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You're reading fromGameMaker Programming By Example
Product typeBook
Published inDec 2015
Publisher
ISBN-139781785887963
Pages212 pages
Edition1st Edition
Languages
Concepts
2D Game Development
Authors (2):
Brian Christian
Brian Christian is a high school student with years of experience in programming, much of it focused on game development using GameMaker: Studio via self-teaching the GameMaker Language. He has also worked in C++ and JavaScript programming along with some web development. Additionally, he is knowledgeable in topics such as data formats and interpretation, compilers and interpreters, and networking. Other languages he has used include Intel x86 assembly, Lua, Ruby, and Python. Brian's spark for computer programming began with an online Ruby course from Codecademy. Since then, he has been fascinated with how computers and the different programming languages worked. Since he wanted to know about this, he taught himself C from the second edition of The C Programming Language book, followed by the more advanced C++ language. Wanting to try his hand at making advanced games with a language predominantly intended for it, Brian became invested in the GameMaker Language since he'd already been using the drag and drop functionality, but found it limiting. He spent a lot of time learning how different parts of the language worked and how to use them.
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Steven Isaacs
Steven Isaacs
Steven Isaacs has been fascinated with technology since the days of his Apple II Plus computer and 300 baud modem. Tinkering, playing MUDs, MOOs, and visiting BBSs occupied much of his free time. In high school, Steven took a programming course in BASIC and created an adventure game as his final project. Many hours were spent in and outside of school working on this game, and it became somewhat of an obsession. It has become abundantly clear that these activities were incredibly influential in the evolution of his professional life. Steven has been teaching since 1992. In addition to teaching, Steven and his wife Cathy Cheo-Isaacs owned Liberty Corner Computing (LCC), a computer training and gaming center with Paul and Sarah Tarantiles. LCC provided innovative summer camps and after school programs offering young people an opportunity to use technology in creative ways. Courses included programming, website design, graphic design and animation, and game development. Soon after opening LCC, Steven was hired to bring his innovative ideas to William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, NJ. At William Annin, Steven taught a number of computer-related courses. His passion for teaching students to create their own games led to an after school club in game design, then a unit in the Gifted and Talented Program. The success of these programs led Steven to develop a full semester 8th grade class in game design and development, and later, a six-week exploratory course in game design and digital storytelling, which is taken by all seventh graders. In addition, Steven developed and also teaches an online course in game development with GameMaker for The Virtual High School (http://thevhscollaborative.org/). In his teaching, Steven strives to create an environment that empowers student learning through choice in their learning path. He prefers to think of himself as a co-learner and guide for his students. Steven's passion for learning is obvious to his students as he is constantly looking at creative ways to solve problems, dabbling with new game development and programming environments, and learning how to play and manage Minecraft servers from his students. Students in Steven's class have many opportunities to explore topics in greater depth independently. The collaboration here with Brian came from his choice to delve deep into the GameMaker Language to further his learning. Recently, Steven wrote a chapter for the book, Teacher Pioneers: Visions from the Edge of the Map, edited by Caro Williams-Pierce on applying the iterative design process to teaching game design and development. In addition, Steven was an editor on TeacherCraft: How Teachers Learn to Use MineCraft in Their Classrooms by Seann Dikkers.
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Table of Contents (16) Chapters
GameMaker Programming By Example
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
1. Introduction to GameMaker: Studio
- Choosing your version
- The GameMaker: Studio interface
- An example project
- Summary
2. Your First Game – Escape the Dungeon
- Creating your Escape the Dungeon game
- Summary
3. Introducing the GameMaker Language
- Remaking Escape the Dungeon in the GML
- Summary
4. Fun with Infinity and Gravity – An Endless Platformer
- Creating an endless platformer
- Summary
5. Saving and Loading Data
- Putting in a scoring system
- Customizable controls
- Summary
6. A Multiplayer Sidescrolling Platformer
- Sprite animation
- Making your scrolling platformer scroll
- Client/server multiplayer networking
- Integrating Xbox gamepad support
- Summary
7. Programming a Scrolling Shooter
- Creating the main ship
- Creating the enemies
- Programming a Boss AI
- Particles
- Summary
8. Introducing the GameMaker: Studio Physics Engine
- A physics game
- The physics engine in a regular game
- Summary
9. Wrapping Up
- Debugging
- Helpful information on GameMaker
- Summary
Index
Preface
GameMaker: Studio is a game development engine that is easy to learn, yet robust enough to use to create commercial games. Budding developers can use the drag and drop approach to coding or the built-in programming language, Game Maker Language (GML), which will be featured in this book.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Introduction to GameMaker: Studio, introduces you to the GameMaker interface and the basic concepts related to getting started with GameMaker.
Chapter 2, Your First Game – Escape the Dungeon, gets you oriented with GameMaker and uses the drag and drop approach to create your first game, a maze/adventure game.
Chapter 3, Introducing the GameMaker Language, introduces the GameMaker Language conceptually and then goes through a step-by-step recreation of the Escape the Dungeon game written entirely with code.
Chapter 4, Fun with Infinity and Gravity – An Endless Platformer, guides you through the creation of an endless platform game. Through the process, you will work with gravity, speed, random spawning, and further explore collision events.
Chapter 5, Saving and Loading Data, expands the functionality of your game by programming GameMaker to save and load data. The chapter will cover saving and loading high score data as well as a custom player keyboard binding configuration.
Chapter 6, A Multiplayer Sidescrolling Platformer, expands upon the platform game by adding multiplayer, animation, and Xbox Controller support. You will learn about client/server networking to drastically expand upon the possibilities of what can be accomplished with GameMaker.
Chapter 7, Programming a Scrolling Shooter, covers scrolling shooters, such as Xevious, which represent a classic genre in gaming. This chapter will guide you through the process of coding your own shooter, including a scrolling background and random obstacles to avoid and enemies to shoot down!
Chapter 8, Introducing the GameMaker: Studio Physics Engine, introduces the built-in GameMaker physics engine, which allows you to create physics-based games. In this chapter, you will program two small game environments based on the physics engine.
Chapter 9, Wrapping Up, addresses error checking and debugging. You will learn about the built-in GameMaker debugging features and strategies to troubleshoot your code and fix errors.
What you need for this book
For this book, the system requirements are as follows:
Windows XP or above (GameMaker: Studio requires a Windows-based computer)
512 MB RAM
128 MB graphics
Screen resolution of 1024x600
Internet connection for some features
GameMaker: Studio Standard (free) version:
http://www.yoyogames.com/studio/download
Who this book is for
If you have some basic programming experience of JavaScript or any other C-like languages, then this book will be great for you. No experience beyond that is assumed. If you have no game development experience and are looking for a hobby, are an experienced game developer looking to master some advanced features, or fit anywhere in that spectrum, then you will find GameMaker: Studio and this book to be very useful in helping you create exciting games.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "Play around with some of the other actions on your obj_square to make it do more rather than be displayed and print text."
A block of code is set as follows:
if (keyboard_check_pressed(vk_up) && !binding) { if (choice <= 0) choice = 2; else --choice;}New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "At the bottom of the resource tree are the Game Information and Global Game Settings options."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <feedback@packtpub.com>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files from your account at http://www.packtpub.com for all the Packt Publishing books you have purchased. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.
Downloading the color images of this book
We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/B04888_7963OT_Graphics.pdf.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <copyright@packtpub.com> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <questions@packtpub.com>, and we will do our best to address the problem.
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