Attempting to get used in Game Maker (8.1)

[DrBlowhole20]

I remember posting in this forum once when i made a thread about my unpolished, awful looking game known as Space Karter 95, which now is much of a regret of using a obscure, outdated (poorly fantranslated) japanese software from the ashes of the 1990s. I've also made a SHMUP in Clickteam Fusion 2.5 which however has a little improved from my false development skills back in 2015, when time passed, it hasn't satisfied me. Not planning to remake both of these, while i'm having an intention to make a MSX styled SHMUP which has a unique objective of surpassing a record of my poor quality of making this game, because some time ago i started moving on Game Maker with the basics, plus making use of a new Mega Man engine in where i managed to script some enemies and a basic difficulty boss. I may won't be great at making a full-fledged engine myself, but i'd be like to be pointed out in which way i should start a SHMUP game in Game Maker. (I'm not a fan of hardcore SHMUPS like DoDonPachi as i never played those but i'm on the way for classic traditional SHMUPS like Capcom's 19XX series, Gradius, R-Type, and obscure ones like Knightmare)

[Squire Grooktook]

GMOSSE is a good place to start. It's on this board, check it out.

[eebrozgi]

I'd also recommend getting accustomed to GameMaker:Studio instead of 8.1 as early as possible. 8.1 support dropped quite a few years ago and Studio is more compatible, better optimized and grants more overall control when you get deeper into it.

[DrBlowhole20]

I'm not sure if replying to this thread since 13 days of inactivity because i don't seem to find the estimate days needed before this thread becomes a necropost, but anyways...

Well, i won't be looking around GMOSSE due to my direction towards making a retro styled SHMUP, but I'll try to make an horizontal SHMUP engine sometime. It won't be easy and might not be certain if i will get it working well. If this succeds, i'll try to upload a video to a new YouTube channel soon.

[Rozyrg]

The benefit to using 8.x is fast prototyping, so I'd *personally* stick with it awhile before jumping straight onto Studio. I still use 8.0 for this purpose quite a bit.

General advice using GM: I'd just say don't get too attached to the drag and drop stuff, learn the fundamentals of coding and shift over to using that primarily ASAP. Basically, once you know how to make it do what you want it to, learn how to convert what you've already made into code and you shouldn't need the d&d training wheels anymore.

As for starting slow, that's just part of the process. I started with 'game-making' toys like Blast Works and Dezaemon way before getting into any actual coding. (and speaking of ClickTeam, you should've seen some of my failed attempts to make anything with Klik & Play back in the day. )