Crossing Bridges with GameMaker

Meet Avi! He’s teamed up with instructor Erica as part of Game-U’s Accelerate program. Avi’s exploring game design, programming, and even some 3D modeling as he and Erica come up with all kinds of cool projects to develop his skills. Recently, Avi planned and built a quiz game to test players’ knowledge of trivia. See how he did it, and then play the game for yourself!

GameMaker, a 2D game design studio, combines sprites, objects, and rooms to create a variety of games. Rooms compare to screens or environments, objects compare to props, and sprites compare to animated characters. Code reacts to different events, like button clicks, within the rooms and directs the game’s responses accordingly. Avi’s quiz game makes use of true or false buttons in each room (or on each screen), which the player can use to answer posed questions. Not sure how these buttons work? Let Avi explain! He figured out the perfect way to understand click events when he mapped out his game’s logic. The true or false buttons, Avi says, are like bridges leading to the next question room. If the player chooses the correct button, he can cross the bridge without mishap. But if the player chooses the wrong button, the bridge breaks and the player falls (AKA, game over!). By the time Avi finished his game, he was coding player room transfers without any help from Erica. He’s mastering the sprite editor too! Sprites, like flipbooks, animate a character by showing it in a graduated series of poses that can be played quickly in order to simulate movement. Avi used the sprite editor to create the backgrounds for his quiz screens. Watch the video to see his work in action – or better yet, visit https://game-u.itch.io/true-or-false-quiz to play his game yourself!

Awesome job here, Avi! You’re moving towards independent game design, and all of us here at Game-U are excited for you. Keep up the good work!