Author Archives: Vadym

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GameMaker: Windows-specific functions for Studio

While working on one of recent projects, I've stumbled upon few common issues that many meet - even if you are only targeting Windows in GameMaker: Studio, you cannot access files outside the game's AppData directory (not even in program directory). Neither you can order system to open a file, meaning no external "readmes" to be easily hooked up with game, nor portable configuration files, and some other limitations.
So I took an evening and made a simplistic DLL library to bring equivalents to some functions (sleep, execute_shell, non-sandboxed I/O) back for Windows target. Function list is as following:

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Simple GameJolt API plugin for Construct 2

GameJolt API plugin for Construct 2

As you may know, there's a program called Construct 2. You can make games with it. While I'm generally not a huge fan of built-in scripting system (scene editor and idea of behaviours are pretty great though), some people make nice games with that.

Also there's Game Jolt. Game Jolt is a site you can host your games, devlogs, and related media upon. It's great. I'm not sure which of Saturn's moons you are living on if you haven't heard of it by now.

Then when two come together... you can upload Construct 2 games to GameJolt, but you cannot use any of it's quite so nice Game APIs (such as high score tables, trophies, data stores...), since, well, noone made a plugin for that so far.

Seeing that, I thought that I may as well fix that part (a bit). So I have devoted a bit of time over few days and have made a plugin that provides basic functionality, such as sending scores and trophies. Everything is pretty straight-forward and easy to get hang of.

Installation is simple also - download ZIP file below, and unzip contents (a folder called "gamejolt") into HTML5 plugins directory (Construct 2\exporters\html5\plugins) in your Construct 2 installation. Upon next launch of program, GameJolt plugin will be available in "Platform specific" category alongside of Kongregate, Scirra arcade, and other items.

That's pretty much it, I guess. Download links are below. If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

GameJolt page (demo+downloads)

Update (August 2014)

Extension has been updated to include additional functions. So have been links in this post and files on GameJolt.

Notepad++: Syntax highlighting for GameMaker Studio

npp-gml-gms

Some time ago I've introduced a Notepad++ syntax highlighting file for GameMaker 8.1 and earlier versions. At the time, making a GameMaker: Studio version seemed slightly less senseful, since dynamic scripting functions are no longer supported, and code in XML files is escaped slightly, but then... oh do wait, extensions!
Extensions in GameMaker: Studio are imported into each project locally, permitting easy modification of their files. Of course, this also implies ability to edit GML files in them. Which in turn permits editing them with external editor of choice without having to deal with XML conversions.
So I took those several minutes needed, and updated UDL (user defined language) file for GameMaker: Studio. It contains all functions, variables, and constants present as of version 1.2.1264 (released January 22, 2014). Apart of new keywords, it now sticks to editor style better as well.
Oh, and you can fold code with comments (//{, //}). Foldable sections are awesome.

Download UDL (XML)

(or grab source from PasteBin, if Dropbox is somehow inaccessible)

... and if you prefer Sublime Text, there's GameMaker plugin for that too (by Cycododge).

On “You can’t make good HTML5 games in Haxe”

You can't make good HTML5 games in Haxe

- A phrase usually popping up when it comes to a discussion about HTML5 and Haxe. Which is complete nonsense. Not just that it is nonsense, but it's also a good measure of how little (read: none) research the author of phrase has made on the topic. I'm quite tired explaining to people, why their opinion about this is incorrect, so I've decided to group key points into a post,

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GameMaker: Click ‘n drag to pan view

vis-view-drag

Today I'm going to tell a bit about implementing "click and drag to scroll" type of effect in GameMaker. This particular thing is useful for strategy games (and normally bound to middle mouse button), applications (where visible area may exceed available window space), and various mobile games and applications (where visible area may be panned by tapping and dragging the finger).
Effect itself looks like this:

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Introducing: OpenFL-bitfive

OpenFL-bitfive logo

Today I'm officially releasing OpenFL-bitfive, an alternative backend to OpenFL-html5. Similar to standard backend, OpenFL-bitfive assists you at creating HTML5 games (apart of standard Flash, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, [...] ones) with use of comfortable Flash-like OpenFL API. A difference is that while focusing only on certain feature set, OpenFL-bitfive reaches quite higher performance and compatibility in its niche, also making it possible to develop mobile HTML5 games using the framework. This post goes in-depth about it.

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