GameMaker Basics
GameMaker Basics is a blog series I wrote for Amazon in 2017. This series was meant to teach new GameMaker users how to use the software, while also providing design and programming advice.
Hitboxes and Hurtboxes
Managing hitboxes and hurtboxes is a tricky subject for newcomers. This blog post covers one method of handling it that, truth be told, I would do differently today. While the code is outdated and arguably not very good, the concepts still hold true. When this was posted it was the most viewed guest blog on Amazon Developer. They later commissioned a video which is linked below.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/gamemaker/hitboxes-hurtboxes.html
Screen Shake
Every indie game’s favorite game feel technique. This shows a simple method for creating screenshake, and how to tweak it.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/gamemaker/screen-shake.html
Drawing Sprites
This post covers how to manually draw and manipulate sprites which is something GameMaker users will need to do to really level up their games. While GameMaker offers a number of built in functions, what is proposed in this blog opens to door for more precise manipulation.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/gamemaker/drawing-sprites.html
Juicing Your Movements
After teaching folks how to draw sprites, I thought this was the next logical step. Using simple techniques like squash and stretch, and acceleration, I show how to improve the game feel of character movement.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/gamemaker/juicing-your-movements.html
Object Orchestration
This post teaches how to access objects from other objects, and gives examples on how to do so. This technique is useful for creating controller objects that manage other objects.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/gamemaker/object-orchestration.html
Timers
While GameMaker does have a built in system for timers and alarms, I personally never liked using it. I always write my own timers to give myself as much flexibility as possible. This blog post covers how to do just that.
Simple AI
Secretly a blog about state machines, this covers how to create very simple enemy AI that can be expanded to be as complex as one desires.
