Affordable/Better Game Maker Alternative- Need Suggestions...

[Rudrabhoj Bhati]

Hi, for some time I have been developing an alternative to Game Maker/Construct 2. It all started when I implemented a BASIC like language which export to JavaScript and uses phaser and few libraries I created to make usable games. I dealt with complex syntax analyzing (BASIC have more english like syntax, no ';' to mark end of line, etc. making it hard work to check for errors) and challenge to design a good intermediate representation.

With that I realized I already have a working alternative to Game Maker Language! Next is creating an interactive GUI. I want to have suggestions before investing time and resources into this project

 

1. What are your views on Game Maker Studio and Construct 2 interface, which you think are generally better? If you were incharge how would you like to improve?

2. What do you think about Operating System support? I'll probably use Qt or GTK+ for GUI and C (C++ wrapper for Qt)- would it be cool if it support a huge range of operating system and platform combination even as weird as Linux and PowerPC (jokes appart, what about RaspberryPI with FreeBSD and Linux?)

3. What about target platform exports except HTML5 offcourse. Android? iOS? native Linux/OS X/FreeBSD/Windows, etc. For desktop I'll use SDL for 2D and Ogre3D for future 3D support. What would you suggest for Mobile platform 2D and 3D development. What about consoles like xbox and PS? and lesser used consoles like Ouya?

4. Suggestions about prices?

5. Suggestions/criticisms about the framework/tools/libraries used?

 

Lot of suggestions asked lol. Hopefully I would be able to create something worthwhile.

[Bluevessel Games]

In my opinion the interfaces of them are not optimised for the code sessions of users, since gm has a dephi base regarding the layout, it is affected by glitch and other bugs that make coding problematic on the long run. 

 

I should suggest you to think another way to make interfaces; as Jobs said "Think different",  because these frameworks are not good examples.

 

you should make 3 ides, one for Windows, one for linux, one for Mac. The others could be interesting but with little game community around are not economical suitable. Andorid , IOS and native are the start point, android consoles are very interesting , in this case try to optimize and offer apis  for them, blackberry is a good market potentially suitable.
The AAA consoles market is in my opionion very problematic, the difficulty for an indie to access that markets is big, both in the costs and about the quality that a game must reach.

 

Find a good way to implement audio in your framework, since the mobile html5  expirience is not so good!

 

Also multiplayer is mandatory, find the right tool for implement it and make good libraries for the user.

 

Extensions are a must. Make your framework expandable!

[Rudrabhoj Bhati]

In my opinion the interfaces of them are not optimised for the code sessions of users, since gm has a dephi base regarding the layout, it is affected by glitch and other bugs that make coding problematic on the long run. 

 

I should suggest you to think another way to make interfaces; as Jobs said "Think different",  because these frameworks are not good examples.

 

you should make 3 ides, one for Windows, one for linux, one for Mac. The others could be interesting but with little game community around are not economical suitable. Andorid , IOS and native are the start point, android consoles are very interesting , in this case try to optimize and offer apis  for them, blackberry is a good market potentially suitable.

The AAA consoles market is in my opionion very problematic, the difficulty for an indie to access that markets is big, both in the costs and about the quality that a game must reach.

 

Find a good way to implement audio in your framework, since the mobile html5  expirience is not so good!

 

Also multiplayer is mandatory, find the right tool for implement it and make good libraries for the user.

 

Extensions are a must. Make your framework expandable!

Yes... If I were at there place I would use Free Pascal instead of Delphi. You did gave a good idea by reminding consoles demand high quality which most indies wouldn't be able to give. I think then licenses should be divided- free, educational, indie and business. Difference licenses should contain different targets.

Yes extensions are must, though they'll be platform specific.

For HTML5 games specially, automatic resolution management and audio are required 'killing' features. What do you say about pricing? What should be considered 'affordable' for student/teacher, indie developer and business?

[Bluevessel Games]

The price must start according to your costs, first of all, cover these!!

 then consider that free version is a basic feature if you want to be taken in consideration from the start up indie devs, anyway be focused on the coding and exporting features the price tag is the last thing!

[PAEz]

No offense but does the world really need another BASIC like language?
I tried basic out not to long ago (Free Basic) and hated it!!!!

Its not that Free Basic is bad (its actually a dam nice bit of software and the community is fantastic (if your into making games, check out relsofts tutorials)), its the language that sux hard.....BASIC is extreme false advertising.

Not having semicolons at the end of the line sux!  Not having to put if conditions in brackets sux!  Having too many options on how you can format a line sux!  Not having to put function arguments in brackets on a call sux!  Not having the drop dead gorgeous js object as a standard variable type is something I cant live with anymore ;(.

So if your going to bother, please don't model it on BASIC....BASIC is old, old is hindsight and with that hindsight in hand how many (popular) languages that came after it modeled on it?