New Sub-Forum: Team Request

New Sub-Forum: Team Request
Article by Coffee

Well it seems that a new Sub-forum has been opened, or should I say reopened at the GMC. It's the often, requested Team Request forum. Yup, now anyone can go and post a thread asking for people to do all their work. Not literally of course, lol, but you know what I'm talking about, like this guy:

Minih-productions Needs You...yes You. -A team request by Minihobbs

It simply asks for people to do the following:

• Spriters
• Coders
• Level Designers
• Music Composers
• Beta Testers
• Artists
• Debuggers

Now, I don't know about you guys, but that sounds like everything that needs to be done to make a game, so if he's going to have other people do it, what the hell is HE planning to do. It's exactly as everyone has expected; newbs making teams in hope to get someone else do all the work and then take the credit for making the game. Of course there are some team-requests that are actually good and sound promising, for example:

[paid] Spriter Needed, Short Term. -A team request by ChIkEn AtE mY dOnUtS

It simply asks for someone to help him make some sprites, and thats all, meaning he's asking going to do some work. He describes what he would like, how many of what he would like, even provides a reference example and up to 3 ways on how to reach him via IM. Heck, even I helped him out with his first sprite, in which he specifically and clearly explained what he wanted and even provided a template, as well as a gif animation with each part of the "ship" that he wanted separate (He wanted each part to be a separate object in the game). Now that is how you request a team or help.

Now you're probably saying "Can't we just provide a template for people to request teams with?"
Sure...why we haven't I don't know, but this is what Smarty says about it:
"Also i posted a good Team Request posting template but they removed it. Selfish mods. Probably don't want my name in a pinned topic. If they come up with a posting template within a few days they got the idea from me. Otherwise they would've made it before opening it again." -Quote from Morinfen

This is the response to that message by Smarty:

"Whatever people post there, it's their ad. How well they describe what they need as team mates and what they need it for is their responsibility, and it will be their own failure if it their ads aren't written well enough.
From a moderation perspective, we can manage to tell people what not to post. But it's a waste of time to tell them what they should post, line by line, and chase them until it's perfect, or at least perfect in the eye of the beholder."

And honestly here, he's got a point. It's not like people are going to follow it 100% percent anyways.

So now, what does everyone think about this new subforum anyways? Well a poll created to determine how successful the new forum might be was made, and here are the results:

1. I would not be interested in starting or joining a team, advertised in the team forum. 45 Votes
2. I would be interested in starting a team, in the team forum. 26 Votes
3. I would be interested in joining a team, advertised in the team forum. 25 Votes

These results were taken on 7/05/07 at 1:03 PM Eastern American Time (GMT -5:00)

Well it seems that popularity isn't going to be a problem. However, many posts in the thread The New Team Requests Forum have made it obvious that the members believe this subforum will crash and die like the last time it was open. One of the members posted a statement that had some sense in it:

"Why did they open a team request forum? I mean, there was one in the past and it failed. Now the community is a lot bigger, so it's most likely it will fail due to the sheer amount of teams that will be created when the majority of the community has discovered the subforum. And a bigger community also means a bigger amount of noobs that will post." -Quote from TCGamer

So the question is whether or not this forum is going to survive. Well honestly, it's growing at a steady pace meaning it's going to get topics, but only time will tell whether or not it'll survive....probably not though. =P

Original Ideas: Are there any left?

Original Ideas: Are there any left?

An Article by Coffee

Lately, I’ve been seeing many fangames and common genre games, like Naruto: Ninja Way by Geou which is a fangame based on the famous Naruto Anima series or Fractal Fighter by Cactus which is a vertical topdown shooter game. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with these games or any games like these, both games are very good and have plenty of downloads. However, I’m not here to rant about fangames and such, I’m here to talk about original game ideas; if there are any left, and what you can do to make your game original, or at least unique. So lets think about it right now, how many original game ideas HAVE you seen? I’ve seen only a few on GMC and 64Digits but overall, not many, but it’s no one’s fault to be honest. Think about it, think about how many games have been made in GameMaker; over 250,000 games just on GMC, that’s including Work in Progress games, so making original ideas is very hard. I myself have made over 15 games, all of them close to being the same as at least one other game seen before. Many people on GMC have made a game that is similar to another game, and although that’s ok, I would, and I’m sure others, would really like to play a game that fits in one, and only one genre: Other.

The only problem with that is: How do you think of an original, possible, and fun idea? Well you’re not doing this alone; there are many people and places that can help you. One of those places being the recently discovered Three Hundred Mechanics website, where this guy will come up with an original game idea everyday for 300 days. Pretty neat, huh? Of course his ideas aren’t carved around GameMaker, so some of his ideas may seem “impossible” for GameMaker…because they are. But hey, 300 ideas, you’ve got to be able to find something to make, in fact, I’ve been eyeballing this idea of his for a while, called Side Scroll Tactics. It’s his fifth idea on his website, and I’ll just quote from his website to explain it:

“Very simply put, this is a turn based tactics game (like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea) set to a side view, platforming game perspective. Two great tastes that should taste great together. There are basically two aspects to a tactics game, that of movement and combat, which I will address here. The character abilities and balancing are largely secondary to the mechanical nature of just moving around and will not be the focus of the next few mechanics…Combat: Selecting the recipient of your actions is the second fundamental part of a tactics game. With a side scroller, you've got to take additional factors into account when deciding who you can hit. For instance, in an overhead view, either something is visible or it is not. This is usually a simplification of visibility, but it isn't distracting. Using a similar system for a side view game would be obnoxiously imprecise. Instead, I offer up a cone of vision method for selecting a unit to attack. Basically, from your character extends a cone and anything…”

And it does go on, but it’s explained very wall. Let’s think about it, is it really original? Not really, it’s like the Worm’s World Party game, yet this however is unique, remember that word? So that brings up the question again: are there anymore original ideas?

Honestly in my opinion, I believe for the GMC, I think there are only a few possible original game ideas. Still, people are constantly trying to come up with ideas never seen before, and even though they may be grand ideas and never seen before, it’s true that it has been thought of before, of course that doesn’t mean not to try to make it anyways, in fact a perfect example of that is the thread My Planet by Cbdman25, here’s the first paragraph from his post:

“This is just an idea I had for a game and I want to know whether you guys think you'd play it or not. The entire game will be set on a very, very small planet that just fits on you're screen. You live on this planet and you can walk around it and even jump, landing on the same spot. In this game there is no such thing as "falling off cliffs" because it's only a small ball on which you can roam around in.”

Soon later in the thread a member named Igl00 posted a link to a (I suppose)Flash game called Space Hopper which has the same game concept as the game Cbdman25 was making. Do I think Cbdman25 purposely copied of Space Hopper? Hell no, in fact I myself tried making a game like Cbdman25 is making and failed miserably.

So, to end this already is there really such a thing as an original idea anymore that is actually possible in GameMaker? Are add-ons to a game to make it unique the best anyone can do anymore? The only things we can do is make what we can think of and wait for someone to make another amazing, fun, and original idea, and perhaps more ideas will come from that idea itself. Making games now days that are truly unique is near impossible today, and we’re just going to have to try harder.

Shush -An Article by PhilipKugel

Nothing to “Shush” People About

Article by PhilipKugel

“A great, great, great game!” exclaims tomrussell. This new exiting 2d game was created by the master mind barrya3. The new idea of this puzzle game is to bring your baby birds to sleep. To accomplish this, you must feed the correct colored worms to the corresponding colored birds. How to move your bids is very simple. There is always one nest open. When you click, a bird it goes to that open nest. Then its nest it open. With its good game play comes good graphics. They are extremely professional looking. Also, the sound fits perfectly with the game. It was entered in a Cage Match, though lost, but the honor of being is one explains how great a game this is.

Company/Creator: barrya3

Topic: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=304271

Screenshots:

1. http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5543/screenshot100us4.png

2. http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/2984/screenshot103pl4.jpg

3. http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/1865/screenshot102nd2.png

Senseless War! -An Article By PhilipKugel

Senseless War!

Article By PhilipKugel

“Wow! This game is rather addicting…” said emperor of the Game Maker Community. The release of the game “Senseless War” brought the Junior High kid out of us. Stickmen getting tossed into the air by tornadoes, an army of zombies, and robots!!! This is truly the life we all dream of. Also, the sound is great. It really does sound like a sniper is shooter people outside your castle!!! But it suffers one thing. Graphics. Although the game play is extremely fun, the graphics are not that great. Furthermore, it still does have flaws. Besides that, it is a fantastic game and a perfect example of a WIP! Release good and exciting new demos recently keeps is fresh. So why not try it for yourself?

Company/Creator: Coffee Lover Production

Topic: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=282268

Screenshots:

1. http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/474/screenshot1355hx0.png

2. http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1555/screenshot156gq0.png

3. http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4384/screenshot114ez9.png

Senseless War "Crazy insane fun!"

Senseless War is a game just about killing and blowing up things for no apparent reason. There is really is no point to it yet, but it is similar to the classic Defend Your Castle game.

There are 3 different game modes right now:

-Arcade Mode: The default mode, defend your castle for as many levels as you can.

-Conquest Mode: Conquer the Enemy's Castle first before they capture yours.

-CTF Mode: Yup, good whole Capture the Flag. Send your units to get the enemy's flag before they get yours.

The game really has an old "Defend Your Castle" type gameplay but with some added twists. Summon things like Volcanoes, Tornadoes, Lightning Storms, and more, all to defend your castle and conquer your enemy. Also send all kinds of units, from archers, swordsmen, and catapults to tanks, helicopters and jeeps, to even crazy units, like zombies and UFO's and even God-Units.

Overall this game is good! Many, many people have downloaded past betas and loved the game, the latest beta actually got 408 downloads. Beta 15 was just released 5 days ago and already has 48 downloads. This game has been called "Crazy!" "Amazing!" "Addicting" and of course "senseless!" by many people and you'll say the same yourself, I'm sure of it. ^_^

So why don't you be the next downloader and find out if it really IS all it's called. =]

Download Link [Beta15]

City of the Dead

City of The Dead- Ok, first off, the screen is really small, only about 100X100 pixels big actually. WAIT!!! Do NOT press back quite yet. Heres why:

This game was more like an experiment, I wanted to see if I could make a small little "Hidden game" to play during school classes, meaning this game is small and soundless on purpose. Now, a few of my friends have tried playing the game while in class, and they've all said that it actually works! So now I'm uploading it for everyone else. ^_^

However, you don't need to squint your eyes if you don't want to, if you press F4 or click the fullscreen option, you can see everything much better and the game actually looks like just another TDS game, only very pixelated. Or you could now also download the bigger screen version, which includes Fog of War and a flashlight. Anyways, now onto the gameplay:

The game includes 7 weapons, which you get during the game or by cheatcode:
-Handgun
-Uzi
-Shotgun
-Machine Gun
-Rocket Launcher
-Gauss Gun
-Sword

The goal is to get to the stairway to the next level, so you're gonna have to look around alot.

There are five monsters:
Zombie (Green)
Mutant (Blueish, spits out acid)
Demon (Purple, spits out acid)
Spider (Brownish, faster than other monsters)
Bosses (Big huge purple things, spits out stuff too)

I'd say use the rocket launcher all the way. ^_^

Cheatcodes:
All weapons= box of guns
100 Health= dinner time
Goto Next room= teleporter
God Mode= godly

[Download Link] (For the Small Screen Version)
[Download Link] (For the Big Screen Version with FOW and Lighting)

[Picture]