“The best way to learn games is to play games. The best way to make games is to work.” – Alan Emrich
Game Maker Tutorials:
When we left class today, Game Maker
Tutorial #13 (Slightly Less Doomed) was near completion. You need to
complete this tutorial lesson and go ahead and do the “Other Stuff”
section on your own where Doors, Floors and Ceilings, and
Saving CPU Cycles are all mini-lessons to be learned.
Your homework this week (worth more than usual – up to
20
points)
is to:
1) Make this a more complete game by adding two Rooms – a front-end (i.e. “splash” screen) to segue players into the game (by pressing a key as indicated on that screen; be sure to put a front-end controller and have the music and global.score settings take place there) and a closing (i.e., “cheese”) screen with and appropriate graphic element when player completes the game;
2) Instructions, the Victory Conditions, and game Credits on the Help Screen when the F1 key is pressed;
3) At least three levels and no more than five levels (that is, at least 7 minutes) of great gameplay with a special effort being made to perform good programming practices as per this week’s lesson material). Consequently, you must create an exit to the next Room (guarded by monsters, no doubt) and then more Rooms. You can find lots more walls and textures here: http://www.davegh.com/blade/davegh.htm so go nuts building pretty levels for your game;
4) At least two additional monster types (or other weird kinds of Indiana Jones types of traps, treasures, pick-ups, or other maze-game style devices and effects). Here are some animated sprites you can use for now, but I would always prefer to see your own original artwork: http://www.cslab.ece.ntua.gr/~phib/doom1.htm.
5) Some “mods” for the game itself. These might include:
Giving the monsters their own ‘health,’ thus requiring multiple shots to bring them down.
‘Upgrade’ the barrels to damage the player (if within range) and / or to set off a cool looking chain reaction if they’re placed within proximity of each other.
For guaranteed extra credit, figure out how to have the player find better guns and ammunition as ‘upgrades.’
Add a scoring system (points for blowing away barrels and monsters) and put the score on the Heads Up Display (HUD) overlay. That shouldn’t be too tough.
Limit the ammo the player has for their weapon.
Set an ‘oxygen’ time limit to complete each Level. That is, start a timer that kills the player when it expires. Show the timer on the HUD.
Add pick-up items such as: health kits, ammo, oxygen, coins, treasure chests, etc.
You really need to find better sound effects and, possibly, a nice haunting background score.
Some original game art that you’ve created (hey, you’re supposed to be a game artist – so show me)
I expect to see some serious thought an effort on your part when I evaluate this assignment.
You can make your Slightly Less Doomed mod as wild as you desire: this is an intellectual exercise, not a marketing gimmick, so make it as sick, humorous, gory, weird, bizarre, twisted, etc. as you desire.
Your .gm6 save game file is due at the beginning of class next week, either on disk or via email to the instructor (any homework time-stamped more than 30 minutes after the end of class will be marked late – you can always send it in early if you want).
Optional (Extra Credit): A Game Maker Presentation:
Give a presentation in front of the class showing something you have learned about Game Maker that was not in the tutorials we have learned and could be helpful to your fellow students as they build their Course Project Game. Be sure to have an interesting subject to talk about and demonstrate during your 5 to 10 minute presentation.
Some links to examine for interesting in-class demonstrations can be found on the course Game Maker Page
How to use some of the features inside Game Maker itself that we haven't explored in this class would include using some of the features on the extras tab and the draw tab (in particular, using the Create effects Action – which is always a popular lesson)
Perhaps some basic 2D art instruction on how to make a decent sprite, or animate one, or lesson on the features in the Game Maker Sprite Editing Tools
How to make a desktop icon to class up your game when you save it as a stand alone executable file
Customizing your Load Game Screen and loading bar (just read the Game Maker help file; it's easy)
Dropping in background art and otherwise creating a nice High Score Table
An internet tour of great places to find sprites, backgrounds, and sound files (effects and music) on line
Opening up an interesting Game Maker game's .gm6 file and giving a tour about how they got it to do some particularly neat thing
Offering some pre-fabricated Game Maker code scripts to the class and explaining what they do (many of these can be found in the Tutorial 0 folder)
Anything that your classmates could find useful is fair game; your lesson to the class will be graded by the instructor for up to 8 points.
