Terence Byrne

Firstly I created a sprite. This sprite would be the player in the game. After giving the sprite properties, I then went on to the “edit sprite” option.

After this I then entered the “modify mask” option in order to manipulate the collision mask.

I found that the diamond Collison mask seemed more reliable as it seemed to fit the sprite better than the other shapes.

Terence Byrne

After this I went on to creating the player object. I chose the sprite we wanted to add objects to and then added events. From adding the event I could then add a step.

I then added coding to the event object in order for my sprite to be able to move, left, right, up, down.

Then I created a room known as a level to the game. Then I added the player object to the room. This was so the player could be tested e.g. if the coding was wrong I would know as the object

Terence Byrne

(sprite) would do things differently. What I found was that the player was going off the screen in gameplay.

To sort out the problem of the player going off the page I went back on my coding and added more to it in order to fix the problem.

After this I then went on to create a background. I then created another background so my game could have 2 different backgrounds. I then decided to add the 2 backgrounds and slow one background movement down to give a flying through space effect

Terence Byrne

Now my

backgrounds were created, I went on to give my game sound. I decided to give sound to bullet fired from the spaceship. So I created a player projectile (the bullet) and then gave the projectile sound after adding the projectile to the game. I coded the bullet so that it would shoot when I press enter.

Terence Byrne

I uploaded an already created sound onto gamemaker, for the gun shot effect.

After this I decided to add a particle system for my

engines on the spaceship. To create the particle system I used coding and then added it to the game

Terence Byrne

I then run the game and noticed the particle system working.

Now I needed to create an enemy sprite. So firstly I created the sprite.

Terence Byrne

I decided to copy and paste the sprite so I could add an animation. The aim was to make this piece flash

I then went on to creating a collision mask for the enemy sprite.

I then coded the enemy sprite to come in packs of 3 towards the player.

Terence Byrne

I then ran the game to test the enemy’s, and they came in packs of three.

However, my bullets would not

destroy the enemy and so I needed to fix the problem and code the bullet to cause damage when it hits the enemy.

Terence Byrne

In order to do this I needed to create an explosion effect and code this object.

After then coding the player bullets to

Terence Byrne

destroy the enemies I run the game the test if the enemies would explode, In addition I added sound to the enemy explosion.

Terence Byrne

Then I created the enemy bullet. After this I modified the mask to rectangle e.g. the shape of the bullet.

Terence Byrne

The next step was to make my enemies fire back at me. I had to make sure as with the player spr that the enemy bullets would not cause problems later after they had been fired so I used the destroy instance option to destroy the bullet when it reaches the edge of the map.

I then made sure the enemy 1object movement code had had the “shoot alarm” varies written inside.

Terence Byrne

I then run the game to test it and the enemy’s had begun shooting at the player.

Then I went on to adding a shield to the player. I created a code for the shield and then used the “draw” event so a rectangle bar of health (shield) will be shown when the game is running.

Terence Byrne

When I run the game the shield bar was there and so after this I added a collision event to player 1 using the enemy laser and this meant the bar would decrease in health to whatever I coded it to do.

The next thing I needed to do was make the player be destroyed and give the player an explosion effect. To do this I made an explosion 2 sprite

Terence Byrne

I the added a step event and coded the particle system in order for my player to explode with explosion effects.

Then I added an alarm event and a create event in order to make this explosion work.

Terence Byrne

I then added a new step event for the player 1 object and then did some coding to make sure the shield would reach zero and therefore the player to explode.

After this I run the game to make sure the player would die and explode as it should.

Terence Byrne

I then decided to create another enemy (enemy2_spr), I centred the sprite after creating it and then created an enemy 2 laser. After creating that I gave the laser 2 a rectangle collision mask and cantered it as well. Also I added an animation for both the enemy 2 and the enemy 2 laser.

I

then added a sound in which would be used for the firing effect of enemy 2

Terence Byrne

I then needed to go to the system object and create another alarm in order for my enemy 2 to spawn into the game.

I then had to create an enemy 2 object and add things such as collsions alarms and steps like I did with enemy 1

After this I run the game to see if the enemy 2 enemies are working and firing.

Terence Byrne

At this point, I decided to tweak with my game to try and improve it. First of all I changed the background from a apace environment to a city environment in which is under attack by aliens. In order to make this background look more realistic I got an image of a silhouette of a city, and then traced over it on Adobe Illustrator. After this I added it to my game background and set it as persistent so the background would repeat. Then I added more affects to the background with the game maker design options e.g. I added hills.

During the same time as creating a background I also changed my Player Sprite.

After that, I then added a title screen and coded it to come into the game at the very start; I also added a code so that when I press enter, the game will begin.

I then decided to give the game a death (end) screen and coded it so that when I press (R) the game will restart; whilst on the death screen

After that, I decided that I would need

soundtracks. I went to a website called audionautix, From this site I gathered 3 soundtracks. I coded one soundtrack for my

Terence Byrne

starting screen, another for the playing screen, and the last one for the death screen. After coding the sounds in on a creation code; I run the game and tested the music. The music played ok with no issues meaning that the soundtracks were now complete.

I decided to modify other aspects such as the enemy and player laser, and after this I run the game to check everything was working all together with no issues. There were some issues such as my player sprite spawning in numerous times as well as enemy sprites; but with some tweaking the problem was fixed and the game was running just as it should. I found making this game interesting as I learnt many new techniques and tools on game maker, and I finally produced my own game in which I believe is at a good standard.