GameMaker: Studio For Dummies

Chapter 15

Ten Tips for Game Developers

In This Chapter

Thinking ahead as a game developer

Knowing where the industry is going

When I was at Game Developers Conference in early 2014, I met members of the YoYo Games team and asked them, “If you had an opportunity to speak with a large audience of people who wanted to make games for a living, what would you tell them?” We talked about the latest trends, advancements in GameMaker: Studio, career advice, and basically what a budding game developer needs to know and do to make it in the industry. This chapter is an offshoot of those conversations.

Developing Cross-Platform Games

One of the first things you need to think about before you start making your game is where and how people are going to play it. Are you making an HTML5 game that people can play on your website? Do you want to make a game that you can submit for inclusion in Apple’s App Store, or Google Play, or even for use on the Sony PS4 or Vita?

Whatever your goal, you need to know the differences between the platforms, such as which code will work where. In addition, you need to be aware of scaling and resolution issues — for example, will your heads-up display (HUD) be just as legible on a large monitor as it will on a handheld device? (Chapter 10 is all about scaling ...