127 lines
5.5 KiB
HTML
127 lines
5.5 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<html><head>
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<title>Getting Started</title>
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<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
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</head>
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<body background="images/back.gif">
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<!--START-->
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<h1>Getting started</h1>
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<p>
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Creating your first game is always a challenge. But if you are willing to
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put a little bit of effort in it, it will actually be rather easy. You can
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have it running within an hour.
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</p>
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<p>
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Even though it is really easy to make games with <i>Game Maker</i> you will
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need to understand some of the basic concepts. To this end you are strongly
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recommended to follow the tutorial that is shown when <i>Game Maker</i> is started.
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If you did remove the tutorial from view, you can always make it visible again
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by choosing <b>Tutorial</b> in the <b>Help</b> menu.
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</p>
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<h3>The Global idea</h3>
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<p>
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Before delving into the possibilities of <i>Game Maker</i> it is good to
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get a feeling for the global idea behind the program. Games created
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with <i>Game Maker</i> take place in one or more <i>rooms</i>. (Rooms are
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flat, not 3D, but they can contain 3D-looking graphics.) In these rooms
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you place <i>objects</i>, which you can define in the program. Typical
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objects are the walls, moving balls, the main character, monsters, etc.
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Some objects, like walls, just sit there and don’t do anything. Other
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objects, like the main character, will move around and react to input
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from the player (keyboard, mouse, and joystick) and to each other. For
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example, when the main character meets a monster he might die. Objects
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are the most important ingredients of games made with <i>Game Maker</i>,
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so let us talk a bit more about them.
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</p>
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<p>
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First of all, most objects need some image to make them visible on the
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screen. Such images are called <i>sprites</i>. A sprite is often not a
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single image but a set of images that are shown one after the other to
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create an animation. In this way it looks like the character walks, a
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ball rotates, a spaceship explodes, etc. During the game, the sprite for a
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particular object can change. (So the character can look different when
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it walks to the left or to the right.) You can create you own sprites in
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<i>Game Maker</i> or load them from files (e.g. PNG files or animated GIF’s).
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Many sprites come bundled with <i>Game Maker</i> that you can use free
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of charge in your games.
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</p>
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<p>
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Certain things will happen to objects. Such happenings are called <i>
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events</i>. Objects can take certain <i>actions</i> when events happen.
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There are a large number of different events that can take place and a
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large number of different actions that you can let your objects take. For
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example, there is a <i>creation event</i> when the object gets created.
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(To be more precise, when an instance of an object gets created; there
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can be multiple instances of the same object.) For example, when a ball
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object gets created you can give it some motion action so that it
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starts moving. When two objects meet, you get a <i>collision event</i>. In
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such a case you can make the ball stop or reverse direction. You can also
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play a sound effect. To this end <i>Game Maker</i> lets you define <i>
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sounds</i>. When the player presses a key on the keyboard there is a <i>
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keyboard event</i>, and the object can take an appropriate action, like
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moving in the direction indicated. We hope you get the idea. For each
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object you design, you can indicate actions for various events; in this
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way defining the behavior of the object.
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</p>
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<p>
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Once you have defined your objects it is time to define the <i>rooms</i>
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in which they will live. Rooms can be used for levels in your game or to
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check out different places. There are actions to move from one room to
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another. Rooms, first of all, have a <i>background</i>. This can be a
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simple color or an image. Such background images can be created in <i>
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Game Maker</i> or you can load them from files. (The background can do a
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lot of things but for the time being, just consider it as something that
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makes the rooms look nice.) Next, you can place the objects in the room.
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You can place multiple instances of the same object in a room. So, for
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example, you need to define just one wall object and can use it at many
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places. Also you can have multiple instances of the same monster objects,
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as long as they have the same behavior.
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</p>
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<p>
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Now you are ready to run the game. The first room will be shown and
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objects will come to life because of the actions in their creation
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events. They will start reacting to each other due to actions in
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collision events and they can react to the player using the actions in
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keyboard or mouse events.
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</p>
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<p>
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So in summary, the following things (often called resources) play a
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crucial role:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li><i>objects</i>: which are the true entities in the game</li>
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<li><i>rooms</i>: the places (levels) in which the objects live</li>
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<li><i>sprites</i>: (animated) images that are used to represent the objects</li>
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<li><i>sounds</i>: these can be used in games, either as background music or as effects</li>
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<li><i>backgrounds</i>: the images used as background for the rooms</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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There are actually a number of other types of resources: paths, scripts,
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fonts, and time lines. These are only important for more complicated
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games. You will only see them when you run <i>Game Maker</i> in advanced
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mode. They will be treated in the advanced chapters later in this
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document.
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</p>
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<!--END-->
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</body>
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</html>
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<!-- KEYWORDS
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global idea
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resources
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tutorial
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--> |