Issue 1 includes an article on game theory, an interview with Game Maker user Notcturne on the Game Jam, snippets of news, and obligatory GM game reviews. There are 20 pages of content in total, including the front and back covers.

You can grab a copy of the magazine for the rather ambitious fee of $4.50USD for a printed edition. Additionally, you can also freely purchase a digital copy, but with a registered account at MagCloud.

A mirror of the digital version on Dropbox has also been provided for those who wish not to subscribe to the MagCloud service.

The magazine has been developed by the “surviving members” of IndieGo magazine, who subsequently failed to make three issues of their previous endeavor.

In a post on the Game Maker Community, The Independent Gamer states that IndieGo, which was established only two months a go during mid-September of 2011, has now folded.

IndieGo was perhaps best known for causing controversy after announcing a false partnership with YoYo Games earlier this year, which eventually lead to YoYo Games CEO Sandy Duncan posting a Twitter update, where he denied  knowing anything about it.

New GM Magazine “The Independent Gamer” to Replace IndieGo is taken from: GameMaker Blog

It’s infamously difficult to get members of the GameMaker Community to buy anything so deciding to go along the paid-for route was at best an incredibly ambitious, if not entirely foolhardy route to go down.  Especially when all your target customers have seen from you previously is a terribly low-quality “sample” issue which did little to inspire confidence in the project.

A monthly release schedule is planned. Even with the dollars flowing, or rather I suspect dripping in, I don’t see this release schedule with this price-point sticking around long.

For, as they describe themselves, a “business” planning to make money from such a product things were always going to be tricky.  Arriving on the scene with a paid-for title seems rather presumptuous – people aren’t going to want to spend and try it out unless they know there are contributions from top-name writers and the magazine includes exclusive content they can’t get anywhere else. On the other-hand the idea of turning a free magazine into a paid publication doesn’t sound like it would end well either, even if they had managed to build up some kind of reputation with early free releases.

With the fee they simply won’t get the feedback they need to improve the issue, and who wants to write for a magazine which will invariably be read by a fraction of those who browse the free alternatives.

Is the answer advertisements? GameMaker Tech did towards the end of its lifespan carry paid adverts but the income they earned was derisory compared to the number of hours that was put into producing 17 issues by a group of willing community members. I just don’t think there is any place for a paid-for GameMaker media project however it is wrapped up – in this case as a more general indie gaming magazine.

By choosing to position the magazine down these lines the editors have instantly placed it against much tougher competition. IndieGo is now competing against far more formidable opposition – there is already the paid-for Indie Game Magazine for one, not to mention a whole host of indie gaming blogs and news sites, several of them with professional paid writers.

Okay I get the point – what about the actual magazine…
Is it a bad magazine?  By GameMaker magazine standards – no, it’s probably above average for a first issue. True that doesn’t set the highest bar but we need to compare it with something. 

It’s certainly not up there with one of the top magazines. At 15 pages it is much shorter than the most recent indie(Magazine) except as it doesn’t include any tutorials I imagine the number of articles and reviews is not much lower, although they are shorter and more poorly written.

The issue opens with the traditional message from the editor. “It is my job to read everything that gets put into the magazine and sieve out the typo’s…”. I wish I could believe that was intentional irony. Sadly I cannot.

You can win a copy of GameMaker 8.1 – ideal for the kind of person who is willing to take a punt with a $1 payment online but not spend $40 on an established piece of software.  Still, one shouldn’t deride the magazine too much for this, they are at least offering a competition with a worthwhile prize, even if it’s selection at first seems oxymoronic given the presence of a cover price. You can see the details to enter, and read much of the magazine if you are willing to strain, by using the MagCloud issue preview.

I will admit here that this is how I am viewing the issue as nothing inspired me to buy this issue beforehand and after flicking through a few pages of the preview nothing changed my mind. There is a single column layout, basic white on blue and black on white headings and a few screenshots placed squarely on the pages.

The written content consists of a positive angle/press release for GameMaker creation A Shapian’s Tale which has been featured on indie(Radio) and looks like it might be a decent game.

Then comes a “review” of Anomaly Warzone which scores more “overall” than it does in any of the individual categories. The game is certainly described, something often lacking from reviews in newly-launched GameMaker magazines, but in this instance it is the review itself which is lacking. It’s far too short and, for a review, lacks opinion. The same could be said of the Pollushot review which follows, though looking back at my own review it looks like I fell into the same trap.

XBox Indie Game Avatar Farm and a Minecraft article follow together with a review of the “PC-Browser Based” game Metropolis Online which I couldn’t find. As none of the articles had obvious links to play or download the games I don’t think I would have been able to do so even if I had purchased the issue – a quick search bought up just a Superman game.

Writing at the YoYo Games forum topic chainsawkitten described the quality of the articles as “abysmal” and the style of the writing as “uninteresting and full of irrelevant rambles”. Like him I didn’t read every word.

The promised “latest and exclusive news on YoYo games” never materialised.  With Kirsty saying the Dundee lot had been “involved with Indie Go” and the release originally scheduled for the same day as GameMaker:HTML5 I dared to believe it might actually contain such content.  It didn’t. There were several competitions though, presumably 2 of them with prizes donated by YoYo Games.

GameMaker magazines have always had the perennial problem along the lines of too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  Starting a magazine on your own or with a couple of friends is easy.  Running a good magazine with a group of contributors issue after issue is hard.

The goal of the magazine publishers is “to spread the word of indie gaming to the world”. At $1 a time they won’t.

IndieGo magazine issue 1 is available to buy via HP for $1.

Edit Sep 27th – Future PDF versions of the magazine will be free (see comments).

IndieGo Magazine – Commercial “Independent Gaming”/GameMaker Magazine is taken from: GameMaker Blog

The cover feature, a look at the recent Ludum Dare 21 gamejam and competition, sadly featured only recycled content originally posted on the Ludum Dare blog. Several “guest writers” contributed an appraisal of the development of their games, dubbed “postmortems”, which were delivered in various forms.

Continuing the issue’s theme there are reviews of the winning Ludum Dare games and a short interview with Marach who created of the third placed game in the competition. There is also a brief cross-platform motion blur tutorial and the usual news section which announces the release of the Tululoo HTML game creation tool.

Tululoo is developed by Zoltán Pércsich (silentworks) who made the Silent Walk FPS creator and has created GameMaker games in the past including Park Racer. indie(Function) describe Tululoo as “super simple to use”, it will be interesting to see the kind of games produced using it.

Switch to Fortnightly Releases
Editor Bret Hudson opened the issue announcing that as school had resumed the magazine would switch to a fortnightly release schedule so the magazine doesn’t have to be rushed.

To be honest I’m surprised and quite impressed that the magazine, which mostly covers GameMaker and FlashPunk game development, stuck to their initial turnaround time for so long.  The indie(Function) team have now published 15 issues, the vast majority of which have come out on time despite their demanding weekly release schedule. Not many GameMaker e-magazines have done that.

indieFunction Publishes 15th Issue and Switches to Fortnightly Releases is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Since that last release Kay completely left “the GameMaker scene”, time which has seen numerous developments and announcements surrounding the future of the GameMaker software.

In order to summarise what he’d missed since then I first had to remind myself of the major developments that had occurred. This post will serve as a recap for Kay and anyone else interested in a summary of key milestones in the GameMaker (or as it was then Game Maker) community over the last couple of years in one place.

2009

• Game Maker 8 Released, the first new version in almost 3 years.  Major sprite and script editor updates.

 2010

• YoYo Games move to Dundee
• Mike Dailly and Russell Kay join
• GameMaker for Mac released
• SkyDiver Mach II is the first game published by YoYo Games and becomes available in the iTunes store.
• Simply Solitaire HD becomes the first GameMaker game published on Android

2011

• GreenTech+ becomes first GameMaker game playable on PSP and as a PlayStation Mini
• Game Maker becomes GameMaker with the release of GameMaker 8.1
• GameMaker 8.1 introduces a built in product updater, and regular updates are now being delivered.
• GameMaker 8.1 also features new Lite restrictions and a new registration system
• GameMaker Studio is announced which will allow exporting games in iOS, Android and HTML5 formats.
• Price increased to $39.99
• GameMaker HTML5 enters alpha, demo games released.
• YoYo Games now employ 14 fulltime staff

And the magazines we’ve seen launch (and release more than a single issue) since the last GMTech:  GMIndie, KwikLook, Overbyte, Nikc-Nack, GMAG, Game Maker’s Digest, This Is Indie, RekameMag, indie(Magazine)

Have I missed anything? If you recall any other significant developments with regards to GameMaker please post them in the comments so I can update the list.

Since Game Maker Tech is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Andrew McCluskey recently released the fourth issue of his GameMaker magazine RekameMag.

Download 7.8MB pdf: Dropbox Host-A

The Flaws of Ratings explores the lunacy behind numerical based rating systems commonly used to review and compare games.  In the end everything is subjective and the article concludes that numbers should be taken with a big pinch of salt by developers who should instead focusing on reviews and comments rather than a mathematical average.

Budgetless Besides Billions asks how indie titles created in the evenings after work can exist alongside titles built by professional game studios who have considerably more money and time to invest.  The article covers the growing popularity of indie games and how some of these games break into the “mainstream” and are played by console gamers even if they may not realise they are actively seeking them out.

The articles in this issue are all rather short but are worth a read in this well-designed release.  Money for Something very briefly covers some of the points that should be considered before you attempt to sell a game, and there’s also an interview with Andrew’s flatmate and fellow YoYo Games employee Darrell Flood.

Reviewed (with numerical ratings!) are GameMaker games Air Hockey Unlimited, In a Dungeon, Highway Racer, and terrible boxed Brazilian title The Little Car in the Big Race.  In a magazine competition you can win the game, but you don’t want to.  The issue closes with some image mock-ups of GameMaker games invading film poster art.

Previous Issues: Rekame Mag 1 June 2010, Rekame Mag 2 June 2010, Rekame Mag 3 October 2010.

RekameMag – Issue 4 is taken from: GameMaker Blog

The magazine starts with a three page round up of indie gaming news before 3 GameMaker games are reviewed. The games are Helicopter Hero in which you fly around a city killing terrorists on top of tower blocks, the tile-placing puzzler Blocchi and Vlambeer’s Super Crate Box (our own review here).

I had assumed that “Greg Lobanov Speaks – The legend pours his heart out” inferred that there would be an interview with the developer banov inside, however this failed to materialise. Instead “Banov Speaks” was a screenshot of an ironic review Greg had written at YoYoGames.

The third instalment of Erik Paldanius Online Game Development in Game Maker tutorial is followed by the first part of an introduction to Java which starts by recommending using MS Notepad and the command line interface instead of an IDE.

The Tweets of the Week page is in there as is a promise of future details for an upcoming indie(Function)/GameJolt competition.

Editor Bret Hudson opens the magazine with the famous words “we might take a short hiatus later this month”. “If we disappear, don’t worry! We’re just gathering content so we can become stronger than ever.” Perhaps we’ll see RekameMag 4 in this gap.

Download Indie(Magazine) #10 as a 5.1MB .PDF

indie(Magazine) Issue 10 – “Hiatus” is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Mike Dailly is impressed with the performance of HTML5 on the next version of Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. Testing a GameMaker developed HTML5 animation on the beta of iOS5 Mike tweeted that it ran at “10-15 times the speed of iOS4.4″. A test animation which was “1/5 the size of the Flash version” achieved 60fps as an iOS web app. [Mike Dailly's Twitter]

TrueValhalla has posted about the donations his projects have received at the Myriad Online forum.

indie(Function) 6 with Uriel Griffin, iOS5 HTML5 Speed is taken from: GameMaker Blog

> Download Overbyte 4 (left click only)

The magazine starts with an “obligatory news” section which briefly covers the relaunch of both the YoYo Games website and Game Maker’s Digest magazine.  Tips to keep motivated then suggests some ways you can help improve the chances of finishing game development projects.

In Does the community really support GM RC looks at complaints from some members of the YoYo Games Forums.  Apparently there was a petition against YoYo Games’ intention to restrict GameMaker game uploads to later versions of the software on the new site.  The article dismisses these complaints and the line  ”YoYo Games reserves the right to run their business anyway they choose” made me giggle.

Also covered is the proposed nD handheld gaming console and the results of RC’s 2D Game Marketing Survey.

There is an interview with Connor “Time” Ullmann, Daniel Remar writes about the making of Hero Core  and there are one-page reviews of Tectoccular, Narrow and Squirrels With Machine Guns.

I was surprised to see a couple of readers criticise the, in their opinion, lack of spacing  in the magazine as I thought this was fine.

There were a few grammar niggles but overall the issue is very good.  Nice to have a new issue of one of the “fun” GameMaker magazines.  Download it now.

Previous Issues:  Overbyte 1, Overbyte 2, Overbyte 3

Magazines: Overbyte Returns with 4th Issue is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Kya Suleyman then joins Bret to discuss the new YoYo Games website, a FlashDevelop beta, Game Maker’s Digest and HTML5 Game Maker.

.mp3 [language warning]

Issue 10 of Game Maker’s Digest features two articles.  The cover leads on a comprehensive interview with Landon Podbielski which covers GameMaker 3D and composing amongst other topics.

There is also an interesting article about YoYo Games titled “We are not a charity”.  The magazine had a “conversation” with YoYo Games staff in which several issues were discussed but I feel that the opportunity to present this was under-used and the article could have been better written.

This is better than the previous issue, there are still plenty “filler” pages but the adverts are gone.  Interestingly this issue is also available in Dutch though via Google Translate apparently so I would expect it to be far from perfect.

Left click only .pdf download

indie(Radio) 5 and Game Maker’s Digest 10 is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Announcing the release on indie(News) the magazine creator Brian Fetcher explained that “this issue didn’t contain as much content as was hoped. A combination of YoYo Games and real life issues got in the way. A lot of work was still put into the magazine.”

The magazine plans weekly releases but readers are not invited to contribute to future issues, instead all content will be provided by Fetcher or those he “requests” to participate.

Like the redesigned YoYo Games website launched yesterday it looks like this was pushed out to meet an internal deadline rather than concentrating on first getting the product entirely completed.

The PDF download contains 42 pages but take away the cover, contents, introduction, advertisements and section separating pages and less than half is left as real content.

The first article is a list of good and bad points about the aforementioned website redesign, complete what I think was supposed to be an erection joke. Then comes an interview with King Tetiro which puts forwards lots of questions about the work in progress GameMaker RPG Legena – The New Dawn (video).

The initial release of this issue featured empty Tutorials and Games Showcase sections however the first of these has now been filled in an updated copy of the magazine file.  Tutorials links to two of the official YoYo Games tutorials whilst Games Showcase will make its first appearance in the next issue.

There was a lot of bumf, with adverts for GameMaker 8.1 and the competing indie(Function) downright bizarre, but not a lot of real hard content in there which was a shame.  I would much prefer a shorter, less cluttered, release.

 
The fourth issue of indie(Magazine) [left-click only download] has only one piece of GameMaker content. Aside from game screenshots the design is also rather dull and there are also some transparency issues with the layout, not a great first impression.

Nathan Hurde takes a train journey and chats up a girl in her twenties who desperately tries to ignore him by playing games on her phone in what is probably the best written piece in the magazine. Despite its at times cringe-worthy style Nathan makes some valid, if rather obvious, observations about casual mobile gaming.

There is a review of the “C/C++” Steam game Death and the Fly and the C++ game Proun, a page of indie gaming tweets, a tutorial to give “guard” characters a cone of vision in Flashpunk (though the language is not declared anywhere) followed by 4 pages of code to draw the USA flag in GML and Flashpunk.

The scope is too wide, with the coverage and time spent on the content too low.

Magazines: Game Maker’s Digest 9 and indie(Magazine) 4 is taken from: GameMaker Blog