MarkUp 1
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Welcome to the very first issue pilot of what we hope will be a long-lasting phenomenon, the new MarkUp magazine!
MarkUp is written by game developers, for game developers. Since this is our first issue, it is certain that there are some bugs, and some things we could do better, so we welcome your comments.
We wanted to create this magazine, and share it with you, because we love games and game development. In fact, this love is what made us want to make sure that the game developers out there have the knowledge and resources to make more games, even better and more often.
In this Magazine, we aim to provide you with the highest quality you could get, from articles to reviews - all what you need to know about the Game Maker Community, Game Maker, and game development in general.
This Magazine's origins could be traced to the original MarkUp magazine created by almost the same team, we lost some good editors but nothing has changed ever since, in fact, we have decided to "enlarge" our magazine and make lots of improvements to its concept, and hopefully, it would receive a much larger audience than the original one did.
The magazine is currently being written by a small and limited number of people, but we hope that in the future more people will participate in this magazine. By participating you help us grow and provide game-lovers like yourself with much better and richer content.
At any rate, enough small talk! Dig on in and enjoy Issue #1 of the new Markup. Let the reading begin!
The editors of MarkUp including Eyas Sharaiha, Andris Belinskis and Robin Monks
Contents |
[edit] Game Making Forums
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Game Making Forums
As time goes by, we are starting to see more and more forums related to game making, programming, and Game Maker in general. This phenomenon has its rewards and disadvantages. Its usefulness might be expanding the Internet; providing users with more resources and uniting them. Overall, this would allow them to work more efficiently in groups, and therefore have a better output.
However, it can be argued that the increase of game making forums is leading to “uniting the members”; some say this is leading to the separation of Internet users.
That may be true; when we have more game making forums, internet users are more likely to be spread across the different forums instead of being united together in a smaller number of forums.
[edit] Vivid Conceptions
- Main article: Reviews/Vivid Conceptions
Mr.Chubigans and his Vertigo Games are probably well known throughout the GMC for the high quality and excellent creations that are being released. Vivid Conceptions is one of these games, a platform game like never seen before, it has excellent effects, sounds, music, game play, and most of all: a great storyline.
The game itself showcases the qualities of Mr.Chubigans as an excellent programmer, great writer, and a very imaginative person. It is something the members of the GMC never saw before, a game where the player is a micro-organism fighting for its survival! This micro-organism can reproduce (asexually), have dreams that affect its actual lives, and as always: fight and jump, but beware from the ants which have penetrated the earth’s crust and destroyed most of this species by its ignorance.
[edit] Boingo
- Main article: Reviews/Boingo
Many people do believe that first games tend to be of low quality and just bad in general, but Gizmo199 has proven them wrong! Others think that games that are done with no or little Drag ‘n’ Drop aren’t of good quality, but again, they were proven wrong! Boingo is a very simple game, mainly written with the simple Drag ‘n’ Drop functions “except for the alpha stuff”, as Gizmo199 said.
[edit] Easter Avenger
- Main article: Reviews/Easter Avenger
Image:Easter Avenger.pngFor those of you who have not played Easter Avenger yet, I’m telling you: you have missed a lot! This game is one of the very well done games. I have thought it was great in almost every aspect: excellent graphics, great game play, nice music, and the game is very addictive.
[edit] Graphics
For some reason, most reviewers start by reviewing the graphics, personally, I don’t think that graphics are the most important, never the less, I’ll start by reviewing them! As you can see in the screenshot below, the game is very colorful, bright and happy, and at the same time: very well done. I like the childish and sarcastic flavor that has the graphics (and the rest of the game actually) has added to the game. I’m also very impressed with how smooth they are in terms sprite edges, as well as the details of the sprites themselves.
[edit] Introduction to Game Publishing
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Introduction to Game Publishing
Game Maker is an exceptional program that is targeted to help exceptional people with great will and wide imagination to make their “dreams” come true. On the Game Maker Community, we see lots of games being published every day, but unfortunately, we don’t notice the great deal of games that aren’t being published, even though they are really great – sometimes even complete – but never have a chance to be distributed!
That is why I will dedicate this article for those of you who weren’t so lucky in terms of finding good hosts for your games and projects. This is because I – and any other GMC Member – would really love to see more good games in the GMC, and higher productivity rates.
There are many types of sites on the net that would help you publish your game starting from file hosting till other software like installers, etc. Now, I will start explaining all the important terms as if you were an absolute newcomer with very little or no experience regarding the internet, etc., because that was what happened to me when I joined a few years back.
[edit] Eo: The Evolution
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Eo: The Evolution
Eo is one of the very famous Game Maker groups, the group started as “H Unit” and later evolved into its current forum.
Below is one of my past interviews with Hyun, the “creator” or “founder” of the group. The interview took place slightly after the announcement of the “Launch of Eo” what seems like a decade ago.
I really apologize to Hyun for taking so long to publish this article, but life got in the way for a while.
[edit] Spotlight
- Main article: Reviews/3D RTS Engine
In the spotlight for this issue, we have an excellent engine that is still in the works, probably missing a lot from its final stage, but still, I would consider it a legend a work of art. I present to you the 3D RTS Engine.
Now before I start telling you how wonderful this engine is, I must confess, I have no idea why the guy picked this name; I mean – come on!
There is no need to waste your time gazing at this picture trying to remember from which commercial game it was taken from, because it wasn’t! It is actually no more than a simple screenshot of the 3D RTS Engine! The features of this engine are very important in the Real Time Strategy gaming market, such as unit arrangement (here it exists as line, cone, and rectangle), path finding, and cool 3D graphics!
[edit] Guide to a better Game Design
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Guide to a Better Game Design
Game Design is the most important part of any game, no matter how good is the graphics, sounds, and game play is – no game would ever be complete without having good Game Design. And, in this guide, we will show you some good ways to have good game design and therefore a good game in general.
[edit] Useful Game Maker Stuff
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Useful Game Maker Stuff: Scripts
In the “Extending Game Maker” forum, we find lots of good scripts and DLLs for download, all of them could be useful for many games, and we’re going to point out some of the useful scripts, and some of them didn’t get that much attention.
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Useful Game Maker Stuff: DLLs
In the “Extending Game Maker” forum, we find lots of good scripts and DLLs for download, all of them could be useful for many games, and we’re going to point out some of the useful DLLs, and some of them didn’t get that much attention. This is part two of our article.
[edit] Game Maker's Benefits
- Main article: MarkUp 1/Game Maker's Benefits
Game Maker might be criticized outside the Game Maker Community, but no one who has truly tried it can deny its benefits.
Game Maker is beneficial to computer users who have just begun programming, and also to advanced users who are professional at coding, etc.
That is because Game Maker, in principle, is based on many geometrical and mathematical concepts that are necessary to understand for better educational performance in schools and even universities.
[edit] Conclusion
And that’s it; the very first issue of MarkUp is complete! It has truly been delightful to work on it. This issue has been edited, corrected, written by, and designed by the GMking.org staff and members – everyone’s efforts are truly appreciated.
In the future issues of MarkUp, we’ll be expanding the articles, writers, and staff in general to make a much more versatile magazine, dedicated to Game Development in general. You will see more nice articles and tips, rants, talks about codes, reviews of games and IDEs as well as much more.
Everyone at GMking.org has done a magnificent job, and that’s why I’d like to dedicate this portion of the magazine to talk about GMking.org and its services.
For those who do not know, “GMking” stands for Game Making, and that’s what it is all about. GMking.org is dedicated to provide first class services to all game developers on any programming language, IDE, or operating system.
GMking.org has many services, included a very nice uploader called OpenLoad (http://openload.info), an IRC Server (irc://irc.gamemaking.org), a Game Development wiki (http://wiki.gmking.org), a supportive community (http://forums.gmking.org), and the main site of course (http://gmking.org), which provides its visitors with downloads of tutorials, examples, and software.
I’d like to talk about the IRC Network in specific, as it is a great medium of communication. We offer anyone and everyone to make their own channel on irc.gamemaking.org for free – all Game development channels are encouraged and appreciated as well.
Don’t forget to try out our uploader as well; its excellent download speed (and normal upload speed) will surely impress you.
And since I’m running out of space, I’ll just close with GMking.org’s slogan:
Let them Make Games!
[edit] Colophon
[edit] Editors
- Eyas Sharaiha
- Robin Monks
- Andris Belinskis
[edit] Cover Design
- Eyas Sharaiha
- Niekie
[edit] Special Thanks
Special thanks to Jaco ter Braak (Yako) for proof-reading and checking of the content of the magazine.
