Tom Francis about to teach Game Maker for beginners

This almost feels like a response to @jeff's tweet:

This all sounds pretty exciting to me considering Tom Francis himself started out knowing practically nothing about making games back in 2010 and then three years later shipping Gunpoint after having worked on it in his spare time. (He ended up resigning from PC GAMER to finish the game, but let's ignore that for now. I'm sure Jeff's future Kickstarter would do just fine!)

Edit: Part 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6dZWXUEzA

I'll keep an eye out for this as I'm doing this exactly right now with Game Maker. I also was inspired by his story.

I started learning gamemaker after listening to Patrick's interview with Tom Francis (can't link it, on mobile). Thanks to him and Scoops, I kind of know how to program now.

I'm excited to see his tutorials.

Game maker is awesome. I made a couple of games in early 2000 (basic zelda, mario and castlevania clones) and even got some fairly good reviews on one game (hey at least my games was working right? ;) ) wich was absolutly awesome. Everytime i think back it bums me out that those games got lost in time, i dont know what happend to them. Gamemaking was not my future though but still i can recommend Gamemaker to everyone and there already are tons of guides of all levels out there if you are interested. It really is super easy to make your first game despite what it seems like, it doesnt require any programming skills or previous experience whatsoever.

GUNPOINNNNTTTTTTTTTTT!!

This is great! I've started reading through the GameMaker codex thing. Forget what the word is. Oh right, "documentation". But that was weeks months ago and I didn't get very far and it's so much easier to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaawww.

I'll check this out. Thanks for the heads up!

I recommend people interested in game development give this a shot, was quite deep in the gamemaker scene around 03 to 05 and it's a great piece of software and tools for the price that is easy to learn and pretty flexible

Awesome! I saw Greg Kasavin retweet this but didn't know Tom was the creator of Gunpoint at the time. I'll be on the lookout for his videos.

Right on! Checkin' it.

That's fun. Derek Yu also did a fantastic set of Game Maker tutorials, although it's mostly in written form.

Great. What a coincidence. I just started using GM. This should be really helpful. I've been going through these, but maybe Tom will be even more insightful.

Lets make some videogames!

Tom Francis is awesome. I had the pleasure of meeting him at EGX last year (and got to play Heat Signature, which is really cool, too). He's so enthusiastic about making games, and he's a super nice guy too.

I messed around with Gamemaker 5 back in the early 00's. Made a couple of bad breakout/arkanoid clones and that was about it. Always been curious about getting deeper, but just never have. I'll definitely check out Tom's beginner tutorials.

Sweet. My wife wants me to make a game where you ride a pegasaus/unicorn around (I wish I was kidding).

Time to develop my 300+ hour SRPG i suppose! If i had any artistic skill. Or ability to retain knowledge. Or basic human drive and motivation. Sigh.

Awesome! I've always downloaded those programs and built smaller games with them, but nothing substantial. And never really knew how to tap into my creativity, what little there is, and pour it into a game.

It's also worth noting that they have a holiday sale going on right now where you can get the Professional version for 40 bucks(usually 100).

Aw, don't be so quick to knock it, man! It could be really cool. You never know til it's done, right?

Awesome, I'll have to check his tutorials out. I've tried getting into Game Maker for years but just never quite got the hang of it. (Or rather, created some insanely crappy and simply games and got discouraged)

Also, wow. I didn't realize Game Maker offered so many export options.

Always down to learn something new. Specially when its something as cool as making video games.

Bam! Thanks for the info!

Game Maker is really fun to use. You can do a lot really quickly.

Awesome

I've made a bunch of games in GameMaker. It's a great tool and easy to learn, though the drag and drop stuff is kind of a shitty, inefficient crutch and you'll find that anyone who has spent any amount of time with GameMaker will be ignoring it entirely and coding everything. Unless they're deathly afraid of coding, I'd suggest that any newbies avoid using it and just start in on the code right away. It'll just hamper your progress down the line. My Games:

http://gamejolt.com/profile/sally/153771/

I saw his tweet yesterday, might give it a serious try this time around (especially if it really is 1-2 hours a week).

Thats the beuty of it. The drag and drop stuff is super easy to get right into and when you do you see right away that the coding is just a small step away and waaaay more efficient.

You guys should learn to take a hint, this aint about a game..

Definitely going to keep an eye out. I want 2015 to be the year I finally make something, anything!

First episode up now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6dZWXUEzA

@void: I'll definitely be following his videos. I've been dabbling with Game Maker myself and have a license for Windows/Steam. The mobile modules are kinda pricey but I'm not quite ready for those yet anyway.

It's fascinating that he used a lot of the basic functions of Game Maker to create Gunpoint wherever possible instead of getting deep into code. At the beginning of the video he points out there are portions of Game Maker he's never even used and wasn't sure what they do (the timeline for example).

@monkeystick: Well the timeline is nothing fancy just a tool to let you set up timebased triggers easily but it aint superflexible.

Just wanted to bump this as the series is going really strong. Since it started, I've jumped into GameMaker pretty hard with no prior experience and I'm loving it. Really happy because I like making games (even on this silly, early level) as much as I'd hoped I would. It isn't easy, but it isn't hard with this program. Feeling very inspired and motivated.

I've had multiple ideas for games, one I've been very set on, but it's cool that once you get in there you just mess around and things grab you. Have the basics of a 2D game ala Renegade Ops right now.

@artisanbreads: Yep he's doing a great job, and unlike many tutorials is actually using code from the get go instead of the silly options available by default.

I should do this but i missed out on the GM sale.

@ripelivejam: He is now using the free version.

Couldn't agree more with that. Used his as a baseline and combing the internet for other tutorials has been super useful. Transferred their icon method into the code use because I see why Francis does it (and seems just more "legit" in general).

I like these tutorials a lot, been watching since the first one, though as a CompSci student, some of his poor coding conventions and GMLs limitations frustrate me quite a bit.

Pegasus is more interesting because you can easily (and literally) draw from the wealth of greek mythology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus#Olympus