Book Image

GameMaker Cookbook

Book Image

GameMaker Cookbook

Overview of this book

GameMaker: Studio started off as a tool capable of creating simple games using a drag-and-drop interface. Since then, it has grown to become a powerful instrument to make release-ready games for PC, Mac, mobile devices, and even current-gen consoles. GameMaker is designed to allow its users to develop games without having to learn any of the complex programming languages such as C++ or Java. It also allows redistribution across multiple platforms. This book teaches you to harness GameMaker: Studio’s full potential and take your game development to new heights. It begins by covering the basics and lays a solid foundation for advanced GameMaker concepts. Moving on, it covers topics such as controls, physics, and advanced movement, employing a strategic approach to the learning curve. The book concludes by providing insights into complex concepts such as the GUI, menus, save system, lighting, particles, and VFX. By the end of the book, you will be able to design games using GameMaker: Studio and implement the same techniques in other games you intend to design.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
GameMaker Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Making your character jump


Imagine that you grew up playing games, such as Pitfall, Super Mario Bros, or Metroid (it's likely the case for many of you). Now imagine playing these games without a jump button. You couldn't, could you? Of course not; these games feature jumping over obstacles and between platforms as a major gameplay element. Now, imagine you want to make your own platforming game. How would you make your character jump? Let's find out!

Getting ready

You'll need a character with movement controls, not unlike the ones you may have by following the preceding recipes. A jump animation is a good thing to have as well. It's not absolutely necessary, but I wrote the following code to incorporate one. You'll also need ground objects and any platforms you wish to have. You need to create one object with no sprite and call it obj_ground_parent. From there, you can create your platforms and ground objects with appropriate sprites, but make sure they all have obj_ground_parent listed as...