Game Maker TutorialGame Maker Tutorial

Where to Get..■ Game Maker Tutorials

http://ictmindtools.net/gamemaker/tutorials/• Introduction   Clickball   • Where is it?   Shooting   • Maze Game  Monsters  Maze Game 2   • Scoring & Lives   Sprites   Platform Moves   Jumping   • Ladders   Backgrounds   Variables   • Programming   Challenges

■ Game Maker 8.0 Download http://www.yoyogames.com/

Introduction■ User Interface

rooms: the scenes (levels) in which the objects live

backgrounds: the images used as background for the rooms

objects: the things in the game • instances: one particular

occurrence of an object sprites: images that are used to

show the objects sounds: these can be used in

games, either as background music or as effects

scripts: small pieces of code that can be used to extend the possibilities of your game

Your First Game

■ Step 1: Set up the Game area Start Game Maker and create a room where the action will

happen: Click the 'Add Room' icon Choose a background colour In settings, make the room caption 'Catch the Ball'

Addroom.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 2: Add in the Sprites you need - a ball and a wall Click the 'Add Sprite' icon

• Name it sprBall Click Load Sprite, and find the ball image. We also need a wall sprite.

• Find it in the Pacman folder. • Name it sprWall

■ Naming Sprites, Sounds & Objects every sprite sprXXXX the sounds sndXXXX the objects objXXXX.

add_sprite.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 3: Create the objects create ball and wall objects

• need an object to put in your game.  • A sprite just represents the object.

Click the Add Object icon • Name it objBall• Choose the Ball sprite to represent the object

don't make it solid. (It's best not to make moving objects solid.) It interferes with the Game Maker collision detection system and

your object may become 'stuck' Add in a wall object. 

• Name it objWall, choose the Wall sprite, and make it solid.

addobject.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 4: add them to the room Put it in the room and add a wall Open the room

• Add in a ball (left click) Delete (right click)

• Add in walls (hold Shift and click) Copy Multiple Object (Shift + Left click) Move Object (Ctrl + Left Click)

object_to_room.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 5: Set up the Events for when your game is played Events are the things that happen in your game. We want the ball to start moving in a random direction. Open the properties for the ball object Add in an Event for when the ball is created. Choose start moving in all directions at speed 8

• the ball moves 8 pixels for each step of the game.  • If the game is running at the normal speed of 30 frames per

second, then there will be 30 steps every second.  You can change the game speed in the settings tab of the room

properties    

eventmove.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 6: set a bounce action for when the ball collides with the wall. Add in an event for when the ball collides with the wall. Set the ball to bounce.

■ Step 7: add score Add in an event to the ball object for when the left mouse button is

pressed. • Set the score to 1, but make sure you choose Relative.

Left Button vs Left Press ?? Relative vs Absolute ??

Bounce.swf

Score.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 8: add alarm Approx every second we will make the ball change direction.  setting an alarm clock to trigger an event every second.

• set the alarm clock when the game first starts, • each time the alarm goes we will make the ball change

direction• reset the alarm.

Alarms.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 9: add sounds set a sound(sndBeef1) for when the ball collides with the wall. set a sound(sndGunshot1) to the ball object for when the left

mouse button is pressed. • Create beef1 and gunshot1 sounds• the collision event with the wall

Play sndBeef1• the left button press event

Play sndGunshot1

Your First Game

■ Step 10: setting a background improve the appearance by setting a background.

■ Step 11: add information add information to tell the user how to play the game

background.swf

information.swf

Your First Game

■ Step 12: Ending your Game Let's say we want the game to end when the player's score is 20.

• Each time we add to the score, we will check whether the score is equal to 20 Ending the Game more Gracefully

■ Extension improve the Ending Game by creating a text object and putting it

in an ending room

Endgame.swf

Gameover.swf

Your First Game

■ Extension Making your Ball Bounce Accurately off Walls

• you need to treat horizontal and vertical walls separately.  Create sprites and objects for a ball, a horizontal wall block and a

vertical wall block.

• Add a room and draw a box around the ball using the sprites.

• start the ball moving in a random direction and set events to make the ball bounce

bouncing1.swf

bouncing2.swf

bouncing3.swf

Shooting

■ In this exercise we are going to have a monster that shoots a bullet. Create a new game with a bullet and monster sprite and a

bullet and monster object. • You can find the sprites in the Breakout folder

Place the monster object in a room

shooting1.swf

Shooting

■ Open the properties window for the Monster object. Add a keypress event for when the space bar is pressed. Choose the Main1 tab, and choose the 'Create an Instance of

an Object' Select the following options: shooting2.swf

Shooting

■ Now we need to make the bullet move. Open the properties window for the objBullet. Add a create event. From the movement tab, choose Set the Vertical Speed Set the speed to be -6 

• Making the vertical speed -6 means the bullet will move upwards

shooting3.swf

Shooting

■ After the bullet disappears from the play area, even though we can't see it, it is still in the game moving upwards forever

■ adding an event to destroy the bullet after it leaves the play area. Open the properties for objBullet. Add an 'Other' Event > Choose Outside Room From the Main1 tab, choose Destroy the Instance

shooting4.swf

Shooting

■ Making an explosion when the bullet hits something Add bullet and animated explosion sprites and objects to

your game Place the bullet at the bottom of the room and make it move

up the screen: We want the bullet to explode when it is 50 pixels from the

top of the screen.

explosion.swf

Shooting

■ Blocks of Code You will notice in the code above the actions for starting and

ending a block of code

if the question at the top is true, • the entire block of code (all the actions) will be executed,

otherwise if the question is false, • none of it will be executed.

Shooting■ Changing Direction of Sprites

this plane appears to be flying upwards: When you change directions to fly left, it does not look right,

so you need a sprite that looks like this:

To do this you must first create the sprites to face in each of the directions. 

change the sprite for the object whenever the left, right, up or down keys are pressed.

stop your object to stop  moving when you are no longer pressing a key and you would like the object to change to a 'stopped' sprite.   

gm_sprite_directions1.swf

gm_sprite_directions2.swf

sprite_nokey.swf

Shooting

■ Extension Shooting in the Direction You are Facing ??

• It can be quite challenging to make your character shoot in the direction it is facing.

Maze Game■ Add 2 rooms : Set the room size to be 480x480 pixels and set the

grid to be 32x32 pixels■ adding 3 sprite

sprWall sprPerson sprTarget ■ Create objects

Now create a wall object: Name it objWall• Use the wall sprite• Make it solid (so things can't pass through it)

Create the person object : Name it objPerson• Use the person sprite

Create a target object : Name it objTarget• The target object should not be solid, as the player needs to be able to

move on top of it.  When the player collides with the target object, the game will continue on to the next room.

Maze Game

■ Set up movement for the person Add an event to the person object for the Keyboard  <Left>

• Add the action from the Control tab 'If instance is aligned with grid‘

• Set the snap horizontal and snap vertical to be 32 pixels.• Add a start moving in direction • Set the direction to be left and speed to be 4

Add actions for the up, down and right keys.  (You can use the duplicate event option to make this job easier)

To stop the person moving• add actions for the <No Key> event• Click the centre block in the 'Start moving in a direction'

options.

Maze Game

■ Set up collision handling If the person collides with a wall it should stop, so add a

collision event

Add a collision event to the target object for a collision with objPerson

Maze Game

■ Draw 2 maze-like rooms making sure that you have walls all around the outside.  Place the person and target at the beginning and end of your

maze

Monsters

■ Add in 2 sprites one facing left and the other facing right objMonsterleft, bjMonsterRight Make a monster object : objMonster

■ Add a create event for objMonster Add in a Start Moving action make it start moving to the right.

■ Add a collision event for objMonster add in the following actions:

Paths are another way of doing the same thing, but without using collisions with blocks to turn the monster around.

Maze Game 2

■ To make the maze more interesting, we should be collecting diamonds along the way.  A door stops the person from getting to the target.  When all

the diamonds are gone, the door disappears. The target does not appear in the room until all the diamonds

are collected. ■ Add 2 new sprites

sprDoor and sprDiamond 

■ Add 2 new objects objDoor and objDiamond.  Make the door solid as it acts like a wall

Maze Game 2

■ Add sounds for picking up the diamonds : sndDiamond for opening the door : sndDoor.

■ Place diamonds around your maze. The objDiamond should have a collision event with the

person It should then play the diamond sound and destroy itself

Maze Game 2

■ Place the door so that it blocks access to the target Don't put any diamonds on the other side of the door!

■ In the person object add a collision event with the door object, stopping the

person and aligning it with the grid.  Just the same as you did with the wall object

■ When all the diamonds are gone, the door should play a sound and destroy itself.  Add the step event to the door object Add the 'If the number of instances is a value' action.  (On the

Control tab) Choose these options:

Step event : occurs once for every step of the game, which is usually 30 times a second.

Maze Game 2 play a sound and destroy the door if there are no diamonds

left add block markers to our actions

■  Save and play your game to test whether it works as expected.

Maze Game 2■ The Target Marker

use a target that does not appear in the room until all the diamonds are collected

■ Create a marker sprite and object.  Call them sprMarker and objMarker.  Make it invisible by unchecking the Visible option.

■ use the step event add an action 'If the number of instances (of the diamond) is zero, 

Change the Instance to change the marker to the actual Target object

■ Place the target marker in the room where you want the target to appear.

Reference

■ Reference http://ictmindtools.net/gamemaker/tutorials/ http://www.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3251.0 http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?

pid=35421 http://madebyluke.com/gamedesign/tutorials/index.html http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Game_Maker_Programming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Maker http://gamemaker.info/en http://www.gmlscripts.com/gm8help/help/index.html