itch.io

Hi.

Disclaimer: I am not by any means a professional game maker developer. I've only worked on projects as a hobby. But this has taught me a lot!

I started making games during grade 8 before I migrated to a new country. A friend of mine had introduced me to game maker 8. At first I was following some PDF tutorials which helped me make my first game (a car that could jump on platforms lol) . I've been using game maker for around 5 years. I have worked on more than 500 (not exaggerating) projects and only ~10 of them could be considered "complete".  

All the repetition that I had gone through when working on those projects, helped me get faster at writing GML code, a better designer, and finally be able to understand the fundamentals of programming (which helped me in other programming languages).  IT TAKES PATIENCE AND REPETITION. 

Here are the two YT channels that I was following to get better at GML

1 - https://www.youtube.com/user/999Greyfox

2 - https://www.youtube.com/user/uheartbeast

I recommend joining game jams and DO NOT THINK OF MAKING A BIG GAME. My philosophy is that the challenge is to make the most simplest game you can given the restrictions. The simplest and smallest game. As time goes on and as you work on more games, the definition of simple and small will change for you.  

The biggest mistake you can make when learning (You will always be learning for the rest of your life, and so will I) is to over scope a project. If you look at the first project I uploaded to Itch (Avoid Death) you'll see how simple the game is. Remember that I made that after working on more than 500 projects. 

I suggest following https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hwKJdF3KRAy4QIaiCSMgQ as he's made a great community around the world. I follow him, and it helps to not feel alone most of the time. 

Remember that GML will help you to wrap your head around programming in general. But I suggest moving on to other engines or frameworks such as Godot, Unity etc. after being able to make medium size projects in game maker. Because they follow a more commonly used structure of programming which WILL help you to become more "professional".

I personally have moved on to Godot and one day I will post a free Godot Project Template. 

Good luck to you my friend.

If you had any questions, please don't hesitate to ask me :) as I LOVE to help. 

PS: English is not my first language either!