Over the past 9 months my involvement in Game Maker has been pretty minimal. I’ve essentially stopped making any games, I’ve grown lax in my moderating duties at Yoyogames, and I haven’t posted on the GMC in a long time. I thought I owed the few of you who might still be following me an explanation. At first I thought the primary reason for my absence was school. I am moving on in life, working on getting into college, and the past year has been so busy with getting ready for that that I lost the time that I used to have. 3 years ago I had a couple of extra hours each day just to mess around on the computer with Game Maker, and that was one of my most productive periods. The last two years, however, simply haven’t contained enough hours to allow me to continue. My music studies and school work have taken precedence.
But school isn’t the only reason. A lot of other people that I met on the GMC and Yoyogames are still strongly involved. Trollsplatterer has been a key mod at YYG for as long as I have been making games, and many other members have stuck around as well. Nevertheless, I have seen the recent changes in Yoyogames (the company) and how those changes have affected the Game Maker community. YYG’s shift towards more professional game development and the delegation of the original YYG site to a “sandbox” led to the deterioration of the community. Members migrated to other sites: GMC, Gamejolt, GMG, etc. Once schoolwork dragged me away, this deterioration made me less inclined to prioritize comming back. Even Game Maker as a program has changed in a way that makes it harder to work with. While I really enjoy the 8.1 updates like the room editor, I have also found that many of the old extensions and dlls that I used to use frequently have not been updated for the new version, and since version 8 is hard to get, I don’t find myself drawn in to game making quite as much.
Perhaps, as well, I have also matured as a person. As we grow, we change, and I think I have drifted away from game making because I didn’t find it as inspiring as I did three or four years ago. I don’t really know. I need to go do some more soul searching to find out.
To sum it all up, I’m not sure where I’m going from here. I think maybe this summer I’ll try to get back into Game Making and finish up Mower Madness. I might do a sequel to one of my older games (Fish of Korcan 2 is looking like a good candidate) or maybe another arcade game like Tetrex. Something small where I don’t have to do a strong storyline. But after that, in college, I don’t know what is going to happen. I’ll be very, very busy next year pursuing a double-degree. It’s a bittersweet moment.
So a fond farewell to the last three or four years. You were fun, wonderfully creative, and nerdy, to say the least. This is a new beginning, I think, and beginnings lead you places. To new middles and new ends. Perhaps Game Maker will be one of those middles. I certainly hope so.
Look for Mower Madness to be released sometime in the next couple months. Things would be so much easier if I could actually draw decently (maybe I’m just not patient enough) or had a dedicated artist. The graphics take a lot of work, though I also have to figure out the details of the gameplay mechanic and come up with a good ending that involves cats somehow but isn’t too graphic (no kitty bloodshed).
Cheers,
A saurus1
P.S. Leave a comment if you’d like me to do another video or tutorial or something. I need motivation 😛
Asaurus Games 