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

Controlling a character with a mouse and keyboard


In the previous chapter, we looked at how to control your player character with a mouse, as well as a keyboard. I'm willing to bet you've played a game that required an input from both of these devices at the same time. You have, haven't you? I thought so. Let's take a look at a classic gameplay element that requires multiple inputs to shoot aliens.

Getting ready

We need a hero. Not an actual hero, mind you, but rather a player character who can run around onscreen and shoot things. For the purposes of this recipe, we'll use a static image of a guy with a gun, seen from the top. Let's turn it into a sprite called spr_player and use it to represent an object of the same name. You'll also need a sprite called spr_alien, which should be an image of an alien, also seen from above. Use this sprite to represent obj_alien. You'll need a controller object to spawn aliens, so we'll call it obj_alien_controller. To make this more of a game, let's create...