I was wondering what would be a good program for game design. I use gamemaker and i have the full version of it. But it seems limited in freedom to me. So is there any other game programs out there that are freeware? ty

game maker seems like it would be the only free one that is decent and good. i used to have this really really terrible one but i forgot wot it was called.

i want to learn how to use macromedia director, it looks like it can make like anything.

You can probably try to make some cool simple games with flash. I made a couple of games with flash and its as simple as it gets. It probably cant do anything intense like PS3 or XBOX games, but it does help you understand the procedure on how a game is made and put together to some aspect. But once you have mastered the program you will have a very nice portfolio in which you can choose to pursue a career in the higher level of game development. But one thing for sure is that you will have to be devoted and committed to it if you want to make anything half as cool as something like the popular games now a days. As years goes by it seems that games are getting more complex to make and very real. So you must start early and learn fast to compete in a market that has possible the best and most complicated games to compete with.

Well let's start off somewhat in the easier realm of things.

First of all Flash, though it has and is coming along way, you will not have a hope in hell of creating any reasonable sized game with it anytime soon. It just can't handle it. But for most of the games you see around these days, it does the job considerably well, and although has it's pitfalls (it's not really made for gaming), it does have a quite a few things that save considerable time and headaches as well.

GameMaker as you mentioned is also an option, I never got with it too well, it always seemed to lack one little feature or another that really threw me off, but with it's nice little scripting language and such, it is actually pretty potentially powerful.

If you have played the game "Dink Smallwood" before, you might be aware that it enables you to use a program along with it, as well as it's native scripting language to create modifications, but also on top of that, the same company/person(s) involved, are working specifically on a new 2D game creation system, and although still somewhat in the early stages, it is looking VERY promising.

RPG Maker (2000, 2003, XP), If you are interested in something of the likes of those old (but still amazing) SNES RPG's, then this program is definitely for you. Although it is possible to create other types of games (especially with the newer XP version), it is meant for RPG's. The XP version also has a pretty powerful although annoying scripting language (it uses some form of the Ruby language), so you have a considerable amount of flexibility and with all the default resources and such that come with it, it's pretty easy to just get started and mess around.

Java is also an option, but not one I yet have any experience with, so I cannot really say.

Visual Basic programming language from Microsoft, not exactly the greatest pick for creating games, but I made a few simple games in it using the Win32 Graphics and Sound API's without any problems what so ever.

C++/Object Pascal Full on programming languages (I use Dev-CPP and Borland Delphi myself), where you can obtain very good packages for dealing with DirectX and OpenGL (so this is pretty much where all the limits are lifted aside from going nuts on optimizations with inline or pure assembler).

Well, I hope that helped and gave you some ideas lol.

I have to BUMP the C++ ->

there's enough libraries out there to help you along with a good, raw systems programming language... and OOP is quite intuitive for major design and code reusability...

check out SDL, OpenGL, DirectX, OpenAudio and various other engines (3d & physics) -- you'd be surprised how easy the programming foundations are once you get a general feel for the flexible nature of c++


I disagree with most pure assembler as it limits you to a particular processor in most cases ... unless you #ifdef out various machine-oriented calls - which of course you may have to start doing with the recent influx of 64-bit technologies...


anyways all i can say is that you'll grow out of 3rd party creation software... very proprietary in nature... eventually you'll get stuck on a mod or a tweak, but by then you'll be trapped into game maker...

i disagree with Visual Basic or Visual Studio .NET for that matter for the same reason... Yes, Microsoft is insane, and have nearly outdone JAVA with programability, but you're so limited forcing an end user to download some kind of runtim just to even try out your software...

plus, even if you would plan to move to one of these multi-platform options... such as JAVA... C++ is an intuitive step...

If you're looking for a compiler, there's a version of Microsoft Visual C++ Express 2005 you can download for free... then you could install the platform SDK and enable pure win32 applications... If you're using a version of linux, c++ is generally included, but you would probably already have some familiarity with it...

anyways, good luck - - and you'll find the best things have the steepest learning curves to provide maximum reusibility... : )

Nothing wrong with Assembler, it can out do all of those languages by leaps and bounds if used properly, it's just a lot more difficult.

VB was really meant for making games and such although it has been pulled off before, and it's not much different than using the likes of Game Maker or RPG Maker.

As for Java? Cross platform sure but you ain't going to make the next big thing in it that's for sure, or even remotely close lmao.

C/C++, tis fine .

Whats A Good Program?Whats A Good Program?

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