100 days: day 35

Technically I'm on Day 22 or 23, to be honest - I've slacked off and I have some serious catching up to do. But in the meantime, I'll share my progress (however limited).

After my last post, I followed Shaun Spalding's in-depth platformer tutorial and felt so passionate about using code exclusively that I vowed to never touch step events in Game Maker again.



Then I got my hands on The Game Maker's Apprentice and changed my mind. I made the first game in the book, Evil Clutches (below), in just one afternoon using step events.



Evil Clutches looks a lot more polished than my simple self-drawn game in the platformer above, but that's because the images are stock creations from the book. The game is pretty much an exercise in cut and paste, but I know the projects will get tougher as the book goes on. And once I put the game together it was hard to stop playing it.

I love step events. Step events are essentially button shortcuts for the designer to use when working on a game. Create event - Key Press <Up> - Action: start moving in a direction <Up> speed: 16. If you have no coding knowledge, it allows you to make a game without implementing code.

But there are drawbacks. You don't have the same control or potential for action and depth as you do when coding. There are some things that can't be recreated with an event; they must be coded. Also, coding is an essential part of game design, so to ignore it now means you're just hurting yourself in the future.. which means I need to learn code, sooner or later.

Which brings me to my new goal: rather than jumping headfirst into code like I planned a couple weeks ago, I'm going to instead first follow the two Game Maker books from front to back, making every project they list, even if the project lesson doesn't involve code. I'm going to learn step events as well as code and take a bit more time with coding.

The Game Maker's Companion is a sequel to the Apprentice. It expands on everything from the first book and most importantly to me, it digs deep into interactive storytelling with its last project, Shadows On Deck - I'm really excited to make that one.

Up next is learning how to make Galactic Mail. I'm also into the second chapter of The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design, I'll share some key points from the book later on.

Games recently played.. Gone Home. Currently playing Portal 2. To play (tomorrow, when the PS3 version is released!) - The Wolf Among Us.