← All devlog posts

Hey ive been learning gamemaker for the better

Hey, I’ve been learning gamemaker for the better part of the past year, and this blog has been some great reading material. I wanted to ask: how long have you been using gamemaker for, and what (if any) education do you recommend for aspiring devs?

Hey, thanks for the question! I’ve used GameMaker Studio in earnest starting in 2015, but I also used GM5 or GM6 13-15 years ago (never got very far back then, haha). What’s helped since was a Computer Science major in college, and I’ve been working as a software developer for over five years now. Programming experience–especially the foundational stuff–is surprisingly universal.

So as far as formal education goes, I’d recommend something to do with computer science, software, etc. I’d recommend against majoring in game design, simply because it’s too specific, and the games industry is extremely competitive/difficult. Not everyone will go the same route I did, and that’s fine, but I like having a software development day job, while game design is my hobby. If it ever takes off, awesome! If not, I can still provide for my family. :)

As far as informal education, the internet is your oyster, so to speak. One of your greatest tools is learning to google pretty much everything. There’s a pretty good chance someone has done it before or run into the same issue before. If not, there are crazy smart people out there.

For learning about making games, my advice is to jump in. Just do stuff.

Follow some tutorials to get the hang of GameMaker or whatever engine you use. Make a few simple games (like Pong, Asteroids, etc.), and ramp up. Several years ago, I was making levels in Little Big Planet. Mario Maker or even RPG Maker might be something you look into as well, just to get you started thinking about putting stuff together. LBP in particular taught me simple programming logic and was surprisingly helpful when I got into college. :)

But the main principle is to pick something you want to do–a nice, solid goal–and learn how to get there. Break all the mechanics up into the tiniest possible pieces and read up on how to do those things. A player character might be composed of walking animation, moving on key presses, spritework, interacting with objects, jumping, etc., and even those can be broken down further.

As far as tutorials, I recommend:

Heartbeast also has a paid course on Udemythat a friend of mine has been working through and seems to be enjoying.

Hopefully that helps!

Also posted on Tumblr.