GameMaker Blog

A new game maker game reviews forum will soon be opening at the official Game Maker Community.  Created in response to a recent request for more high quality reviews the currently empty section will showcase “selected reviews of GM games that the reviewer thinks are noteworthy and deserve attention.”

Writing on the GMC administrator KC LC explained the purpose of the Reviewer’s Choice forum as being “devoted to bringing member’s attention to worthwhile games. That doesn’t mean reviews can’t find fault with a game, or suggest improvements. But we won’t allow members to post reviews that bash bad games.”

A discussion is currently underway as to who will have permission to post reviews once it is officially opened.

Rarely are Game Maker magazines given names of the quality that Evan McClane chose to christen his twice a year publication with.

The launch issue of what appears to be the Game Maker magazine with the least regular release schedule contains brief game reviews and short articles on Game Maker news topics.  Also present are featured resources such as graphics and game engines and a coding tip.

There isn’t a great deal of textual content but the non-complicated design doesn’t feel like it is lacking anything.  There is however a wordsearch.

The pages appear to be made up of images rather than containing actual text which is a minor irritant and I suspect might cause scrolling lag problems for people reading the file on older machines.

A good start but I’m not really a fan of the 6 month wait to read more and I would hope for more content with half a year of writing time.

Download 7.5MB PDF (left click only)

After getting frustrated at a recent conversation (read from bottom to top) on Twitter with Brian Fetcher on the cost of running YoYo Games CEO Sandy Duncan has released details of YoYoGames.com’s bandwidth usage for the past 6 months.

This is the first time that Sandy has commented on YoYo Games’ finances at the YoYoGames.com website.

I haven’t been able to work out a reason for the spike in traffic at the end of October/early November but the drop in August can be appointed to over 24 hours of downtime effecting the main site.

The last figures we had previous to this were “upwards of 10TB a month” in June last year. See also YoYo Games record annual loss of £180,000 which Sandy refers to in one of his Tweets.

GMIndie have released the sixth issue (1.72MB pdf) of their Game Maker magazine and have announced that they are switching from a weekly to a fortnightly release schedule “if we don’t decide to discontinue the magazine”.

The introduction section of the magazine also reveals that the publication is apparently editorless yet this is the best issue so far.

The main review is of the YoYo Games featured Time Still, also present are short reviews of Prototyping the Invaders, Sludge, Wheels of Imagination 2 and Myths.

NAL is the interviewee in a segment which has much improved from the previous release.  He provides information on the games development projects he is currently working on and passes on some game making advice.

Although designer Matt Haigh left the magazine after just one issue the improved two-column layout has been retained and aside from some mysterious background image selections this release is very well presented.

Finally I believe I can look forward to the next issue without expecting to find something wrong.  The reviews could be a little longer – I wouldn’t mind if less games were featured – but overall a very well done issue.

Download GMIndie Magazine Issue 6

• The Escapist Magazine recently published an interview with Game Maker user cactus. Jonatan talks about Mondo Agency, IGF finalist Tuning and the psychedelic theme of his games.

• Keith Stuart made a post today in today’s Guardian Games Blog title “How to become an indie developer in eight steps. Developer Rob Fearon recommends Game Maker:
  

  “Personally, I prefer Game Maker which is a whopping $25. Shoddy DRM and lack of regular updates aside, it’s an immense package.”
  -Rob Fearon, Guardian Games Blog

  A number of the developers mentioned in the article may be familiar to you.

• Ubisoft recently revealed how they plan to combat piracy of their titles in the future – by requiring users to create an online account which they can then use to download purchased games on any computer. Something similar for Game Maker someday?

The results are in for the fourth Game Jolt contest, themed Rogue. Two of the three placing entries were created in Game Maker (the third in Construct). See previous blog entry listing all the Game Maker-made entrants.

Third place: Flood the Chamber by scoz
Created in: Game Maker
Current Total Plays/Downloads: 13,152
Current Public Rating: 4.0
Previous placements: None
Play on Game Jolt

Read more…

Regardless of what it says above this is from the Jan-Feb 2010 issue

A serious question this.

Indie Game Magazine is a paid for 6-issues-a-year publication, available both online and in print, that features reviews of Indie games and articles aimed at the creators of such titles.

The cheapest normal subscription price is $19.95 a year (about $3.30 an issue) with an extra $5 on top if you want access to back issues and have access to “insider information” articles on the site. A print subscription costs $40 in the US and $50 in the UK and Canada.

Read more…