as something called bomb run, in which you can drop bombs on your opponents during a race. You read that right.



Mini Golf Pro
Our last example is a mini golf simulator, although you shouldn't take the term too seriously here. Mini Golf Pro comes with 27 courses for you to test your skills against, but the game even goes so far as to provide you with its own map editor. Another example of how the complexity of your game is often limited not by the technology that you work with, but with imagination.

Game Maker provides you with the tools you need to make games like these. But if RPGs are more down your alley, why not try RPG Maker, as demonstrated by this ridiculous video, instead?

Have you ever developed a game? What have you learned from the experience? What made you quit, and what made you stay?

24 comments:

TheHarvester said...

awww i never understood the obsession with these simpletons arcade games. i like great graphics and witty dialougues, never was much of a snes or gameboy guy :C

Fix PC Games Admin said...

very cool tip nice games

Jay said...

it's great that Android made it easy for non-programmers to try their hand at fun programming.

Alphabeta said...

I agree with TheHarvester. Fun for a few minutes but not very engaging in the long term.

D4 said...

I did try, I used a free program thats out there to make word-based games like zork. I stuck it through and made a very... interesting game? It took me 2 days and I haven't had anyone be able to pass it in less than 5 hours.

It was really fun to me, I enjoyed working outside of the program, making maps and story lines merge together.

Chris said...

Wow, this is nice!

Random Fan said...

that's so cool!

Electric Addict said...

making custom maps in starcraft was a blast as a young kid. Android/Ipods are a way to make a lot of money too!

An overwhelming dose of awesome can be found in my 4th electro set! Check it
Electric Addict Set #4

Anonymous said...

RPG is my favorite type of games so I'll try out RPGmaker! But it looks difficult to use lol

Ante Babaja said...

i love those arcade games :D

Robert Fünf said...

TheHarvester: These games can be fun as small time wasters. Sure graphics and story are going to come out on top in the long run, but sometimes you just want to jump in a small, mindless flash game and kill an hour or two.

Kyle Shankin said...

Very cool software. Does it allow you to publish these apps to the market?

ed said...

i did not grow up with these games

Unknown said...

Love these types of arcade games, simple but fun and addicting.

The Angry Lurker said...

Very nice, like that.

Raini said...

nice thx for post

Jessica Thompson said...

Wow I wish I knew how to program games...

Someone said...

are the in java?

Freek said...

@Robert Fünf: That reminds of me of a very true saying: You can have a top-of-the-line computer but in those times of boredom you'll be playing those crappy flash games anyway :)

Kicking Rocks said...

those games that you can make look like fun,. but i think ill leave the game making to the professionals to make something worth playing.

Shutterbug said...

I don't have the skills or an interest in developing games.

Unknown said...

its good to start experimenting but when it gets to real good games you better learn a real language

fabio_2007 said...

great, thanks for sharing

Con Queso said...

Most I made was a simple SIMPLE RPG maze game in Java. -_-

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