GE Absolutely Rocks The House

[Cleve Blakemore]

I first got my look at this kit about two years ago. I thought it needed work. It looked a little like a good concept but poor execution.

I registered the kit three days ago, I still can't believe just how good this tool is. It would have to be one of the most powerful game toolkits for indie developers ever written.

It still needs a lot of work. There are a lot of missing features and commands. It's also not for beginners - it is more of a tool for seasoned pros who already know how to code pretty well. The abstraction of the idea of the game itself is superb as reflected in the design.

Those game maker fanbois who have logged on to here to screech about their free toy's superiority, don't know enough to know what they don't know. Game Maker is a toy for amateur dabblers to experiment with 2D game creation. It isn't a serious development platform. I expect with another two or three iterations, Game Editor is going to be the only game in town for smaller developers with limited resources who want to design for three different markets at the same time.

Last night I had a triple parallax shooter with particle effects similar to Xevious running that took me less than two hours to code, complete with configuration menu, Ogg background score and 80 fps on a Pentium 400 that is farting dust it is so obsolete. I then pressed a button and output versions for Pocket PC, Linux and of course Windows. I'm still reeling with shock.

I had a huge 2D toolkit/map editor/scripter/resource compiler of my own I've been working on for two years in Borland C++ Builder, extremely complex and detailed ... I chucked it in the bin before I went to bed because I couldn't see any reason I'll ever need it again with this tool in my hand.

There are still quite a few bugs, it's a bit shonky in places and there are lots of things that need a cleanup or some more robust resource checking in a few places, but the honest truth is this game editing tool kicks the arse end off anything else out there by a wide margin. You newbies who want to know how this thing measures up to freeware crapola like Game Maker just don't understand what the vital questions are you need to be asking if you are an indie developer. You'd never want anything else after you figure out how the Game Editor desktop works. It's a quantum leap ahead of the other junk that is available. I know because I've had a solid review of all of it many times.

The biggest thing I'm holding out for now is Palm or Symbian support for end deployment. Then I can die happy.

[Dark RyNo]

Im a n00b to game making and code.
I got the free trial days ago and ive already (with the help of this forum) made a platform game similar to Mario (but obviously not as good.)

The only problem I have are the random glitches.
Like if I load my games from the shortcut in the file menu, the animations muck up.(not a big problem)
and when I export my game, if you die twice it crashes and closes.

But overall a great program!

[Cleve Blakemore]

The truth is ... this isn't quite a complete product yet. The script editor is a nightmare, it's almost like using the VI editor it is so primitive. I've had tons of weird glitches with the resource system and my executable has also got a few different behaviours from the design desktop.

Nevertheless, I think this product is worth studying religiously, because around version 3.0 it's going to be so good that it is going to turn you into every indie developer's dream - a one man band who sells the same game on several different platforms.

Once Makslane hammers out the rough edges, the fact is this designer has just got the right idea as its foundation. It's what a game development system should be. Despite some hitches at the moment, there's nothing to stop you from selling 100,000 units of a game that came out of this editor right now. It's sufficient to do really, really good and fast 2D games in nearly any genre.

Another thing about tiling - you can see how it is obsolete with current processor speed. Why tile in 2D when you can draw the entire level as a unique creation, a standalone piece of art, then cadge the collision layer in on top of it? This is why I realized my entire 2D game system, which I spent two years writing in BCB++, was pursuing the wrong paradigm. Things have moved beyond tiles now, if you want to move up to the next phase of 2D innovation you need to start thinking about your entire level as one grand vista with none of the limitations of traditional tiles. I had a tile ripper that could tear a lot of artwork out to make some unique scenes within the level, but I could not go to each tile and add unique shadows, weathering, grit and details as you could in this engine. That's the next step beyond tile systems.

I truly hope Makslane is making enough money right now to fund his continuing work on it so he can fulfill all the promise that GE has.

Makslane, we gotta have image flip vert/horz, rotation and scaling in the next update. I hope you can get that in.

[makslane]

if I load my games from the shortcut in the file menu, the animations muck up

What's happen I can't see this problem in your game

when I export my game, if you die twice it crashes and closes

Will work in 1.2.8 version!

[makslane]

I've had tons of weird glitches with the resource system

What's happen?

my executable has also got a few different behaviours from the design desktop

What's the difference? Can you send the ged and data files?

we gotta have image flip vert/horz, rotation and scaling in the next update.

For the next update no, but will be done soon (I hope)

[Cleve Blakemore]

I think my problem with the resources in the executable has to do with the fact I'm loading things like music, cursors and sounds in scripting code, which seems to be stored as absolute file paths on the physical disk instead of relative paths to the data build. If you do the same actions through the front end editor by adding them from a dropdown menu, you don't have the problems with them not being found in your compiled executable. I tried then changing the path manually in C-Script and copying the resource to the data directory but it appears this doesn't get registered correctly in the GED.

For the next update no, but will be done soon (I hope)

I was evaluating Kyra to consider it as a replacement for the CDX library in my original 2D game builder system and I know what it can do - it has the most awesome, powerful SDL renderer for 2D graphics that could be imagined. The Kyra demo has something like a 1000 sprites whizzing around flipped, rotated and alpha blended with all kinds of whiz bang 2D effects. It makes the CDX library look sick by comparison. So since Game Editor is built on top of that excellent kit, I figure what we are looking at now is about 1% of what this kit will be capable of very soon. That's why people should concentrate on getting a copy and getting familiar with it now, while it still takes a little patience to use. Once it has all the glitches ironed out there's going to be a bum rush on it.

I also like the fact it scares off the newbies with what they probably see as very abstracted design compared to some FlintStone tool like GM, because then they won't benefit from mastering the Game Editor interface.

[Just4Fun]

I also like the fact it scares off the newbies with what they probably see as very abstracted design compared to some FlintStone tool like GM, because then they won't benefit from mastering the Game Editor interface.

Hmmm, I guess I've never cared much for elitism, but then, each to his or her own. Personally, I like the diversity of a community filled with all kinds of people: young, old, middle, male, female,difference ethnicities, newbies, and pro's alike. Learning is something that I think we can all do from one another.

Software, IMHO, is driven primarily by user preference and the proper tool for the job. I appreciate the talent and hard work of any programmer who can create a good Authoring/Programming system. Testosterone contests over software("mine is better than yours") really bore me.

PS. I consider myself a 'newbie' in some respect to learning everyday. That consideration is inspite of a very long and complex education with several advanced degrees. Degrees that have left me with lots of paper certificates that say I am qualified. Long live "newbies" and everyone who has advanced beyond!

[willg101]

About 2 months ago, my GE trial ended and I had no more Game creator program. So I decided to try Game Maker's "top-of-the-line" program. It's so much harder judt to place things in a certain area, I mean, I tried to click on an actor to move it, and it just added an actor. So tried to click it again. It kept adding stupid actors! But even before that it took me like 25 minutes just to figure out how to put an animation on the object! I then decided to buy GE, but I waited for the lowest price: 15. I will never ever use Game Maker again!!!

[Dark RyNo]

Im a complete newbie with no previous experience.
It didnt scare me off.

[NyahKitty]

I spotted this gem just today.
It only took a brief tour to realize what I've found.

This reminds me of Ye Aulde Arcade Construction Kit I bought for my Commodore 64 in ages past.
Except, this is far and away completely more advanced. The one thing I hope to see in the near future release is for the file browser to become similar to that of Win XP. To be able to see thumbnails of my graphical game assets (along with their file type extensions and file sizes) and the actual file tree would be ever so helpful. Perhaps the "explore" mode of Win XP browser could be the most useful in regards to the file browser of Game Editor.

Great work!
Carry on.

[makslane]

Wait the next version
Welcome!