Game Maker: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

The intent of the "game-builder's toolkit" concept is to permit even the most inexperienced and computer-unfamiliar person to design, test, and publish a basic game in a matter of minutes (as opposed to days, months, or years).

When looking at the games made with these, be warned: [[Sturgeon's Law]] is in full force.

 

{{examples}}

* Klik & Play / The Games Factory / Multimedia Fusion

** The OHRRPGCE is a freeware, open-source editor that was originally a DOS application, but has now been ported to FreeBASIC for support with new Operating Systems. It boasts flexibility and a powerful scripting engine, though has strict limitations that still exist from the DOS versions. The games made use a ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''-style battle engine, with potential for complex attacks. Graphics must be drawn by the user, but has allowed creativity as a result. The engine is suited for any style of game, having a library of both high quality titles and quick fun distractions.

* [http://www.sawbladesoftware.com/ Power Game Factory]

* [[MUGEN]]

** The most robust engine for 2D [[Fighting Game]]s out there, MUGEN sports a huge variety of features that enable makers to do damn near anything with it. There are a few full games out there, mostly fan games like ''Brutal Paws of Fury Remix'' and ''[[Mortal Kombat]]: Integral'', but far more common are stand-alone characters that can simply be plugged into the engine and used against each other in an [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|anything-goes slugfest]].

* ''[http://www.scirra.com/ Construct Classic]'' (formerly known as simply ''Construct'') is a point-and-click system with some very deep systems for performing events and actions. Can get simple games up in as little as five minutes. Somewhat buggy due to its continual development state. Though the official developers are no longer working on it, members of the community are making new updates for it, probably until its successor catches up in terms of functionality. Speaking of which...

** ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20110606081154/http://www.scirra.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=35 Construct 2]'', while effectively in primitive, bare-bones state, basically a complete re-do of the original, but with a much better codebase thanks to the developers learning tons from their experiences with developing the original Construct. A licencing system is planned, though the fact that it won't be free is offset by the fact that its developers will be able to work on it full-time, resulting in faster and better updates. Designed with a modular exporting system which has the potential to allow exporting games to every platform under the sun, the first and current exporter is HTML5, as it is a reasonable multi-platform starting point, effectively making Construct 2 the first native HTML5 game maker. Despite its current development state, the Construct community has [[Serial Escalation|demonstrated its usual habit of defying limitations]] and [http://www.scirra.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=8476 made some neat stuff anyway.]{{Dead link}}

** For those who want something even easier, there's the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131031094112/http://www.ragsgame.com/Downloads.aspx RAGS suite], which is basically point and click!

** This is not a new idea either. There were at least two products released for the [[TRS-80]] Color Computer which allowed a user to specify vocabulary, rooms, items, and characters and then generated a BASIC program that implemented the game.

* [[Older Than the NES]]: Quicksilva released a program called ''Games Designer'' for the ZX Spectrum in 1983. It was fairly rudimentary, and rubbish, and it could only make four different types of shoot-em-ups, meaning that it may well have inspired ''SEUCK'', but it was a designer and it did the job.

** Bill Budge's ''Pinball Construction Set'' came out for the Apple II in 1982, making it the probable [[Ur Example]].

* ''The Quill'', and its later upgrade ''PAWS'', were Text Adventure (British for [[Interactive Fiction]]) creators of similar vintage.

* Another of the earliest was ''Adventure Construction Set'', released by Electronic Arts for Commodore64 and [[Apple II]] in 1985.

** SUDS [Single User Dungeon System] is a text adventure maker for Windows.

** Blade is another [[Visual Novel]] engine.

* [[World Builder]] was a popular graphic adventure game maker in the black-and-white [[Apple Macintosh|Macintosh]] era, and was best known for the commercial game ''[[Enchanted Scepters]]'' (among amateur authors, Ray Dunakin and Louise Hope are probably the most noted). Its creator went on to found Cyberflix Interactive and develop an [[Full Motion Video|FMV Game]] engine called Dream Factory.

* ''[[Wario Ware]] DIY'' is a Game Maker that offers an easy-but-effective game making engine, though the games are limited to the four- to eight-second duration the series is known for. A [[Game Mod|hack]], however, can be used to create "boss-type" games, which have no time limit.

* ''[[Unlimited Adventures]]'' allows to create [[Gold Box]]-style RPG games.

* Any Bethesda game based on the Gamebryo [[Game Engine]] ([[The Elder Scrolls]] III and IV, Fallout3) have editing tools released by Bethesda that have full functionality with which they created the game, allowing Total Conversion [[Game Mod|Mods]] to be created. (In addition, [[Fallout: New Vegas]] can be edited with the Fallout3 version of the editor.) [[Nehrim]] is one such example of a mod (in this case, using the Oblivion Engine)

* ''Atmosphir'' is a '''''Game Maker''''' that as of this writing includes platforming, multiplayer coop, multiplayer battle, and racing. Despite all these genres, it is not yet a full-fledged ''[[Game Engine]]''.

* [[Knytt Stories]] could be considered a tool for making [[Metroidvania]] games. Download it [https://web.archive.org/web/20131202221648/http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?page=Knytt+Stories here].

* [[Warcraft|Warcraft III]] has a map desginer that can be considered this, why? it's a RTS map maker that was used to create things as varied as a Freak'n ''racing game'' and [[Defense of the Ancients]]. a MOBA.