Welcome to Issue 14 of GMTech Magazine. GMTech

has been up and running for over two years now. Our

first release on November 30 2006 was an amazing

time for all who were involved in the production,

however since then we have come a lot further and

are proud to be releasing this fourteenth issue. This

issue, just like the others, didn't come without its

problems that we did our best to overcome - delays

mainly.

We didn't want to produce an issue that was

'boasting 50 pages of content' because we know that

it isn't about the quantity but the quality. We didn't

want to make an issue like issue 13, so long but

nothing really special - we wanted to create an issue

in which you will be amazed by the content. Forget

about those pretty images that make a 600 word

article span over 4 pages and actually read the

fantastic content that the members of GMTech have

so wonderfully put together. With this issue we could

have easily made it span over 60 pages and made it

the longest issue yet, however after spending two

years in this 'game' we worked out that you are more

interested in the what the words say than the length.

We arranged an Interview with Sandy Duncan, CEO

of YoYo Games, we got some fantastic answers that

you can find on page 21. We also got in contact with

someone who has masses of experience with

creating and selling games and he agreed to talk to

us and explain a bit about what he does and his

techniques, check out Russell Carroll’s interview on

page 23. Along with those fantastic exclusives our

writers have stormed up some treats for you to get

your teeth into 'What Makes a Game Addicting',

'Game Difficulty', 'Getting your Game Seen' are just a

few of the features that we have for you to read.

We have also arranged a massive giveaway of ten

copies of GM7 Pro, to be in with a chance of winning

a copy of GM7 Pro, then turn to page 4.

As always it is a great issue, we didn't focus on the

past (that we are two years old) we focussed on the

content, quality and the enjoyment of it. Hope you

like it.

GMTech Team

_______________________________________

Website: www.gamemakertech.info

Forum: www.gamemakertech.info/forum

Wiki: www.gamemakertech.info/wiki

You waited so long for Issue 14, but now that wait is

over and you have begun to tuck into it. The bad

news is you're going to have to wait a little bit longer

for Issue 15 to come round, as we are taking a

break over Christmas. Production of Issue 15 won't

start fully until February/March next year with a

releasing a few weeks after that. We plan to return

from the break with loads of new ideas and

techniques to produce an even better magazine for

you to read.

If you turn to page 4 of this issue you will we see

that we are giving away 10 copies of GM7 Pro for

free. All you need to do to win is read the rules and

fill out an application form; the more interesting it is

the better chance of you winning. For details can be

found on Page 4.

After a long wait, the GM Mac beta has been

released as a private beta a few weeks ago. For

those of you without Mac computers, but are still

interested in keeping up to date with the various

testing on the beta you could take a look at

Dangerous Dave's Blog, where he plans to keep on

testing the software and write all about it .

A blog dedicated to interviewing GM users has been

created and launched to a positive reception. The

website found a niche in the GM market and has

gone full steam ahead to fill it. Despite only being

around for a couple of weeks they are already

receiving rave reviews from many visitors to the site.

YAIPP, Revel Quick Play, and GMArcade are just a

few of the new Instant Play scripts and plugins that

have been released within a few weeks of each

other. They each seem to be dedicated to creating a

system that can rival the YYG model. If you’re

interested in features like hosting them game on

your own server and not having any links to YoYo,

then take a look at the different scripts and plugins.

Since issue 1 gmjab has written for this

magazine, and from issue 6 through to the

13th issue he has been the editor and

graphic designer. He was responsible for putting the

magazine together and producing some outstanding

looking content which has helped GMTech become

what it is today. He also created the design on the

now closed GMTech wiki, so good was the design

that it was featured on the Wikidot main website and

was praised very highly for having such a brilliant

look. However, as can happen to all of us, gmjab

has become increasingly busy in his offline life and

understandably could spend less and less time on

this magazine. He has not formally

resigned from GMTech but he has not

been active on the GMT forums since

September so from now on, me (Timoi),

and GMTech owner gamez93 will be co-

editting the magazine.

By Timoi

You have been waiting for Issue 14 for some time and

we have made sure not to disappoint along with the

fantastic articles, features and exclusives we have

arranged with Sandy Duncan (CEO at YoYo Games) a

special give-away of 10 GM7 Pro keys. If you're

someone who is unable to get the right amount of

money or for whatever reasons you can't get GM7

Pro, then this is your chance to get a registered copy.

To be in with a chance of winning you need to go to

the Entry Form, fill it out and click submit. It’s that

simple and it will only take a couple of minutes -

maybe even less.

We have put together a quick list of questions that you

are probably thinking right now, if your question isn't

answered here then get in contact with us via the

contact form on the GMTech website.

Once - If we find out you entered more than once then

you will be disqualified.

It’s not down to luck, you need to impress us (the

GMTech team) with what you write in the form. We

aren't just looking for length, we are look for quality - a

bit like the issues of GMTech.

The closing date for entries is 20th December, the

winners will be announced on 21st December and will

be contacted. It will be the perfect present to end the

year.

Once the winners have been chosen, we will send

them an email with full details on how to obtain their

copy of GM7.

Click here and fill out the form on that page.

You will be contacted on the email you used to apply,

so make sure all the details you filled in are correct.

We plan to give away 10 copies of GM7 Pro, we will

give out us as many as possible and the rest will be

saved up for another contest.

Read through the rest of the issue and enjoy it, then

get down to business and enter the contest to win a

copy of GM7 PRO. Remember, if you have any more

questions then feel free to get in contact with us via

email or by PM.

In a recent topic at the official Game Maker

Community a user asked members which

characteristics they thought made a game addicting.

The poster rightly pointed out that some high-quality

games don’t pull you back to play, whereas a number

of lower-quality games manage to have gamers

coming back for more.

In order to attempt to create an addicting game it is

important to consider what it is that turns people away

from a game once they have made the choice to start

playing it.

Long game load times, looped music that cannot be

turned off without touching your speakers and

awkward keyboard configurations which would make

the manufacturers of Twister proud will drive gamers

mad. Menus that make starting a new game more

complicated than you thought possible, screens that

must repeatedly be clicked-through will have the

same effect – as will a glitch that makes a level

impossible to win or a bug that causes the game to

crash midway through.

Picture in your head a game with none of these

problems - a slick game without any of the above

annoyances. If a user enjoys a game and are skilled

enough they may well play it to its conclusion. But

then what? Will they start a new game straight away?

Will they play again tomorrow, next week, in six

months or never again? You need to consider

whether it is worthwhile for someone to replay a game

that they have already won – if there are strict winning

criteria and little room for freedom within the game

they will probably have already made use of every

aspect of your game.

Randomisation is a vital ingredient which will keep

your game fresh and ensure that every time it is

played it is slightly different. Consider, for example,

the basic puzzle games that have long been bundled

with Windows. Every game of Minesweeper or

Solitaire is always different which means whilst the

gamer has some idea of what will happen after a few

games there is always a unique aspect -something

they haven’t seen. Imagine what would happen if

mines were always placed in the same locations, or

cards always dealt in the same order – after you’d

won the game once there wouldn’t be any point in

playing again!

One of the suggestions made at the forum was that

the inability to complete a task which you feel you

should be able to do will have people playing for

longer. Whilst a slight level of frustration should be

imposed upon gamers it is hard to strike the right

balance between making a game challenging enough

but not ridiculously hard which will have the effect of

driving players away. You can minimize the risk of

this happening by having multiple levels slowly

increasing in their difficulty. Level codes in arcade-

style games or a save game feature can also be used

to enable a user to resume from a place they have

worked hard to get to, without forcing them to waste

time slowly replaying levels or rooms they have

previously completed successfully.

Including multiple game modes, for example, having a

central story as well as individual playable missions,

can make people consider playing when they might

not otherwise do so. Who knows, they may enjoy

certain levels and despise others – better to let them

play the ones they like than have them avoid them all.

Rewarding gamers for their achievements through a

top scores or best times board can encourage them to

play again and compete against members of their

family to be crowned King of the Game. Better still,

make use of an online high-score table through which

players from around the world can compete. Having

a weekly table as well as an all-time list also ensures

that users are not too disheartened when they glance

at the top scores that have been achieved – then

there is a real chance that their name could be on the

list for all to see!

It is also important to respond positively to user

feedback. Sadly many Game Maker programmers

seem only to care about the number of downloads or

the rating their game receives. Reacting to and

learning from criticism of your game will make your

game more enjoyable to those playing it –would you

continue playing a game you didn’t enjoy? Many

flash games do this well as revenue for the sites they

are on depends on the number of times they are

played, and the adverts that surround them are

viewed or clicked.

The most important factor when attempting to make

your games addicting is to consider playing them from

the gamers’ perspective. Get your games tested

before you release them, take the feedback on board

and don’t disregard things you don’t see as a problem

if other people do.

Written by Phil Gamble

Keeping games challenging can be a difficult task for

aspiring game makers. In most cases, especially in

independent work, the challenge to a particular game

sways one way or the other - easy or hard. Finding

that balance in the middle is important, though. You

could have the best idea and implement it well, but if

it's too hard, it won't be played. Same goes for if it

were too easy (which usually isn't the case in

independent games). These are a few thoughts as to

exactly why it's so frustrating to find that perfect center.

Firstly, by definition, games should be challenging.

This is in direct response to any game that offers itself

as "easy" or "basic". Games are for players to play -

either for fun or satisfaction (or both, in a lot of cases).

I'm sure you've seen a movie or read a book in which

the character has everything they want. It sounds

great, right? That is until they realize it's actually more

of a burden to get everything they want and then go

back to regular life. Same goes for any sports team -

it'd be great for your team of choice to go a full

season without a loss, but after a few years of never

losing, they actually lose the whole reason to play the

game, and that's competitiveness; either player

versus player, or game versus player. So why would

you play a game that you never lose at? You'd have

fun at first, sure, especially if you're used to losing

more often than winning. Keep playing, though, and

you'll lose the desire to pop it in or run it.

In contrast, games should never be impossible, as

that would ruin the point of playing. Of course, having

a so-called "impossible" game would attract a lot of

attention, and you'd get a lot of people wanting to give

it a shot to see if it's true or just a rumor. You might

even get a few devoted fans that play it as much as

any other game, always looking for a way to win.

However, to the casual player, an "impossible" game

would get old quick, and it wouldn't survive in their

library. Not only does it seem hopeless to play when

you know you're going to lose, who wants to feel like

a loser?

So game makers are always looking for good ways to

balance the game to where it's not too easy, yet not

too hard. If you know anything about game design in

general, you'd know balance is the key to basically

anything, and you'll get nowhere without it. There's no

reason why anything should be totally one way or the

other, including difficulty. Now, to be fair, there are

definitely valid games that are too easy and too hard.

A lot of games try to appeal to younger players, or

more casual inexperienced players, and the game

prides itself on being easier than most. There are

games for hardcore players that go for the difficult feel

that aren't just for anyone, but the ones that can

devote a lot of time into it and have that natural skill.

My point, though, is that if you're looking to make a

game for anyone or anyone, you're going to want to

balance it as best you can.

A good way to do this is different difficulty levels. You

see this a lot in previous generation games (My main

memories of difficulty levels was from the Playstation

era), but not so much anymore. One modern game,

though, that does it very well, is the Guitar Hero/Rock

Band series. Levels of difficulty range from Easy to

Expert, allowing new players and hardcore players

alike get into the game. Easy to pick up, difficult to

master is the phrase that passes through my head

every time I think of it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say

difficulty. So, it doesn't work 100%, but it's a nice idea,

and I'd like to see more from it.

Games are difficult to balance out because there are

so many different kinds of players. No player is the

same. One player might be good at any given game,

another might not. Games might be too hard for one,

but too easy for others. Trying to balance a game to

one single difficulty level just doesn't work anymore,

especially in such a critical gaming society. Simply

put, games absolutely need more difficulty levels to

appeal to anyone wanting to pick up and play. It's

imperative that games be balanced nowadays,

because it'll get murdered by reviewers if it's just

slightly too difficult or easy. Nothing's worse than

pouring hours and hours into a game, only to get

stuck at a certain part and never playing it again.

Broken controllers everywhere speak for themselves -

games should be balanced in most aspects, even

difficulty level. There are plenty of tried and true ways

already out there, and new theories all the time. Get

out there, do some research, and put together a game

that's fun to play for everyone.

these games perfect the balanced difficulty levels.

When I first picked it up, I never thought I'd get far

with it, neither did probably most players. Now, if you

look hard enough, you'll find mass communities of

players all going for just slick scores. Looking back,

most players probably never thought they'd get this

good at the game.

Another attempt I've been seeing lately is changing

A.I. The artificial intelligence changes itself to match

you, always trying to keep a balanced level of

difficulty. This hasn't really proven itself to work

completely, at least not to me, but it's a step in the

right direction. The only problem with this form of

difficulty level-balancing is that you can never do well

and never do poorly. If the system works flawlessly,

you'll always do average. Once you start doing well,

the game increases difficulty to match and sets you

back down to a level line. If you start doing badly, it

lowers the difficulty to get you back up to the default

Written by Brandon

There is a never ending torrent of unfinished,

pointless, and frankly rubbish games that get

uploaded to YYG (YoYo Games). The 'Featured

Games' is a small museum of gaming gems and

delights, and sorting by 'Most Popular' filters more of

the best games into sight. However, the main sewage

pipe is the 'Most Recent' category where all games

start off. I can bet not many visit here as games of the

lowest possible quality are found living out their pitiful

and wretched existence. Fortunately many fantastic

games are rescued from the waist-deep piles of

steaming excrement and staff picked. But those are

the lucky ones. Some are never found again.

It can seem like an injustice of biblical proportions

when this happens to your game, your months of hard

work being flushed down the drain with perhaps one

comment of “it's ok.” and 3 1-star ratings with only 2

plays. If you don't get noticed in the 'Most Recent',

you have little chance of being found again, so I'm

here to help your game be seen and to prevent it

catching horrible diseases from the surrounding awful

games.

First of all, a question. If someone saw something

shiny in the gutter at the side of the road, would they

check it out? Social pressures not-with-standing, they

probably would. By the same reasoning, it pays to

have a neat looking game image. Make sure it's not

pixelated, unrelated, or a screenshot where it's

impossible to see what's going on. By making a

dedicated image you can design it to be readable at a

glance and to completely fill up the space allowed. A

useful tip is to make your image the same size as the

frame, not just in proportion, so that you can check it

doesn't become undetailed when shrunk. You only

have a couple of seconds to grab a potential players

attention, so make the most of it.

Now that they have decided to check out the shiny

object mentioned before, they take a closer look. Bad

news, it looks like it might just be a milk top. While

there's no social pressure (unless someone's

watching you while your on the PC), your time is

precious, do you want to risk wasting your time taking

the shiny object, it might be worth nothing after all.

First impressions are the most important, but second

impressions are also vital. Make sure all screenshots

adhere to the rules I stated in the previous paragraph,

having as many as you're allowed isn't any harm

either.

Why would the person even be walking down the

street? Because they're going to work of course. YYG

start on Mondays and finish on Friday evenings, so

never post on weekends. The optimum time will be

8:30am GMT on a Monday. There's time for it to be

virus scanned and converted to Instant Play, so when

the YYG staff come in to see what's been posted over

the weekend, they'll see your game first.

The person sees a copy of Vogue in a shop window

with the same shiny object on the front cover, the

shiny object the person is holding is clearly

prestigious and valuable. Submit your game to be

reviewed to a magazine, encourage others to review

it, find any sites where you can link to it. Post on

forums with a link to the YYG page, blog about it,

embed it in all the social networking sites you're on

and send a message to all your social network friends

with a link to the game. Get your family to play it, get

your friends to play it, tell them to spread the word to

everyone they know. Put an image advertising it in

your signature as large as is allowed, implant a virus

that when opened will send a message to everyone in

the recipients contacts list which advertises your

game. Do that, and the plays will come flooding in.

Apart from the last one, that was a joke, we don't

support filthy criminals here at GMTech or even ones

that have had a good wash.

After much thinking, the person washes all the muck

off, and brings it close to inspect it. Congratulations,

they're loading and looking at your game! It's now

your responsibility to have made sure the game is

polished and enjoyable to play. There's hundreds of

places where you can get advice, help, and feedback,

so use all the resources available to you to make your

game a success.

Written by Timoi

When it comes to file hosting, we all usually have our

little site that we trust completely. I know I do. At the

same time, though, that doesn’t mean we should

ignore the others. There are a vast number of file-

hosting sites out there, for every kind of file. Some

are good, useful, and honest – others are sly,

deceptive, and not actually that useful at all. So how

do you know which are valuable and which just

waste your time? Well, you could go through and ask

all of your contacts what they use, why they like it,

what they don’t like about it, and so on, and have

them never talk to you again because you’re just

using them for information, or just read this.

Now, I want to make a few notes first – I only had

one Firefox window up at the time, with just a few

tabs (related to what I was working on). I have a

T1/Lan connection. I didn’t have any torrenting or

instant messaging programs open, and I wasn’t

downloading anything. So, in essence, my

connection should be as fast as can be. I uploaded

the same 9.3MB .zip file for every site, and when I

could, I uploaded a ~150kb screenshot file. Finally, I

did all of these one after the other, so they should all

be close to the same in terms of my connection’s

speed (nothing should’ve changed).

I’m going to look at a short list of five file-hosting

sites, all based around indie game hosting, and I’m

going to grade them on a simple rubric. Speed, for

both upload speed and navigation speed (have you

ever had to upload a ton of files, and spent more

time navigating the menus and waiting for the pages

to load than actually uploading the files?). Reliability,

both for how often the servers are up and if your files

are deleted. Maximum file size for how much you can

upload at once and how much your account can

hold, ease of use for both the layout of the site and

the file manager system they have, design for the

design of the website (which shouldn’t really matter

too much, but no one wants to look at an ugly page,

right?). Features, because everyone likes nifty

features, and whether or not you have to register

(which can be a pro or con in your opinion). So,

without further ado, here we go:

Sandy Duncan: YYG goes back to the time when I

first left Microsoft in 2003. James North-Hearn (who

had just quit as VP Publishing at Infogrames) and I

were discussing how we could create a publishing

business that was more “streamlined” than the

existing games publishers. We came up with

something called “Thin Publishing”, which is

essentially a business that outsources as much as it

can. We looked at buying one of the UK based

publishers, but I got offered a lucrative job outside of

video games in the middle of these negotiations and

couldn’t resist taking the big salary on offer....

The first site I visited was Gamecake.net. It’s a nice

little site with a lot of useful features I found

interesting. The pages loaded quickly and the file

uploads were extremely fast. Of course, I haven’t

had a file uploaded for too long, so I can’t say if files

last, but the site seems solid and reliable – I would

trust important files to be kept there. The file size

limit is 35MB, but you can upload as many 35MB

files as you’d like. The site was easy to use, and

when uploading, all the information you needed was

right there (title, file, screenshot, info, etc.). You have

to register but what I found neat was the register

boxes (username, password, and e-mail) were all

right there when you went to upload, just in case you

missed the registration link on the main page. The

thing that separates Gamecake.net from the rest is

the information features available. You can add a

message that describes what you’re doing now (if the

game is in demo stages) and what your plans are, it

gives a list of updates on the game (like when you

upload a screenshot, etc.) for everyone to keep track

of what you’re doing, and it even has an up/down

button to rate games (which is a nice change from

the usual star average rating). All in all, after my

short time with it. I plan on using it in the future. It’s

more than just an upload and link to kind of site; it’s a

full-on page dedicated to your game. I would go as

far as to say that you don’t even need to create your

own webpage for your given game, as this gives

pretty much any information you’d want people to

know.

Second on the list is host-a.net. Now, unlike some of

the others, I’ve been using this for years. I remember

finding it a long time ago, and using it for personal

file uploads ever since. The speed is quick – not

blindingly fast but it gets the job done without any

complaints. The most exciting thing about it is the

reliability. In the years I’ve been using host-a.net, I’ve

never had a file deleted. This is especially nice,

considering some of the files may not be work-safe!

I’ve always felt safe with my files there, and I always

will. Now, the only thing that disappoints is the file

limit. Not per size (you can actually upload 1GB

files), but you only have 30MB total space. You may

ask why you’d upload a 1GB file with only 30MB

available space overall. I have an answer. After a bit

of research, the site explains that, with paid

upgrades, the account with the largest amount of

spaces is 1GB. It goes on to say that if that changes,

the file upload size limit will change accordingly.

Now, I would never pay for more storage spaces, but

host-a.net does allow you to purchase more space.

The prices are a bit steep (for me, anyway), ranging

from 125MB extra space for $5USD to 1GB to

$25USD. You can also add bandwidth. The site is

very plain and ugly (plain isn’t always a bad thing,

but it’s a black background with gray and white Arial

text), and the layout is just as plain (navigation bar to

the left, info in the middle/right). It’s easy to use and

that’s what counts. You do need an account to

upload files which may turn some away, but with the

reliability and insurance of file safety I don’t mind at

all. There really are no extra features that make it

stand out. You can upload almost any kind of file

which may count for something if you’re doing things

other than game-making, and it does generate a nice

pie chart that illustrates your available space, but

past that – nothing. I like it, but I may be biased

because of how long I’ve been using it, I would

recommend it to anyone, even with the ugly layout.

Next is Willhostforfood.com. Now, I’ve never been a

user here, but I know a lot of people that upload

there religiously. I gave it a look-over and was

thoroughly impressed. The uploads are fast and it

seems very reliable. You’re allowed 100MB uploads

if you’re registered but only 10MB if you’re a guest

(that means you don’t have to register here). It’s very

easy to use too – along with a simplistic look comes

a simplistic navigation bar. Very minimalistic, it has

only 8 links and a Paypal donate button. The look is

welcome for me, as I don’t need a ton of links for

everything – but this also means there are almost no

features past uploading, which may turn some away.

One nice thing was it gives you HTML and BBCode

links right after uploading, for quick copy-pasting for

others. I would use this, maybe as a last resort. It’s

very basic, which is nice for quick uploads, but it

doesn’t offer much past that – it’s just a very solid,

reliable host. If that’s what you’re looking for I

suggest you give it a try.

Next up is gmarcade.com. To be honest, I’d never

even heard of this site before being it being

suggested for this article. I must say – I can see why.

The first thing I noticed was the look. It was polished,

but not realy nice. I can tell someone put a lot of time

into it, but the colors (white and purple) didn’t mix at

all, and are just nasty. The navigation bar was

cluttered beyond belief, and it took me a while to find

the upload button (where I had to register before I

could upload). I didn’t think it’d be a big deal – I’m not

superficial, right? Oh boy, it got worse. The file took

forever to upload, and I sat around forever waiting for

something to happen. I don’t know if the server was

just slow at that moment, or if it’s always that slow, but

I’m thinking this site is prone to server problems,

therefore I wouldn’t consider it too reliable at all. The

maximum file size is 25MB, which is modest, but in all

honesty, when deciding between two file hosts, and

one offers 35MB, even though you know you’ll never

upload a file that big, you’re going to choose it

anyway. It wouldn’t be so bad if at least the files

uploaded quickly. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend it,

even as a last resort. There are plenty of other faster,

more reliable hosts with more features to keep you

uploading. NOTE: It has a Java instant player sort of

feature, but it didn’t work for me – check it out, it might

be something worth looking at.

Finally is 64Digits.com. I’ve known about this for a

while as well, and I have an account, but I never really

liked it too much. I don’t know why, it just seemed like

it was fit for more hardcore game makers (I’m just

sore that one of my examples got rejected!). The look

is nice – very basic but polished, and the colors all

work together (it’s mostly white). It’s rather easy to

use if you can ignore the small text all grouped

together that makes some things hard to read. The

only weird thing is the difference between File

Manager and Submit Game/Example. You have to

upload the file in the File Manager first, and then

submit a game and choose the uploaded file from a

list. It’s a little odd at first, but probably smoother in

the long run. My only problem was that my file didn’t

upload. I’m not sure if it was a one-time glitch but I

wasn’t about to sit another five minutes waiting to see

– the upload speed was abysmal, and waiting for

pages to load took ages. Again, I’m not sure if the

server was just slow (because I don’t recall this

problem from before) or if it was just that moment, but

it was drudgingly awful. The limit is 100MB, and that’s

pretty good for a game host. It’s pretty reliable (I

found images from a year or two ago in my file

manager list), and I know a ton of people that upload

there and trust it, so I don’t see any reason why you’d

fear uploading important files. The biggest thing about

64Digits is the community – the forums are huge and

there are a ton of people behind it. Some hosts don’t

have any kind of forum or community and if you

experience a glitch, you’re screwed. Not to mention

64Digit’s categories – Games, Examples, and Works

In Progress make it easy to find what you’re looking

for. I’d recommend it, I just don’t use it because I’ve

always had random issues (file uploading, finding my

way around, etc.).

So, there you have it – a nice little list of file hosts

(primarily for Game Maker), and maybe now you can

make a more informed decision on what you’re going

to use to show the world your creations. I know there

are more out there, and probably a bunch that

deserve to be on a list, but I just chose the first five

that I could think of or that were recommended to me.

If needed, I could always write a second article with

more hosts. Please, feel free to contact me and alert

me of other hosts that deserve to be reviewed and I’ll

certainly give them a look and write about them here.

Written by Brandon

Humor is beauty. Some of my fondest memories of

gaming involve ridiculous situations and witty one-

liners. The most beautiful thing is that good comedy

will never get in the way of your game play, and rarely

requires pro-level programming. When making your

game a few guffaws in an otherwise serious

adventure can be all that’s needed to flesh out your

game and gain more enthusiasm from the players. At

the same time, it’s a great way to take away an

otherwise tedious development.

First off, I’ll be honest; video games rarely make me

laugh (with the exception of online multiplayer). It’s

possible, but when putting jokes into your game, you

shouldn’t be aiming for making players roll on the floor

laughing. Instead, humor should be injected in a way

that pulls color out of your world. It helps make your

game more compelling to play and allows you to

really frame your game’s atmosphere.

For example, let’s look at some average RPG that I’m

making up right now for the point of this example.

Let’s call it Zeppelin Wars: Triumph Under Bleeding

Roses, just cause it sounds awesome. Since the

player will be creating his own character, we already

have a base to begin creating some dimensions in an

otherwise average process. While the player can

make his own amusement by naming his/her

character FARTS McGEE, it would be smart to

compliment such a creative name by adding some

ridiculous customization options. Give the player the

option to let his/her character wear an Epic Beer

Drinking Hat, or maybe overly revealing/tight spandex

(you can still put more serious wardrobe options in the

game too, and of course, make all of this available

from the start, don’t force the player to unlock it). Just

by giving the player the ability to customize his

character, you are adding humor and accessibility into

the game right off the bat. You could even take it a

step further and provide some commentary on each

item. Regardless of how far you go, by injecting some

lighthearted options before the game even begins you

are going to make the player take notice of his

character and encourage him to press further into

your game.

Looks like FARTS, with two fresh beers tucked in his

cap and a sword that makes offensive gestures

during epic combat is ready to hit the town! So let’s

give this town some color. When making a game, you

probably already had a general idea of what the story

and setting is going to be like, so basing your humor

around the general atmosphere is a great way to

immerse the player. For example, if this town was

under attack by malevolent pterodactyls, the towns

people beg you for help. Well, you’ve already got a

quest right there, so as long as the gameplay is solid

(I won’t go into that, however, just keep the FESS

method in mind: Fun Effective Simple and Satisfying),

some lightheartedness in the wake of such

catastrophe can work like magic. The amount of

humor you inject into this quest is balanced with how

many issues the town has run into that you show.

Want this to be a more serious moment in your story?

Add more examples of hardship (for instance, this

would be a perfect time to kill off the player’s

parents!). However, a little black comedy shouldn’t

detract from the moment. For example, with all the

pterodactyls flying around, you could have a vendor

selling umbrellas due to all the you-know-what that

would be raining down from the sky. Just a simple

stand like that takes the quest up a few notches on

the believability ladder. You don’t even have to stop

there, after all, it’s your game, so you get to decide

what to do with it. All the graffiti and artwork, all the

villages, all the monsters, everything the characters

say is up to you, have fun with it, and even if it’s

cheesy, it could still keep players hooked in. All it

takes is a little brainstorming and you’ll be amazed at

how creative you can be!

Injecting humor does more than add substance to

your game. It’s a great way to stay productive during

development, and at the same time, your

brainstorming, could come up with more than a few

gags. A lot of the time you may find yourself adding

whole quests or features and not be aware of it! This

is especially true when working with teams, because it

eases off a lot of the stress associated with

development, and again, you could be building on

your ideas in a humorous way when one of you might

come up with a plot twist, or even just a better way of

working with a character that doesn’t have to do with

humor. It gets you thinking about how you want to

build your game and can be far more enjoyable too.

Okay, so you might consider yourself the funny type. It

doesn’t matter! Remember, you’re not aiming to make

people laugh, the wit you put in the game should, at

best, make the player admire how clever you can be.

If you truly feel that you don’t have a funny bone, then

just keep the jokes subtle, no matter how corny your

jokes are, the game is still gaining those crucial

Written by Evilspud

dimensions that make the game immersive. A lot of

developers (even some triple A console dev-teams)

put too much focus on only a few aspects of their

game and end up creating a half-empty experience

because they failed to develop the atmosphere in the

entire game.

It’s important to always keep the setting interesting,

give a character a candy bar addiction, make an

airplane out of cardboard, or clog up a toilet as long

as it sticks to your universe, your just improving your

experience, and developing your own creative

muscle. If you're truly feeling uninspired, then play

games that are known to be funny, study how humor

got Portal it’s own cult following, pretty much

everything done by Tim Schafer confirms the

philosophies I’ve written about here. I’m repeating

myself a lot on this, but don’t be afraid of cheesy

jokes, everything you put into a character is going to

add to him/her. Humor is the easiest way to build a

foundation for the character and make him someone

players can relate too.

The best advice I can give anyone is if your

developing your game and it is becoming too boring,

then you’re going to end up with a boring experience.

Keep the ideas flowing even the dullest quests can

become something the player is going to look back

on. And who knows? You might end up making ME

roll on the floor laughing.

IsmAvatar - “The senior members have a lot of mixed

feelings, but I think the fact that we've been with the

project through so many changes as it is, speaks

volumes about how "resistant to change" we are. Now

granted, you have a few who have jumped ship, most

notably being GearGOD, and they were not without

reason, because there have been some

disappointments brought with YYG, most notably

being the amount of propriety that they have added to

GM, through DRM, encryption, blacklists, and the

likes. Most of which harmed normal/legitamite/well-

intentioned users of GM and only being a minor

hinderance to the black market users. I think the guys

could learn a little from Ben Franklin: "He who would

give up a little freedom for a little security, deserves

neither and will lose both." or perhaps, "Sell not virtue

to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

Of course, we're all also familiar with the infamous

delays at release date, well-excusable for a new

experiment that I think made it all worth while. I am

talking about, of course, Instant Play, a revolution in

game development and marketing, the ability to play

games from your browser. This amazing development

has redefined browser games; no longer the low

quality flash games you play on AddictingGames -

now we have real quality, and the price is right.

Written by ISMAvatar

http://thegamecreators.com

TwilightPhantasm, branded by Ben Smith (its creator)

"The Darker Game Maker Community", is pretty much

as its slogan suggests - a Game Maker community

with a dark theme. However, the darkness is only

referring to the website colour scheme; members are

generally very friendly. So, how does this community

differentiate from all the others in a large pile of

substandard websites? All but the chatroom and

forum is coded from scratch. Might not seem like

there's much left after those two are out of the picture.

You'd be surprised though. These are some of the

features of the website at the moment:

If you want to do anything on the website, really you

need to register. Handily, the creator has made the

website connect with the forum (SMF), so you only

need to register once. Extremely convenient (some

other websites ought to master this).

The website allows you to submit your game(s),

provided you have the exe in a zip file, a thumbnail,

and a screenshot ready on your PC. You enter the

details in, and when uploaded a moderator or

administrator will approve or deny it. This is generally

quality control, although few games are considered

"too bad to accept". The whole archive system is

nothing new and generally essential, but at least

they've coded it all themselves, and it generally works

well. Once it's in the archive, other people can

comment on the game and rate it (both well-made

features).

Again, nothing new to Game Maker communities, but

it's coded from scratch, and works fine. Input your

title, your current mood and write a blog as you

please. Includes BBCode for text styling, links,

images and the like. If you know CSS, you can

customise its looks, which is a nice feature. People

can also comment on your blog entries (optional,

there's a tickbox allowing you to prevent it).

Each member has their own virtual "trophy cabinet"

which they can fill with awards won in games. On top

of many games having the ability to win trophies for

specific achievements, three (currently) allow you to

log into the website directly through the game EXE

and win the award - the three games are MooMoo by

Ben Smith (the creator of the website), Fireblast by

Ulrik04, and Zyousbox by myself. The inbuilt script

was created by Ben and is available if your game is

considered good enough.

These are one of the newest features of the website.

When you upload your game (and it's accepted), you

get a little image showing a cropped area of the

thumbnail, the game name and your username,

download count, and its current rating. If you're

advertising your game all over the place, this can

save you a bit of time writing out the details,

especially since the image is given to you in either

BBCode or HTML (copy the code, paste it, and you're

done). A brilliant little piece of work.

Currently a fairly new system with little use, although

they will soon become a fairly important part of

TwilightPhantasm. At the moment, you can earn

credits by uploading games and blogs. In the future

you will also be able to win them in specific games.

Spending them will be possible in designated games

on things like extras, minigames, cheats etc.

Usually pretty active as there's a period of time every

day when few people are on. When there are people

on the chatroom, it's a great place to hang out and

chat to fellow game makers. They are generally happy

to help you out with anything you might be stuck on,

or will hold competent conversation if you're doing fine.

The community of TwilightPhantasm is essentially its

heart. Well over 100 members, over 27,000 posts in

over 1200 topics, and a range of boards for anything

Written by NAL

you want - Introductions, Game Maker help, Software

advertisement (although frowned upon if you've not

made yourself known), WIP posting with in general a

lot of feedback given by the members, the ubiquitous

General Chat, and anything else. There's also a

suggestions section where you can post things you'd

like to see. It's great to find the website's creator has

replied to almost every topic made in the Suggestions

board, and acted upon many of them. The forum has

all the things you'd expect to see - PM inboxes (100

PM space limit), a page of statistics, Who's Online list

etc etc.

In my opinion (and not just because I'm a moderator

and active member there) it's a great website, which

most people can find a home in. You will always get

feedback, help or discussions when you want or need

them, and will be thanked when you help or give

feedback to others. I suggest that you try the wesite

out today at http://www.twilightphantasm.com/ -

membership and everything is completely free and

fast, and you'll get a warm welcome when you

introduce yourself.

TwilightPhantasm is the best alternative to YYG and

the GMC! I really love TwilightPhantasm. Is the most

friendly GM site in the world. You can relax by playing

games, posting in interesting topics at the forums,

write blogs about anything you want, uploading your

games and also chatting in the coolest chatroom! The

best site for having fun with the whole Game Maker

thing!

Also new features coming up every day, like the

awesome "DCards"!

Anybody who is involved with this site feels lucky now

and some members wonder how they didn't notice

this site before!

TwilightPhantasm as quite a large variety of people in

comparison to other forums I've been on. It doesn't

have 20 boards, yet has a place for everything. It's

pretty much an all-around good site with the cool

aspect of encouraging Game Making.

TwilightPhantasm is basically the best forum related

to the Game Maker program. Each individual member

has something productive and encouraging to offer,

which makes it such a great community. Having the

freedom to suggest what to change on Twilight to

make it a better place and have it heard and taken

action is incredible.

I joined the TwilightPhantasm community shortly after

it was created, and I've seen it grow from a small

place where a handful of people talked about making

games, to a large site where new members arrive

every day, uploading their games, getting feedback,

chatting, and enjoying themselves while being part of

one of the largest unofficial GM communities.

TwilightPhantasm is a place where people from all

over the world come to talk about Game Making.

Needless to say, the community is very cordial in all

respects.

TP is the friendliest gaming website. You can get help

with your games yet have tons of fun chatting and

getting to know some of us.

BEN: TwilightPhantasm was derived from one of my

favourite words back when I first thought of it,

"Twilight". Then I thought that it would be a bit bland

on its own. It needed something to make it stand out,

something to make it more unique, thus I came up

with Phantasm. Just recently I was told it sounded

rather rude, I assure you it isn't though.

BEN: My initial motivation was to make and produce a

personal site for me and my games. When I first made

TP I had no experience in HTML and I never had any

intention for it to grow into what it is. I have

considered a name change since the name

TwilightPhantasm hardly fitted a community but I

couldn't change it, the name just kinda stuck.

TwilightPhantasm was a personal website up until the

Yoyogames forums in my opinion and a few others

had fallen into such a bad state that we created our

own forum on TwilightPhantasm. From there the site

just kept on growing into what it is today.

BEN: Well, it was just my style. I liked it, the website

has gone through so many graphical renovations

though as I am never satisfied with how it looks. At

first many people are very skeptical about TP from its

design but most of the members on TwilightPhantasm

either like it or have grown to like it. The design and

style does not represent the people though. We aren't

a load of crying complaining stereotypical "emo kids".

Most of us are nice, pleasant and generally normal

people. I personally think the style of TP is a bit like

marmite, you either love it or hate it.

BEN: My personal latest favourite features would be

the Download Cards. I am very happy with the way

they turned out. Overall, I can't really pick a favourite

feature, I am proud at what I have accomplished with

TP.

BEN: I have so many to add, but I guess I'll just talk

about a few. My next big aims are to get this credit

system fully operational, add game sorting and

searching (since we are getting a much bigger, than

I'd thought originally, game archive), rewrite the login

script, more graphical enhancements and new

themes for people not too keen on the style of the

website. Then it's just a case of listening to what the

members want and seeing what can be done.

BEN: I am very pleased. Considering that I never

thought it would become such a large website. Okay it

can't compare to 64Digits, Snowmoons, GMArcade

and the countless other ones out there, but I am so

proud of what I have accomplished. I have made

something that people like and use and I hope it won't

stop growing anytime soon.

So, I was playing Puyo Puyo the other day (or, to be

more precise, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine)

and I was struck by how well it illustrates an important

principle of game design-- the necessity of creating a

dynamic tension and interplay between two seemingly

mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed desires.

Keeping the height down helps stop your screen from

filling up, but it also hinders your ability to set up the

chain-reaction combos that'll bombard your opponent

with garbage blocks; building high towers of blocks

increases your chance of pulling off one of those

devastating combos, but it also greatly increases the

danger of losing the game. And, of course, your

opponent, whether computer-controlled or another

human player, is trying to do the same to you.

Though a similar dynamic exists in Tetris and other

falling-block puzzle games, ultimately the competitive

nature of Puyo Puyo and those garbage blocks

change everything. In Tetris, a player can choose to

play it safe or to go after high-scoring multiple-line

clearances; in Puyo Puyo, however, choosing one

strategy or the other is a recipe for disaster. The

player must act and think competitively, striking and

maintaining a balance between the two impulses of

attack and defense.

In some ways this sort of dynamic game play is part

and parcel of any competitive video game-- that is,

any game, regardless of the number of players, that

pits one intelligence against another-- it comes with

the territory. In a strategy game, such as Battle of

Wesnoth, you can only deal damage by putting

yourself in the line of fire and you only remove

yourself from danger by removing your ability to

attack. Limit break attacks in fighting games and

RPGs can only be accessed by sustaining massive

damage; sustain too much damage, of course, and

that's the end of the game. Tower defense games

create a tension between the desire to hold onto your

money, thus allowing you to buy better units later in

the game, and the need to buy enough units to allow

you to survive that long.

Such tension might be natural, but a good game

designer will always be acutely aware of that tension

and find ways to emphasize, encourage, and

strengthen it through deliberate and intelligent design

decisions. The classic shmup Galaga, like its

predecessor Galaxian and many other shmups before

and after it, tasks the player with attacking enemies

and evading them. But the tension is dramatically

increased, and the ultimate quality of the game along

with it, with the inclusion of the two-ship mechanic

that doubles the player's fire power along with the

size of the target the baddies are shooting and

swooping at.

Another example would be the classic arcade game

Robotron: 2084. In an interview with John Sellers,

the game's creator Eugene Jarvis described the

concept at the heart of the game:

"The game mechanic was based on the psychology

of having conflicting goals. You want to a) stay alive

with all this shit coming at you, b) kill the robots, and

c) rescue the humans. So there's this big conflict.

You know, here's 20,000 points but there's forty

bullets coming at me. Do I go for it?" (Arcade Fever:

The Fan's Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games,

Running Press Book Publishers, p. 53.)

It's that same principle of dynamic tension, so much

so that we might call it the Jarvis Principle. Good

game design will not only bolster the presence and

importance of the Jarvis Principle, but will make it

central to the game play. Again a kind of tension

exists, for example in Tetris-- the desire to clear more

lines versus the desire to play it safe-- or in most

platformers-- gaining a valuable power-up versus

going about your way. But, again, this tension is

mostly optional; you might desire that 'one-up' on the

other side of that large bed of death-spikes, but

choosing to go after it or ignore it is largely a matter of

player choice.

And there's nothing wrong with that-- believe me, one

thing we need more of, especially at the amateur

level, is player choice and autonomy!-- but there's no

real tension if it can be resolved by choosing one

option or the other. Perhaps that's why such dynamic

tension is more at home in games that, whether their

player interface is action-focused or more deliberate,

turn around strategy to one degree or another.

So how do we, as game designers, ensure a central

and compelling dynamic tension in our games,

especially those that exist in more action-oriented

genres? As always with art there's no easy or pat

answer for that-- no formula for inspiration, no paint-

by-numbers for an act of genius. But by keeping this

in mind when setting about designing a game and by

studying great games that do it well, there's a better

chance that we'll pull it off-- and thus, a better chance

that we'll make a better game.

Written by Tom Russell

Sandy Duncan: YYG goes back to the time when I

first left Microsoft in 2003. James North-Hearn (who

had just quit as VP Publishing at Infogrames) and I

were discussing how we could create a publishing

business that was more “streamlined” than the

existing games publishers. We came up with

something called “Thin Publishing”, which is

essentially a business that outsources as much as it

can. We looked at buying one of the UK based

publishers, but I got offered a lucrative job outside of

video games in the middle of these negotiations and

couldn’t resist taking the big salary on offer. We didn’t

give up on the idea completely, and over the next 2

years we met up with Spencer Hyman (who we

already knew) and he persuaded us to adapt the

business model to fit a web based business. So that’s

how we ended up pretty much with the idea for YoYo

Games that you know and love today. Our “end

game” is to create a publishing business helping the

best developers to sell their games and share in that

success. To do all of that we probably need to get

YoYo Games to be about 10 * as big as it is today, so

that means we need to continue to develop Game

Maker as well as the website.

SD: We felt terrible. The old Glog

www.playsnack.com is still around somewhere, I keep

it on our servers as a reminder of how difficult we

made it for ourselves at times. If you look at the

growth in the site and the community, then we must

have gotten more right than wrong. It was a great

feeling to see the feedback when we upgraded the

GMC server and forum software, I think this certainly

helped us win over a few of the doubters. We can’t

make everyone happy, but with what we’ve done so

far I think the “unhappy” folks are a small, but less

than silent minority.

SD: Absolutely. We still have our critics and I hope

they never go away because it helps to keep us alert.

Building YoYo Games is a slow process, but almost

everyone in the Game Maker community has been

able to get some benefit from our efforts. The GMC is

more reliable than it used to be for example !!!! 18

months ago there weren’t many places you could put

a game on a server and have it downloaded or played

an unlimited number of times all for free. This seems

to have made some people pretty happy. We’ll keep

these competitions running pretty much quarterly, but

look out for many more ways to earn some money

from the YoYo Games site in the next year.

SD: Hard to put a number on it, but my focus is on

taking the best games and turning them into

“products” that we can sell. We’ve already quietly

started work on putting the infrastructure together for

this. We will share the revenues equally with the

game developers. I can’t say much more, but will

make sure you' re among the first to know when we’re

ready to make a proper announcement !

SD: I think we’ve given the GMC a brilliant destination

to show the world what you can achieve with Game

Maker. The “GMC” in the shape of the YoYo Games

website has more than 10 times the traffic that

gamemaker.nl had less than 18 months ago so

something good must have happened. We serve

more than 10TB of data every month and it’s growing

every week. We’re far from sitting still congratulating

ourselves…we’re only one third of the way into a five

year plan.

SD: No plans. Less than 2% of our visitors are using

any browser other than IE/FF we just don’t have time

to test and support another add on.

SD: There are over 500,000 unique visitors to the site

every month…so if I said we listened to EVERY piece

of feedback, then I wouldn’t be telling the truth. BUT

we do keep a record of the main issues and try to

address them if we can. So don’t stop telling us

where there are issues or new features you would like

to see.

SD: Yes. Most of the work is in the website NOT in

Game Maker. If we decide to release this, then it will

be in the second of the two releases of the website

we plan for this year.

SD: Our ultimate goal is to publish the best of the

games that get uploaded to the site. We will of course

only do that with the permission of the developer of

the game. If we achieve our goals, then the most

successful developers could earn hundreds of

thousands of dollars…maybe even more. We’re

working hard behind the scenes on making this a

reality, but it takes time and money to make this

happen and we don’t (sadly) have unlimited

resources. The first people to earn money (we’ll

share our revenues with the developers of course) will

be doing so before the end of 2009, maybe sooner.

Raising funding (this has become a LONG and

difficult process. I also spend a LOT of time seeking

out and developing business partnerships that you

haven’t seen anything of yet.

SD: Yes, we will move to a new helpdesk system in

January and I have hired some new customer support

resource that will start at the same time. I expect big

improvements in the New Year

SD: Yes, pretty much. The first priority has been to

get the runner into C++. The dev work for this is

feature complete and we are in early testing.

Separately we will start work on the Maker part later

this year, though we haven’t as yet decided if this will

be done in C++ or some other platform. (We could

for example keep it in Delphi or maybe use C#).

SD: It takes a LOT of effort to do any of these things

properly and I haven’t seen one that is adequately

staffed or funded to really pull this off. We don’t rule

out making Game Maker an open source product

some day, but for now our focus is more on the

games and making Game Maker better as a

development environment, based mainly on Windows

as the key development platform. Worth noting that

every console game is developed on PCs, mainly

Windows machines.

SD: For now, yes. The good thing about Softwrap is

it’s cheap…unfortunately we get what we pay for.

Using another DRM is just a difficult thing to do right

now and we need the money from Game Maker sales

to help pay some of the bills, so changing to another,

more expensive DRM would mean we would

seriously have to consider charging more for Game

Maker. I think I can say that we almost certainly won’t

use Softwrap for GM8 unless they make a lot of

changes to their product. In fact I believe we may not

use a DRM at all, but that decision is a long way off.

SD:Not really, though the work we’ve done for Apple

Mac version is obviously pretty portable as OS/X is

based on BSD. The pity is we’ve run into real

problems with the tools we’re using on the Mac and

this might all get delayed until the C++ Runner is

debugged…that will at least let some of the games

run on a Mac…so Linux would be easy in a similar

sense, but we have no plans for this.

SD: Mark Overmars has done a few of course….and

Michel (Cassius) son Leo (he’s 11) is a big fan.

Otherwise sadly not.

SD: We al spend a lot of time reading all of the stuff

that gets posted on the site…whether that’s to the

YYG bits or the GMC…so anything that gets

published gets read by some or all of us, including the

magazines.

SD: I like 64 digits. I realise it’s more than a blog, but

it’s a way of seeing some things that are of interest to

the community that don’t always show up at the

GMC/YoYo.

SD: This is really the core of what YoYo Games is all

about. I don’t expect to see development on much

more than Windows and Mac (note the Mac version is

ready for a private Beta in the next few days. It’s

technically possible to have a Linux version (based on

the Mac version with Open GL), but I’m not

committing to it yet. The exciting area is having a

runner (and maker) that allows the developer to

“target” different platforms. If I could do this today,

then iPhone would be top of my list.

SD: Yes. There’s a possibility that we’ll do more

competitions in 09 than 08. We’re currently looking

for sponsors for some additional competitions, but the

quarterly $1,000 prize is pretty much a fixture.

SD: Not at all. We LOVE the accessibility that we get

for new GM enthusiasts as well as the fact that GM

also facilitates serious development. I would love to

have a debugger for the more serious developers as

well as the best extensions built in as standard

SD: Yes, there are lots of things I would like to see

done differently. In some ways I wish we had never

used a DRM….the main reason it’s still there is it

makes it really easy for us to get paid since we don’t

have any payment infrastructure built into the site.

…but that’s only one thing on a long list of “wishes”. I

start to get excited about GM 8, even though work

won’t start on it until early next year.

SD: Have patience, Rome wasn’t built in a day…we

have some very clear plans for what we’re doing.

Keep giving us your feedback…we really do try to

listen and take action. We’ve spent more than a

Million $$ so far and we will spend much more in the

next 2 years, so these are exciting days for the Game

Maker Community. You can help US by promoting

the site and especially getting people you meet/know

to play your games on YoYo.

Russell Carroll:I am involved in quite a few different

things at Reflexive. I work as a Game

Producer/designer creating games and working with

them through to completion. Typically I work with

developers outside of Reflexive to complete these

games and I usually have several projects in the fire

at the same time. I'm also part of our Publishing

group, so I play a lot of games to determine if we

might publish them and talk to the developers about

that. If we do publish a game, I might step in and be

the producer on our side of that project. As well I'm

the producer on the Mac Arcade. So I look at Mac

games, test them, wrap them with our DRM and keep

our Mac Arcade running. Lastly (long list!) I do press

and marketing for the games we release. I enjoy that

as I love to write and dealing with the press often

creates additional opportunities to write, and I've

enjoyed those as well. I wrote several articles for

Gamasutra this year and really enjoy the chance to

talk about our little niche of the games industry. Of

course that is just me. Reflexive is split between

doing game distribution and game development. The

distribution side recently became more fixed in

people's eyes as Reflexive was acquired by Amazon,

but traditionally I think more people think of us as

game creators.

Russell Carroll: There are certainly many ways to

judge success. Our Big Kahuna and Ricochet series

have certainly been very well-received by the public

and have sold really well. However, another way to

look at success is just achieving a dream. In that

respect, Swarm, our first game was a great success,

as have been all the titles that we've released. Wik:

Fable of Souls was another game that quickly comes

to mind as a key success as it was a game of the

year on both the PC and for XBLA.

Russell Carroll: Making games is difficult. If you've

been watching the financials you've seen just about

every major game company announcing layoffs and

division closures. In that world it is hard to be

successful regardless of your size. However, despite

the difficulty, there is a lot of joy that comes out of

working for a smaller development company. We are

somewhat forced to work on smaller projects, but that

really isn't a bad thing. Smaller projects mean that

each person is closer to the heart of the game. You

don't end up with an employee whose entire job is to

make the water look realistic. Each team member

has a lot of involvement in the game and can feel like

it is really their game. We are restrained in budget as

well, but that really helps to reign in the scope of

games and to focus on games that are smaller. In so

doing, you've got a great opportunity to focus on

game play and to make the game as perfect as

possible. So sure, there are challenges, but a lot of

those challenges turn out to be blessings in disguise

so to speak.

Russell Carroll: Making games for fun and for profit

are often very different things. To sell your game you

have to be aware of the market. What is selling?

How much of it is selling? Who is buying? Why are

they buying? As a company that also sells games we

get a lot of good information about what sells and

what doesn't, but just about anyone can get a good

feel for the downloadable games market by checking

out casualcharts.com (which happens to be run by a

Reflexive employee, the creator of both Big Kahuna

and Ricochet - James C Smith). The key thing to

remember is that if you want to sell your game, you

have to make a game that people will buy.

Sometimes, and I stress it's only sometimes, that

means you can't make the game(s) that you want. If

you just want to do your own thing, you can try to sell

that too, but in my experience, I'd say you are much

less likely to earn a livable income if you make your

game without considering what people are currently

buying.

Russell Carroll: Mostly we stick to casual game rules.

We use the mouse for player input and though we

may use the right mouse button, the game should be

playable with only the left mouse button. We spend a

lot of time working on difficulty ramps, trying to ensure

that the game is easy in the beginning and ramps up

slowly. It's also very important that everything be as

intuitive as possible and that there is a lot of visual

feedback for players, so that they get an immediate

response when they do something.

Russell Carroll: For me the answer is yes, but I've

only been making games with Reflexive for a short

time. In fact I only have one game that I've completed

with Reflexive, Airport Mania, though I'm currently

working on several more projects and previous to

working on games at Reflexive I did some game

development in my spare time with my brother (BC

Soft Games). So perhaps I'm still looking at game

development with child-like eyes, but I have to say

that I very much enjoy it. There are absolutely

moments when I look at a game and think that it just

isn't possible or when I get stuck in a design and can't

seem to see any solution, but after time, sometimes a

fair amount of time, ideas come and that, for me, is

the greatest part of game development. Ideas that

break down the walls that stopped your progress. I

really enjoy the creative side of making games, but I

also very much enjoy the producing side and ensuring

that the game is approachable by players and has the

extra touches that will make it a fun and unique

experience.

Russell Carroll: If I had to pick one part of making

games I didn't like, it would have to be level

balancing. It requires a lot of testers playing and a

ton of spreadsheets to determine where there are

problems in the levels, and there is a lot of second-

guessing difficulty curves as you try to make a best fit

for the majority of players while realizing that

regardless of what you do some people will think your

game is too easy and other will think it is too hard.

Russell Carroll: Just one last thought on making

games to sell. The way I've always thought of it is

that I have a long list of ideas for games. However,

on that list there are frankly a lot of ideas that I can't

do currently. They may be decent ideas for short

flash games, or great ideas for huge retail games, but

they aren't the right games for me right now. After

you take those ideas off your list, you're left with a list

of ideas you could do, but obviously, you're not going

to do all of them at the same time. You have to

narrow it down to one idea. For me, a part of that

process is thinking about how well the game might

sell. The public has different likes at different times,

so different ideas might be more commercially viable

at one time or another. In the end, I try to pick the

game that feels like it is right for the moment. That

does mean I probably don't pick an idea that sounds

cool, but doesn't seem like it will sell. However, that

doesn't mean I'm making a game that I don't want to

make. If you ever cross that line and do a project you

aren't interested in b/c you think it will sell, you'll find

yourself making a bad game. I think it's an important

distinction. It all starts with a long list, and if your list

is only one idea long, I'd recommend you spend some

more time thinking about game making. You'll find

that there are lots of ideas and interesting things you

can do if you take the time to consider, and when you

do, I'm certain you'll find that one of the ideas is both

interesting to you and seems like it would sell well.

One of the game's highest points is its integration with

the creator's community website, TwilightPhantasm.

Before you start playing, you are given the option to

enter your TP login details (or register there to get

some). Once you have, you can upload your scores to

the online highscore list there, and also win up to

three awards for achievements within the game.

Awards are collectible for members of

TwilightPhantasm, marking their achievements in

compatible games and for other achievements (eg.

winning a competition on the website).

Overall, despite a few flaws which drag it down a little,

MooMoo is still a fun arcade game. It sucks you in

fairly successfully and will have you playing a few

times to try and unlock the extra modes and the

awards. It's free - give it a go.

MooMoo is a minigame inspired by the Legend of

Zelda: Magora's Mask. In it, you play a farmer

defending his cows from attacking aliens. Unlike the

traditional farmer who usually would carry a shotgun

at all times, this little guy has a bow and a set of

arrows.

For every enemy you beat you get a little bit of money.

After the first (and each subsequent) wave of enemies

has been successfully beaten, you get to visit a shop

where other types of arrow exist, including bomb

arrows, arrows that shoot three at a time, and arrows

that burrow into the ground and dive up if they miss.

The mechanic works very well and is made better by

little features, such as a motion-planning mechanism

that destroys fired arrows on contact with the floor if

they won't hit an enemy. Particle effects are also put

to good use for bomb arrow explosions, etc.

There's also a varied set of enemies, that respond

differently to different arrows. Plain old black ghosts

are the basic enemy - one-shot kills, slow, and

frequently in large groups. There's also UFOs that

stay put in the air and try to beam your cows up,

enemies that can only be exploded, and several

others. As you progress, of course you'll need to buy

more expensive arrows as eventually the standard

ones just won't do.

The problem with the mechanism is that it's pretty

much all the same thing. If you're going for a

highscore expect to fire several hundred arrows.

Enemies are generally slow, very frequent, and easy

to miss with arrows (gravity takes its toll, making

shooting more than just point and click).

Graphically, the game has some high points, and

some low ones. Most of the graphics in the game are

made well - that's a high point. The low point is the

constant use of Arial as a font. Things like the

TwilightPhantasm login page and the HUD look really

bland as a result. As an add-on, the cows

unfortunately do not look much like cows.

Sound is adequate. Music is in MIDI format but fits the

game, which is rare for MIDIs. I couldn't hear many

sound effects at all, which was a let-down - it could've

done with some dying enemy sounds and the ping as

the bow fires an arrow.

+ Well-executed idea

+ Addictive

+ Inbuilt compatibility with TwilightPhantasm

- Prominent use of default fonts

- Some design flaws

- Can get a little repetitive

Written by NAL

Grappler (inventive name) is a game where you

control a ball on elastic by sticking the end of the

elastic wherever you like. Levels are simply an HUD,

the ball and elastic, and a load of differently coloured

blocks. It’s part puzzle, part platformer, part confusing.

Here’s why.

Firstly, it seems that there are about ten different

blocks that all do the same thing. I’m sure I got hurt by

at least five, and killed by at least two. Admittedly,

some were stationary and some were moving, but

trying to remember which blocks do what when you

have a ball swinging around isn’t too easy, especially

as there’s little indication by the block’s decoration

(bar one of the death blocks, that has a skull printed

on its side). Also, there are blocks that you can pass

through. the problem is that they look EXACTLY like

the blocks you CAN’T pass through. They’re usually

placed so it’s fairly obvious that they’re the way

forward, but occasionally you get to a dead end with

no idea where to go.

Another confusing aspect is starting the game. You’ve

read that you use the mouse to place the end of the

elastic wherever you like, so you get ready, you click

the Easy difficulty level and… oh no! You have to do

the tutorial first. You return to the main menu to find

there is no tutorial button (you find the tutorial by

going into Help then passing each help page). The

tutorial itself is well-made, with indicator blocks telling

you where to place your elastic and when to let go of

it.

Still, once you’ve got over the confusion aspect of

Grappler, you’re ready to play. It’s hard. Very hard.

You’ll undoubtedly “over-swing” and crash into a line

of death blocks many times. To avoid doing this, you’ll

use the elastic more often… only there’s a limit as to

the number of times you can do this. If you reach the

limit, you’re dead. You’re greeted with a random word

meaning “LOSER” and you’re at the start of the level

again.

Once you’re used to the painful difficulty and you

know what all the blocks do, the game is actually

pretty fun. It requires a lot of quick thinking, and a little

bit of remembering the level so you know when to use

the elastic effectively.

Graphically, the game is alright, nothing special.

Menus look alright, but the buttons don’t animate or

anything when they have a cursor sitting on them.

They do click, though. Many of the backgrounds are

taken from the Game Maker resource packs, which is

a bit of downer, but some are not.

Music and sounds are resource too, hence the low

rating I’ve given in this area. I hate the resource

sounds, as do many players, so be prepared to turn

your speakers off if you’re of the same opinion as me.

So, what’ve we learnt today? Grappler is undoubtedly

fun, but only if you’re willing to devote a little time to

get to know it better. It could do with some touching

up in every area, and if it got that, it could be a great

game. Until then, the potential’s there, but it lets itself

down.

+ Well-executed idea

+ Addictive

+ Inbuilt compatibility with TwilightPhantasm

- Prominent use of default fonts

- Some design flaws

- Can get a little repetitive

Written by NAL

The title can be pronounced either as "score" or as

"es-core", the latter a pun on the word "escort", which

also serves as the game's central mechanic: you are

charged with shepherding an otherwise defenseless

President through pirate- and rebel-infested outer

space to a colony that's in some kind of turmoil. What

this means, game-play wise, is that you

control two ships, one of which is charged

with protecting the other.

I decided to make this game a scrolling

shooter for four primary reasons. First, it

gave the player greater mobility, making it

easier to dodge enemies, bullets, and

asteroids while attempting to nab power-

ups. Secondly, it made it harder to defend

the second ship, which is constrained to

following the first ship's movements along a

vertical axis. If the first ship had been

likewise constrained, ala Galaga or

Galaxian, he would always be between the enemy

and the second ship; the second ship would never

have been in any danger that wasn't already posed to

the first. Thirdly, the power-ups-- and especially the

Tower power-up-- were created to make greater use

of the entire playing field. The fourth and final reason

is largely an aesthetic one, as I became enamoured

early on with the idea of a "widescreen" game, in

which there is a pronounced difference between the

long horizontal playing field and the short vertical one.

The primary offensive capability possessed by the

Molly II is a horizontally-scrolling bullet-- the standard,

of course, for the genre. The bullet initially causes

one point of damage, sufficient for destroying most

low-level enemies. At the end of each stage, the

bullet's strength is increased by one or two points

depending on how many enemies you've destroyed.

But a shooter can quickly grow stale without power-

ups. (cf. my article on power-ups in the first issue of

Russell's Quarterly.) In this game, I provided four

additional offensive abilities:

The double shot fires two lasers. It also yields one-

and-a-half times as many points as the regular shot.

While the normal bullet sprite is four pixels high by

four pixels wide, each laser is four pixels high by ten

wide, with a space of eighteen pixels between them.

The smallest enemy is sixteen pixels high, meaning

that there is a higher probability of a hit with the

double shot.

The tower weapon is the most unusual. This allows

the player to create up to five automatically-firing

towers. Once created, they begin to slowly ebb their

way to the left and off the screen. Planting them

further to the right maximizes their potential, but also

the vulnerability of the president's ship. This push-

and-pull between offensive and defensive needs, as

well as the transitory nature of the towers themselves,

is emblematic of the game's central strategic

elements.

A bit of nerfing was required when I introduced the

homing missile. They immediately seemed to work

far too well, immediately destroying just about

everything in sight. I briefly tried making them slower

or less numerous, but I found that in doing so I greatly

decreased the fun factor. Instead, I reduced their

damage capabilities to 1/4 of a hit point, meaning that

four homing shots would be required to do the work of

one normal bullet. And though both the tower and

double shot bullets are upgraded along with the

normal bullet, the homing missile remains at 1/4 of a

point through out the game.

Insight Into: S*Corps

The fourth and final power-up, the bomb, creates a

large circular explosion-- roughly 240 pixels in

diameter-- causing 1/10 of a point of damage per

frame of collision for up to eleven frames. This also

prevents it from being abused, but being that it can be

deployed up to about six times in a single second, it

should take care of most enemies. Just in case I

nerfed too much in this case, I gave it the added

capacity of destroying asteroids-- the only one of your

weapons able to do so.

The first thing I noticed after deploying my towers is

that it drove my accuracy rate to pot, thus preventing

me from achieving an end-of-the-stage accuracy

bonus. I should have seen that coming; with eight

bullets fired in eight directions, there's a strong

chance only a few will connect. And so, of course, I

changed the creation event for my tower bullets so

that they would not increase my global variable

"global.bulletcount" and thus not negatively impact the

player's accuracy rating, which was determined by

dividing the number of hits by that variable.

I found a similar problem with my homing missile.

The step event directs the missile to step towards the

x and y coordinates of my enemy parent object, pirate

1. Unfortunately, the missiles went towards that

particular enemy at the expense of all others, and

when that single enemy type was destroyed, it did not

go after the child objects, instead relaying an error

message.

And so, I created a new object-- called "enemy

parent", which I set as the parent for pirate 1, which

was still the parent of the other enemy objects. That

seemed to work; the bullets now went after all nearby

enemies, moving from one to the other when their

work was done. Unfortunately, when the missiles did

their job and cleared the screen of enemies, there

were no more objects for them to move towards:

another error message. I tried the quick fix of "If

object enemy parent exists," step towards it, "else,

destroy self", but for some reason it still prompted an

error message.

The answer was obvious; I put an instance of the

enemy parent object in the first level of the game and

made that object invisible and persistent. Because

"enemy parent" had no events (remember, the

various collision events were still in the object "pirate

1", which was still parent to the other objects, making

"enemy parent" their grandparent, so to speak), it

could not be destroyed by the homing missiles that,

having cleared the screen of other enemies, shot

themselves off screen towards it.

But all that gave rise to the problem I hinted at earlier.

Having cleared the screen of enemies, I found myself

shooting dozens of homing missiles off-screen in

between waves, which-- like the tower bullets, only

more-so-- destroyed my accuracy rate. And so I took

that same solution-- not counting tower bullets

towards the bullet count-- and applied it here. Having

done so, and feeling that the double shot was out of

place as the only special weapon to count towards

the bullet count, I decided to be consistent: all special

weapons would have only

a positive effect on the

accuracy rating, thus

making them more

desirable.

I did not realize at the time

just how desirable I had

made them, and the

double shot in particular...

The game has a

moderately high difficulty

level in its normal mode, and so to ease it up a little I

upped the starting number of lives from three to six.

Of course, these lives are really irrelevant if anything

happens to the second ship-- one hit and it's game

over.

To give these lives some value in view of the game's

central mechanic-- defending the other ship-- I

enabled the player to commit a strategic self-

sacrafice. When the player collides with an enemy, all

other enemies currently on the field and cleared from

it. So, when an enemy is getting too close to the

President's ship, a player with an extra life can

choose to ram himself into something, thus making

the save.

I felt such a useful possibility would strengthen a

player's desire to garner extra lives in case he needed

to use them later. Initially, I decided that the first new

life would be earned at 10,000 points, the second at

20,000, the third at 40,000, and so on, doubling like

an experience table in an old RPG. But the flaws in

this plan were two-fold; first of all, once I had settled

on an extremely finite number of stages, it became

apparent that the possibilities for extra lives were very

limited. Secondly, it would make for very long dry

stretches of time between 40 and 80 and 160,000.

Taking the advice of my wife on the subject, I gave

the player an extra life at every 10,000 points. This

made the difficulty curve significantly less steep

without changing the other aspects of the game play.

This decision, coupled with the others, resulted in a

very happy accident. Recall that there is an accuracy

bonus (10,000 for 100%), that special weapons do not

affect the bullet count, and that the double shot scores

1.5 more points. Can you see where this is going?

Let's say, for example, that you kill ten enemies with

ten normal bullets-- that's 10 (hits) divided by 10

(bullets) for an accuracy rate of 1-- that's 10,000

points. Now let's say that you killed ten more

enemies with your double shot. That's 20 (hits)

divided by 10 (bullets)-- that's an accuracy rate of 2.

That's 20,000 bonus points and two extra lives. Now,

let's say you fire one normal bullet at one enemy, grab

a double shot, and hit twenty-nine other enemies

solely with that. That's an accuracy rate of 3000%.

That's thirty extra lives.

Wow, I thought. That's really cool. That could

potentially break the game. But my first impulse was,

let's keep it in. For one thing, I figured if I had that

reaction to it, other players might have the same. It

makes the double shot more valuable than it would be

otherwise, preventing it from looking like a "nothing"

power-up in comparison to the tower, bomb, or

especially the homing missile.

And, secondly, there was the nature of the game itself

to take into account. You could have a hundred extra

lives, and if one enemy hit the other ship just once, it

would still be game over. This "game breaking"

feature could certainly be an advantage to the player,

giving him more ships to sacrafice if need be, but he'd

still have to play the game.

And, coming back to that screen-clearing sacrafice

feature, its implementation resulted in another

unexpected surprise, one that nerfed the homing

missile further away from the realm of near-infallibility.

Playing through the first boss fight, I found that once I

came into contact with the boss's shots or missiles,

he-- like all the other enemies before him--

disappeared. Since this was more-or-less against the

entire idea of a boss fight, I disassociated the boss

objects from the other enemy object types-- not

linking them to "pirate 1" or "enemy parent".

Now, if you've been paying close attention, you know

that the homing missiles are set to move towards the

enemy parent object and its children, which means, of

course, that the homing missiles do not move directly

towards the boss. Instead, they move towards the

hidden enemy parent object situated in the HUD.

With the larger boss objects, the homing missiles will

of course make contact as the boss object would be

between them and their goal, but with the smaller

bosses-- those in levels two, four, and five-- the

homing missile isn't quite as perfect.

Written by Tom Russell

Senseless War is my latest game, a game I started on

March 8, 2007. It all started as I was playing the game

that inspired me to make Senseless War; a tower

defense game called Middle Earth by mikeb33. As

soon as I finished playing Middle Earth, I was full of

excitement and inspiration. I wanted to make a tower

defense game myself and the ideas were just flowing

through my head. So I opened Game Maker, created

a new sprite, and started the game Senseless War.

Then came the first problem, I had no idea how to

make a tower defense game. So I quickly went

straight to the GMC and started looking for examples

of TD games. I downloaded many examples and each

time I still had no idea what to do. Many of the

examples made no sense to me at the time and I

nearly lost interest. Then, after a while of searching, I

found one example that did help me understand

better, and after playing around with the example and

learning what does what, I then quickly started SW.

The first month of SW was full of development. I had

released a beta already and had already gotten some

inspiring compliments. The start of SW was so intense

that I had a new beta nearly every week for around

two months, constantly adding new things. Once I had

the engine completed, adding new units to the game

was nothing. I had found graphics that I liked, which

at the time were stickfigures, and I was proud already.

At this point, SW itself was a simple tower defense

game, with only a small fraction of things to buy

compared to now. I soon added more units, defenses

and even started to make what I called God Powers.

It was a grand start of a game. Soon after the 7th

beta, a player of my game PMed me, his name was

Mentos and he suggested at the time to add a

highscore table. He added it himself and we became

partners. After that, we had a highscore table and I

knew I was really going to make something special as

well.

The months passed by and I constantly added to SW.

Releasing a beta every 2-4 weeks, I was surprised by

the amount of responses I was getting. My original

thread had at the time over 40 pages of replies. By

beta 17, I was proud of what I had. Soon after that,

my game got placed on Game Hippo (R.I.P) and beta

17 was downloaded over 7000 times. Reviews and

articles about SW were written, and all was going well.

After that, I slowed down and started working on other

projects of mine. After accidentally releasing the

source of SW and after about a year of consistent, but

dithering work, I decided to postpone SW and it

stayed in the dark for a bit of time. Time went on, my

other works were finished or abandoned, and I was

again looking for some inspiration and ideas. As I

went through my abandoned games, looking for

perhaps the urge to finish them, I passed by

Senseless War, and decided to open it.

Soon after that, I was quickly changing things, adding

units, and taking some away. Changing the graphics

and making new ones. I was full of inspiration again.

The idea of online play had come and gone, never to

be made. Highscore tables had been made, hacked,

and replaced. Everything was being worked on and

polished, and I felt good about SW, I knew it was my

best game yet.

Towards the end, I found myself trying to find

something to do. It was either changing the graphics

or adding new options to the game. Finally, after fixing

every bug I could find, polishing every thing I could, I

realized it; I had finished Senseless War and I

couldn't have been any prouder.

Written by Michael Febus

If you’re planning on building more than one website

anytime soon, or you’re thinking about starting up a

web design business, you’ll realise that it’s relatively

difficult to get great resources to assist you for

nothing. That is unless you want to be dodgy and

download it all off BitTorrent.

However, over my years I’ve discovered plenty of

resources that are free and are a great addition to

your web designing. It’s especially useful for

businesses that need minimal costs and maximum

profits. So let’s go through the 10 essential free

resources for web design!

This is a wonderful application that will help you

format and organize all your website documents

properly. It is, as you may have a guessed, a basic

text editor like Notepad, but with many features that

centralise the organisation and layout of your markup

code. This includes colour-coding in plenty of

languages including HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript,

and many others. There is also tabbed support, so

you can open multiple files in one window, and switch

them via tabs. You can hide/show sections of code in

a tree-like structure (such as hiding all the content

inside the BODY container), neatly tab your code, and

do countless other things to convert and optimise all

your documents.

Notepad ++: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately for us Internet Explorer sucks. Yet,

ethically we should still be designing websites that

work for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (at least), as well

as all our friends like Firefox and Opera. However it’s

irritating for most web designers when you have to

test your website on multiple browsers, and you can

only have one version of Internet Explorer installed on

your computer at once. Well, this program contains 5

old versions of Internet Explorer, custom-designed to

not interfere with your main installation. Considering

these 5 versions don’t include Internet Explorer 7, the

general idea is that you install Internet Explorer 7 and

then MultipleIE. It’s very simple to install and it

doesn’t add crap all over your computer.

MultipleIE: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

A very valuable resource, and used globally. This is a

site that generates made up words that appear like

actual text in a website. This is for

dummy/placeholder text in your website before it is

developed, when you are yet to process the content

but would like to see what it’s like with a certain

amount of text in it.

Lipsum.com: http://www.lipsum.com/

SwishMAX has always been my preferred editor for

flash animations and websites. They’ve been very

kind to offer discontinued products for free on their

website. SwishMAX 1 is still a very application. It

allows the use of actionscript, key framing, and so on.

It’s absolutely free and much easier to use than

Adobe’s range of products.

SwishMAX: http://www.swishzone.com/

Joomla! Is a free content management system that

you can integrate into any website. You just need a

server that supports MySQL, PHP, and Apache. It’s a

little complicated to install and use, but only someone

who is able to cope with relatively complicated

installations will want a powerful beast like Joomla!

Joomla!: http://www.joomla.org/

This is a blog website designed to be easily

implemented into any website. This is great if your

client wants to add news or blog entries. To be

honest, I am yet to use it but will need to in future and

am told that it is a very useful and easy resource.

Inblogit: http://www.inblogit.com

This website takes screenshots of a web-page under

various conditions, of which you can select yourself

on an easy, tick-box based menu. This is useful for

testing to see whether your website looks correct on

different browsers, resolutions, and java, flash, and

javascript settings (different installed versions, or

disabled entirely).

Browsershots.org: http://browsershots.org/

This is one of the most popular FTP clients around –

it is free, though it does have a nag window at the

start. Regardless, it has all the features you could

want and is very fast and smooth. The GUI is nice

too. If you’re looking for something a bit more simple

I’d suggest CoreFTP or just your basic Windows

Explorer FTP Client.

SmartFTP: http://www.smartftp.com/download/

Colour Lovers is a cute little community website,

where you can browse through colours, palettes, and

patterns that people have come up with. It’s rather

strange that people are submitting solid colours and

giving them names… but hey, whatever floats their

boat. It’s still cool to use this website if you need to

find a nice colour theme for your own design.

Colour Lovers: http://www.colourlovers.com/

If you feel unethical downloading Adobe’s Master

Collection CS3 knowing you’re only using about 5%

of its features, SplashUp is a great free web-app that

takes the form of a simplified Adobe Photoshop.

Instead of downloading the program, you use a tool

embedded into the website to make your designs – it

includes blend modes, layers, and so on.

Splash Up: http://www.splashup.com/

Written by RhysAndrews

So many 3D effects have been made with Game

Maker, but there is no place where there's a list of all

those effects. That's what I thought when I created the

3D effects topic on the Game Maker Community. The

list of effects kept growing and growing and currently

it contains 69 different effects. As the list was so un-

browsable due to the big number of effects in it, I had

been thinking about actually creating a place that

would host all the effects, but I never got around to

getting the good idea about it. Luckily though, Edge

PM'ed me about it a month later.

When Edge PMed me about a website for the effects

topic, I was delighted. Finally there was somebody

who had a really great idea for a website for the

effects. The basic idea was simple: create a website

where people can post effects, download effects, and

also comment and rate effects, as well as creating a

nice community for all those effect creators from the

Game Maker community. So after discussing some

things we should have in it, we started building the

website. As we didn’t have a host, we used BlueBind

as the base of the database. After different designs,

adding new features and changing features, we finally

completed the main website as it now is.

We currently have 15 effects on the website, and

hope more and more people will upload their effects

to get the database to be even more useful to people.

And as the main idea of the website is about effects, I

had to write a piece actually about the effects. This is

that piece, in the form of some effect reviews.

Josh really did a great job on this effect. In the

example, the shadow script is used for a dynamic

environment, but I don’t think it’s suited for that. I think

it’s suited a lot better for a static environment.

Because when you look at the screenshots or just

stand still in the example, you see how the shadows

actually seem to warp around the level. But actually,

they don't. It just draws a wall from the wall edge in

the direction of the light, which will make it look rather

unrealistic when you move around. When you stay

still though, phew, this looks awesome. I think the 4/5

it has on the site is deserved for this effect.

What’s nicer than a desctructable environment in 2D?

Add another dimension and you know what I mean.

Even though graphically D3DHT doesn’t look very

good, it actually creates the great effect of blasting a

hole in the terrain, as well as blowing everything

around the explosion center away. At first glance, it

looks rather unappealing, but when you look further

into it, it really is very nice. Just I do think the creator

could’ve done a little bit more to make it look better.

e.g. Use a more realistic grass texture, alpha map the

smoke, center the tree’s origin. But other than those

things I think brett14 really did a great job on this

effect, and it could be great looking in games in

combination with proper graphics.

On the G3D website, you can also register for an

account. This gives you a lot of extra features for the

website, like commenting on news, effects, and user

pages, rating effects, posting in the forums, and more.

The main thing you can do when you are registered is

uploading your own effects. We encourage you to

upload your own effects so the database will keep

growing and growing and get more and more usefull

to other users. To upload your effect, first register.

After registering, you will be sent an e-mail containing

validation information. After you have validated your

account, you go to Submit Effect in the main menu. In

that screen, everything speaks for itself. After you're

done filling in all (required) fields, you click the

“Submit” button. And there you go, you submitted

your effect and can now find it on your own page, on

the front page, and in the effects database.

Now, this is probably something none of you have

heard about yet, but Edge and I are developing an

effects demo to promote the website and D3D in

Game Maker in general. It will include great new

effects, as well as some simple physics and

gameplay. Effects inside the demo will include barrel

explosions, barrels leaking oil, sparks, and much

much more. We aim for it to be a great improvement

on 3D graphics in Game Maker so far. It's a little bit

too early for screenshots, as we have only created

seperate effects, and haven't combined them yet. Be

sure to check the website soon though, because we

plan to release it in the following 2 weeks.

Written by

Homepage: gmc.yoyogames.com/?showtopic=373402

Having a custom icon for your game is just one of the

things you can do to add an extra layer of polish to

your game. For a free dedicated icon maker, you

really can't get much better than IcoFX. It's image

creating is so good it could easily be a standalone

general image editor, with a whopping 10,000x zoom

you can easily pick out the details you need. While

GM only supports 32x32 standard icons, this program

also includes support for many other types, including

Vista PNG graphics. It's as easy as microwavable pie

with a superb clean and clear interface allowing you

to make what you want. You'd be daft to make icons

with anything else. This program is extremely highly

recommended.

Written by Timoi

This isn't an application, but a website that gives away

a whole piece of software everyday. For just 24 hours

the site hosts a fully legal, no strings attached, full and

registered program that can be yours for ever. If you

miss the 24 hours which it is up for, then you'll never

have another chance. It's strictly for one day only! You

won't have to visit the site every day though to get the

best applications as which ones are going to be up for

grabs are listed at the beginning of the week, and you

can subscribe to it's RSS feed. It's a great project with

many pieces of software that can be beneficial to

making games.

I used to think that throwing a friends pile of research

papers collected from all over the world into a mess

was an example of decompiling. But not anymore.

Definitely not anymore. Everyone these days is

fretting about what might happen when their source

code is decompiled and looked at (answer: probably

nothing). You can feed your hunger for security by

using the GM Obfuscator. Essentially it renames all

variables, resources, and adds junk Naples style into

your code, this makes it impossible to understand to

anyone who decompiles your game. It supports all

GM formats, is simple to use, and is growing steadily

with many features added as users demand them.

GiveAwayOfTheDay

Homepage: giveawayoftheday.com

GM Obfuscator

IconFX

Homepage: icofx.ro

GMTech Magazine will be back with Issue 15 is the new year, it

will feature a large amount of changes in order to further

improve the magazine and make sure that you all continue to

enjoy it. Thanks again to all of you who have supported us over

the last couple of years and to those who have contributed to

the magazine, your amazing help will not forgotten. We will see

you in a few months.