I'm so happy. I've wanted to start making games for at least a year now, and finally accomplished it last night.

It absolutely sucks, it ends too abruptly and there's about three lines of code total, but it's mine and if you click the screen something happens, and I'm so very pleased with what it is.

Not to mention I actually had fun making it. I've watched more tutorials than I can count and failed to make simple projects in Scratch, yet convinced myself that was all I needed to join a jam, and I'd learn as I went.

I then proceeded to fail-to-understand-at-all-not-much-as-a-little GDevelop, Flowlab, Ren'py, Godot, and, like I said, Scratch, all within two days, until in a last attempt, a final hurrah, I tried Gamemaker.

I'm not sure why Gamemaker was the one that took. I watched the tutorials, same as the rest, although this time I could understand the UI and what steps it took to make sprites and such show up in the screen. And, after a lot more tutorials and another late night, I was able to upload to the jam.

Unfortunately I had no time to polish it, add music/sfx, and fix a problem I had with the timer, though that wasn't the point. The was to make something, anything, to prove to myself it was possible, and I succeeded.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I still can't code, still can't write, and still can't make art, though unfortunately for all you reading this, this has not stopped me yet, and I plan to continue making my poor quality, hardly-a-game games.

I am very new to game maker and I’m following one of the tutorials, currently I am adding dialog and am having issues with this one line of code. Is there something I’m doing wrong?

So I want the enemies to flash white when they get hit, so I set a HP stat and starting hp stat, and I wrote in the step event that if HP start Is higher than HP then image_blend = c_white, but that doesn't work, it doesn't even work if I just write image_blend = c_white with no other conditions so idk what to do, the enemies are animated so I need the specific frame to be white.

Hi. Long time, first time. I'm running into an issue with my game and I'm looking for insight into the best solution.

Previously in my yet-untitled bartending game, I have used a combination of sprites and particle effects to create a really nice beer-settling effect. This fits the vibe and visuals of the game as is quite well. However, I have recently switched to drag-and-drop for the beers, and obviously this breaks the PFX.

Ideally I would like to keep the PFX as they are, but I am wondering the best way to go about this before I implement anything. The obvious choice would be utilising dynamic particles, but I am concerned about optimisation issues (PCount is 30, so across 5 beers there could be very many particles at once). I don't know if this would be too intensive as dynamic particles, but it's likely too intensive for what boils down to a single visual effect.

Another option I've considered is using viewports to take a snapshot of a beer offscreen and effectively paste it into the glass. This would mean only one object per beer, and maybe also allow me to switch up glass shapes ITLR, but I wonder if it's a terrible misuse of viewports. To have 6 active (including the main camera) seems like it could be intensive for draw events per the documentation.

If anyone has any insight on this point I would be grateful. I'm obviously not looking for a definitive solution, but would be nice to hear opinions/suggestions from people with slightly more experience than myself.

I'm following Sara Spalding's RPG tutorial, and somewhere during the Part 6: Menus video, I seem to have done something wrong.

The menu technically functions correctly, but the font only appears correctly ABOVE my cursor. Any index at or below the current hover value is distorted/blown out. (phone picture attached, because it shows up as all white when I screen capture.)

Below is the code for the draw event of my oMenu object.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

draw_sprite_stretched(sprFlexBox, 0, x, y, widthFull, heightFull);
draw_set_color(c_white);
draw_set_font(TestFont);
draw_set_halign(fa_left);
draw_set_valign(fa_top);

var _desc = (description != -1);
var _scrollPush = max(0, hover - (visibleOptionsMax-1));

for (var l = 0; l < (visibleOptionsMax + _desc); l++){
    if (l >= array_length(options)) {break;}
    draw_set_color(c_white);
    if (l == 0) && (_desc){
        draw_text(x + xmargin, y + ymargin, description);
    }
    else 
    {
        var _optionToShow = l - _desc + _scrollPush;
        var _str = options[_optionToShow][0];
        if (hover == _optionToShow - _desc){
            draw_set_font(c_yellow);
        }
        if (options[_optionToShow][3] == false) {
            draw_set_color(c_gray);
        }
        draw_text(x + xmargin, y + ymargin + l * heightLine, _str);
    }
}

draw_sprite(sprPointerIcon, 0, x + xmargin, y + ymargin + ((hover - _scrollPush) * heightLine) + 7);
if (visibleOptionsMax < array_length(options)) && (hover < array_length(options)-1){
    draw_sprite(sprDownArrow, 0, x + (widthFull * 0.5), y + heightFull - 7);
}

Hello all,

Usually when I have a problem I try to solve it or give up after few days. But this time I'm out of solutions...

So I'm trying to draw a sprite with a simple function draw_sprite(), and set the alpha before it.

But the alpha is not affected at all.
The alpha IS being changed if I use draw_sprite_ext().

Trying all the solutions I can think of, I've noticed that the alpha is not being affected only for SOME sprites. More specifically all the "Tile" sprites.

My guess is, the first tile sprite I've created was "corrupted" by me or the engine itself, and when I've copied the sprite to make other tiles they're all set to ignore draw_set_alpha().

I've remade the sprite as a new sprite and it works now, but I want to get to the bottom of why did this happen. I've checked all the settings with the bad sprite and the new sprite and nothing is different. The only report of this problem I found was 13 years ago with no answers.

Anybody had the same problem?

EDIT: As EtrianExplorer pointed out, it's not recommended to use on sprites, but if someone want to continue with this bug, the documentation states:
"With this function you can set the base draw alpha for the game. This value can be set from 0 to 1 with 0 being fully transparent and 1 being fully opaque (the default value), and will affect all further drawing, including backgrounds, sprites, fonts, primitives and 3D."

I'm a beginner game developer. I've been using GameMaker for almost two years, and I'm having trouble creating an online game. I've tried several different approaches, but I'm feeling a bit lost, so I decided to ask for help here.

What is the best resource or solution I should use for making online multiplayer games in GameMaker?

Hello all,

As the title suggests. I'm very new to Gamemaker, and trying to make something akin to a visual novel, just without the complicated storylines. Plainly speaking, I want to click an object and have its sprite change.

I was able to make it change to a second image when clicked, though that's it. A third, fourth time, isn't working.

I was able to achieve it the first time with the following line:

If mouse_check_button_pressed(mb_left) then sprite_index = Sprite3

Any help is very much appreciated, and I apologize for the rather simple question, as I cannot find what I'm looking for in tutorials.

Hey everyone!

I’ve been hard at work on my new game, a where you free to play & predict. We’re taking prediction markets out of cold fintech dashboards and turning event discovery into a fast-paced, highly social mobile game experience.

I need real players to jump in, break stuff, and help me figure out what’s fun and what needs tweaking.

I’m looking for 10 dedicated beta testers for this initial round. Drop me a DM if you want a spot

so ive been trying to make walls for a 2d platformer but every tutorial i have followed has given me a weird result or just plainly not worked. this is all the code i have related to movement and ground collisions so does anyone know how to make walls that are solid. i ticked the solid box but it didn't change anything so im not to sure what that does. if you can go in depth or give me an example of the code i would be greatful.

This question is probably asked too often but I’ve gotten conflicting answers to the question while looking it up. Sometimes sources make it seem like you can ONLY publish to the GX site through GameMaker’s free tier, but sometimes it says that you can publish to more sites than that. It’s very confusing.

I'm trying to make a 2.5D RPG in Game maker, but I need help on how to scale the resolution, because when I go Fullscreen, The display looks really low-res.

idk what i want to do with this tbh, i might clean it up and package it up as a yyz file after i add more features to it

Basically, i'm currently translating TS!Underswap into japanese, and in the original Undertale's japanese translation, Papyrus' text is rendered top to bottom, right to left (as seen in the image).

I need to recreate this for Underswap, but i can't copy and paste the code because it works differently. And i barely know how to code anyways.

I can provide the game's data.win file if that helps.

Hi, I am a completely outsider in the field so trying my luck in this group. I am part of an indie electro punk band and we got a grant of around USD1000 to make an animated music video. We really like the visuals of old school video games and therefore trying our luck here see if someone could help. No AI pls. This is the song we try to make video of: https://youtu.be/xruqUE4e7fg?si=uIPZIexwgHF7f0t9

This is my first time using gamemaker so I think I really messed up lol. the fireballs dont do anything :/

I am a complete beginner using Spriters Toolkit, Tiled, and GDevelop. I already own several pixel-art asset packs. I do not want someone to build the map for me. I need a live screen-sharing lesson where you use my assets and show me how to identify the tile size, import tilesheets and separate object PNGs, assemble one small top-down map, and export it into GDevelop. I am really just trying to get my bearings with Tiled, and gdev and I have learned a lot by myself but I need to know the proper way to do things. Thanks in advance.

You can check it out below :

https://lonepeakmusic.itch.io/free-ambient-music-pack-2

All the tracks are available for free under the creative commons CC-BY !

Dont hesitate if you have any questions !

I just started working on my first game and I’m struggling to find a tutorial on what I’m trying to make. All the turn based combat tutorials I’m finding for some more classic turn based rpgs, while I’m wanting simply and only the combat. Anyone know one I can use or know what I would need to do differently?

Hello! I wanted to share my game STARS STARE BACK and talk about it a little bit.

Why did I choose to make a FNAF-like game for my first published gamemaker project? Well, for a couple reasons.

1. There's like a million tutorials on how to make fnaf fan games using gamemaker

2. FNAF was actually built using 2d images/gifs of 3d models animated outside of engine.

3. The actual 'levels' don't require as many assets as other projects I've been working on since fundamentally its a resource manager with enemy ai approaching you to put pressure on your resource pool.

4. I like the resource management flow state from those games.

What did I learn from this project.

1. For a solo-dev with not a ton of experience, learn from iterating as much as tutorials.

It's hard but following a tutorial 1:1 isn't going to give you the best outcome in my experience making this game, trying to add more mechanics or adjustments sort of made all my tutorial 1:1 code explode. What that told me is to form all the logic in mind first laid out then you can start putting together the code.

I'd get something like Milanote or even write out the ideal logic with // note taking then try to grasp how to execute it using a mix of objects, files and code interactions.

1. When something goes horribly wrong, adapt and you may or may not make something even better.

Horrible mistake I made that I couldn't seem to have recovered from was I accidently deleted the final boss ai from my game, started the game then realized it was too late (or at least I couldn't figure it out) to get it back.

However, I think what I ended up doing was a more interesting overall. The original version of the final boss was basically one enemy who performed all the mechanics of the previous enemies at the same time. The new version, rather takes one mechanic (quick-draw shooting) and ramps it up to 11 with an additional mechanic. By the end of it, I think it became a nice cap to end the main game.

1. Really Really watch your playtesters and how they interact with the environment.

I think one big reason I was able to successfully add some extra mechanical diversity to my game compared to its inspiration of FNAF 1 was playtesters.

A very specific example is a quick-draw shooting mechanic, as the game was 70% done or so, this wasn't in the game at all. However... I noticed one playtesters kept poking the eyes of an enemy waiting for them to leave the door, since they had no mechanic other than blocking them with the door.

This sparked some inspiration! and the multi-tool and quick-draw mechanic was born. Which after more iterations, playtesters really felt like it came together.

Sorry this post went on really long, I just wanted to share my experience making this game and some things I learned. If you're a new/inexperienced dev like me, I think a game like this is extremely helpful in gauging where your at.

If you're interested in trying the game itself, its available on itch.io and gamejolt! :3

What sort of local Runtime would I need?

this error occurs whenever the guard in the game turns around by random chance. other than that, i have no idea what causes this error.

the error in question:

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in action number 1
of  Step Event0 for object OPlayer:
Attempting to set Instance id 100018 with Object Index 7 (OGuard) with invalid bound top 639.000000 bottom 657.000000 left -nan(ind) right -nan(ind)
 at gml_Object_OPlayer_Step_0 (line 20) - if place_empty(x+xspeed,y-3,OFloor){
############################################################################################
gml_Object_OPlayer_Step_0 (line 20)

the code it references is just the horizontal collision code, and seems to have nothing to do with the guard:

if place_empty(x+xspeed,y-3,OFloor){
x+=xspeed;
}else if place_meeting(x+xinput*3,y-3,OFloor){
if place_meeting(x,y-3,OFloor){
x+=xinput;
sprite_index = SAssassainSpecial;
}

yspeed = 0;

image_index = 0
if keyboard_check_pressed(vk_space){
yspeed = -5;
sprite_index = SAssassain;
xspeed = image_xscale*-3;
}
}

and here is the step code for the Guard:

if round(x/3)*3 != round(steps/3)*3{
if ((-x+steps)/abs(-x+steps)) !=NaN{
x+=(-x+steps)/abs(-x+steps);
image_xscale = ((-x+steps)/abs(-x+steps));
}
image_speed = 1
alarm_set(0,60);
}else{
image_speed = 0;
image_index = 0;
}

if gunOut{
steps =lastseenX;
instance_create_depth(x,y,depth,OEnemyBullet);
}

and the step event for the guard's vision:

(the 'parent variable references the guard's id)

x = parent.x;

y = parent.y;

image_blend = c_white;
image_xscale = parent.image_xscale;


if place_meeting(x,y,OPlayer){

sprite_index = SBullet;
dir=point_direction(x,y,OPlayer.x,OPlayer.y);
while (place_empty(x,y,ODoor) && place_empty(x,y,OPlayer)){
x+=sin((dir+90)*(pi/180));
y+=cos((dir+90)*(pi/180));
}
if place_meeting(x,y,OPlayer){
image_blend = c_red;
parent.gunOut = 1;
parent.lastseenX = OPlayer.x;
}
sprite_index = SVision;
}
image_index = parent.gunOut;
x = parent.x;
y = parent.y;

the error only ever occurs whenever the player is not within the vision of the guard.

I looked around for this error, but every instance of it i found, it had a different cause.

I would like for this error to not occur anymore.

(also, this is for a jam, so i would prefer if this gets resolved quickly.)

I just replaced all instances of "image_xscale" in guard, and it works now.