Game Maker - an excellent free game constructor, a leader among game development software. With the program you can easily create 2D/3D games of any genre, and even users who do not know any programming language can work with it.
The constructor has a built-in editor for scripts, sprites, rooms, and objects; it allows you to set movement routes and sequences of actions with time linkage.
The Game Maker constructor was written by Mark Overmars in Delphi language. Besides 2D/3D games, you can create various presentations and other things in its environment. There is a paid and a free version of the constructor; the free version is limited in functionality, and when starting games compiled in the program, a program logo appears.
In Game Maker, a game is created as a package of game objects. Sprites are responsible for the appearance of objects, behavior is determined by describing the objects' reactions to events. You can use a graphical representation of programs (similar to flowcharts): as a sequence of action icons.
Programming with actions is done in drag-and-drop mode. For example, to include a conditional statement, you need to drag an octagon with an icon representing the type of check onto the actions panel, and then enter the necessary parameters in the form that appears.
For advanced users there is the scripting GML language, which is similar to JavaScript, and there is the ability to create your own library of actions using Library Maker.
In GameMaker the concept of object – is a class in object-oriented programming, objects can inherit from each other.
They are placed in the game space using the room editor or they can be created dynamically. When there is only one object in the current room, you can refer to it using the generic name of that object's class; when there are multiple instances of objects, to refer to a specific instance you need to know the ID number, using it as a reference to the object.
Main features:
- Built-in programming language GML (Game Maker Language);
- Integrates with Steam;
- Supports many Internet platforms (Developer Services Portal);
- Poorly optimized for large games;
- Developers have completely stopped developing the 3D mode;
- Currently Game Maker is more intended for mobile platforms.
The GML language includes tools for loading and using dynamic external libraries, which provides expansion of the functionality and procedures of Game Maker that are written in other languages. Together with the GML binding, external DLLs can be packaged into a GameMaker extension package.
