my two examples have issues I don't know how to fix
Looks like you are using Game Maker Studio. Have you tried asking for help somewhere? I'm not familiar with GMS. If you can't fix them maybe try some tutorial and a simpler project.
(I have been playing with Godot after seeing Disc Room Game Jam's example GMS project. I mostly recreated it in Godot and have been modifying it since them to make my own creation.)