Build a Side-Scroller Platformer game with GameMaker: Studio

Learn to build a side-scroller platformer with realistic physics and collision detection, including running, jumping, gravity, a moving elevator platform, and collectible power-ups that upgrade weapons.

Explore implementing gravity, collision detection, and moving platforms in a side-scroller built in GameMaker: Studio using the thunderbox project; move, jump, and avoid falling through surfaces.

Explore gravity as an invisible downward force, how it accelerates objects over time, and how to implement it with a gravity strength constant and a gravity script in GameMaker: Studio.

Initialize the player's gravity to zero, apply gravity strength to the y-position each step, and test via the create event script.

Tweak gravity in a side-scroller by clamping its strength between -20 and 20 to prevent extreme speeds, and gain tighter control over player motion for future collision handling.

Implement jumping by applying negative gravity when spacebar is pressed and testing with an imaginary ground plane to observe ascent and descent in a side-scroller.

Explore how to implement player states in a GameMaker: Studio side-scroller, switching sprites for neutral, running, jumping, and falling based on gravity and input.

Classify gravity to determine player states: greater than 0.2 signifies falling, between 0 and 0.2 means standing on the ground; update movement and set neutral ground state before collision detection.

Explore manual collision detection, avoiding box2d-based systems for performance, and learn tile based collision maps for static geometry plus separate handling for dynamic moving platforms.

Prepare collision detection by building a tile collision map in GameMaker: Studio, using a 64-pixel grid where 100 marks collidable tiles and -1 marks empties, generated at startup.

Generate a global tile collision grid in GameMaker: Studio by building a ds grid and populating it with tile presence data. Retrieve and test grid values to constrain player movement.

Configure and read the player bounding box in GameMaker: Studio to drive collision detection with tiles, using the box width and height for efficient movement checks.

Complete tile collisions by using a get tile collision function to map pixels to grid tiles and adjust the player's position against floor, walls, and ceilings.

Build a moving elevator in GameMaker: Studio that goes up and down using create and move actions, a random 60 interval, and alarms to reverse direction, highlighting collision challenges.

Implement a level with moving elevators in GameMaker: Studio and add a player-elevator collision routine, managing gravity and testing smooth collisions with moving objects and tile sets.

Learn to detect collisions between the player and power-ups in a side-scroller game, destroy the power-up on contact, and upgrade the player's weapon via the new weapon power-up.

Learn a simple weapon pickup system in a side-scroller using collision events to update the player's weapon state, sprite, and collected flag with power ups.

Develop collision detection between tall level objects and the player, moving objects, and plant and power objects, then implement intelligent enemies and weapons to drive plant–enemy combat.

Create three anime characters and robotic drones patrolling the level, implement basic AI with line of sight for an attacking enemy, and introduce a floating gun platform boss.

Create 16x16 ammo sprites in the image editor, design the SPDR ammo 0 1, set its origin to center, and attach it to an ammo object for player and enemies.

Add a weapon to attack enemies while polishing the side-scroller platformer project by adding ammo objects and power-ups and cleaning code, laying the foundation to implement player gun firing.

Implement a firing mechanic in a side-scroller by creating a player fire function, using control and can-fire booleans, spawning ammo at the gun barrel, and playing laser sounds.

Create a robot enemy with a path-driven walk in a side-scroller using GameMaker: Studio, including sprite frames, collision damage, and startup code to follow the path at speed 2.

Refine path navigation in a side-scroller by correcting the enemy's facing and flipping the sprite at the end of its path using the end of path event in GameMaker: Studio.

Create a per-instance hit points health bar above the enemy, starting at 100, drawn with a draw health bar function that follows the enemy; separate from global health.

The enemy loses health when hit by ammo damage, flashes red to show damage, and is destroyed when health reaches zero; ammo is destroyed and the color resets.

Destroy enemies when hit points drop to zero by spawning a zap object (Zappia) at their position and applying the same health-depletion logic to other enemies and the player.

Introduce enemy 02, a second enemy that shoots at the player when in its line of sight, and walks along a path while turning to face its movement direction.

Configure the second enemy by creating an event and defining variables such as a 300-pixel range, campfire boolean, gun x/y offsets, health, and a damage of 15; add step updates.

Implement line of sight detection in a side scroller by checking distance, range, and facing direction, then fire toward the player with reload delays and alarms to regulate attacks.

Design and implement the end-of-level boss for a side-scroller in GameMaker: Studio, featuring a multi-part floating gun platform with independently rotating targets that fire at the player.

Configure the end-of-level boss by creating the boss object with cannons that rotate between angles and spawn ammo from the cannon tips, set in the create event.

Implement rotating cannons in a side-scroller by updating rotation in a step event, drawing cannons with a draw event, and reversing direction at a rotation margin using a pivot.

Build an end of level boss with rotating cannons that fire at intervals via alarms. Spawn ammo at the rotating cannon’s position and direction to match rotation for two cannons.

Begin by building a platform game in GameMaker Studio, add sound effects for weapons, jumping, and power-ups, and deploy to Windows, Mac, and Android.

Add and manage music in your side-scroller by stopping any existing track, avoiding overlap, playing a looping music track for the level, and ensuring seamless restart when the player dies.

Explore how powerups share movement by using a parent object in GameMaker: Studio, letting all powerups inherit movement without duplicating events.

Learn to use GameMaker: Studio's debugging tools to inspect fps, room speed, and instance counts, view objects and sprites in real time, and diagnose hard-to-solve problems.

Learn to use watches in the GameMaker: Studio debugger to monitor variables like health in real time, watching values change as you play.

Use debug messages in GameMaker: Studio to display on-screen information during gameplay, switching from show message to debug mode and printing variables like the player's x position.

Create a GUI system in GameMaker: Studio by adding an invisible controller object that draws the plant's health bar and the current score using draw bar and draw text.

Update the game manager to show a mission failed screen when the player dies and a mission complete screen after defeating the end of level boss, using imported vector screens.

Learn how to implement mobile input widgets for a side-scroller game by adding on-screen touch controls, including a virtual joypad and action buttons, managed by an input manager.

Modify the draw function to render GUI controls with sprite states and add an OS check to show them on mobile and disable on desktop.

Map touch inputs to mouse events to support both touch and mouse controls in game maker studio. Use global left button events, mouse coordinates, and simulated fire and jump actions.

Learn to handle directional input in a side-scroller by wiring a global button event for mobile controls, fix stuck states, and enable left/right movement with touch screen controls.

Master building a side-scroller for desktop by configuring Windows and Mac settings, choosing installers or standalone executables, and preparing desktop builds with GameMaker: Studio.

Learn to build an HTML5 side-scroller with GameMaker: Studio, embedding the game in a web page so players can play in their browser without installation.

Learn to deploy a GameMaker: Studio side-scroller to an Android device with a recommended method, an alternative approach for driver issues, and Android SDK and Java SDK in documents folder.

Configure the Android web server in GameMaker: Studio by entering your IP address from the command prompt, then click OK to deploy.

Enable USB debugging on your Android device, configure the Android SDK paths in GameMaker: Studio, create a keystore and certificate, then connect and hit play to test on device.

Troubleshoot Android building for GameMaker: Studio by installing the Android SDK platform tools, using the Android SDK Manager, and selecting the required API packages.

Troubleshoot Android SDK tools on Windows by testing adb device recognition, using shift-click to open a command prompt, and learn side-loading as an alternative method to deploy the game.

Sideload your Android game by building an APK in GameMaker: Studio, transferring it to your device via memory or USB, and installing after enabling unknown sources.

Understand how Android resolutions differ from 800 by 600, with absolute pixel positions in the draw function, and techniques to achieve resolution independence by tweaking device-specific values.

this course demonstrates building a side-scroller in GameMaker: Studio, featuring working enemies with collision detection and physics, weapons, a boss, and integrated music and sound effects using mostly free tools.

Create two-dimensional art assets for a side-scroller using free tools like Inkscape for vector art, tile sets and textures, plus import, animation, and sound effects.

Explore the workflow for creating game art assets and sound effects using free tools like Inkscape, Anime Studio Pro, and SFX across multiple programs.

Explore creating scalable vector assets for a side-scroller in GameMaker: Studio using Inkscape, exporting vector graphics to pixel-based formats for various resolutions, and planning sprites and gaming screens.

Configure the Inkscape document by setting a neutral background color, removing borders, sizing the canvas to 64 by 64 pixels, and zooming to position for drawing the power-up.

Draw a circular power-up shield by creating outer and inner circles, centering them, and refining fills and strokes with color tools, eyedropper, and paste in place.

Design a shield symbol at the power circle center to grant temporary invincibility, using the pen tool to plot anchor points, Bezier curves, and mirrored halves that join into shield.

Apply fills to interior and exterior shield shapes, remove strokes, and use boolean difference to slice the shield center, then add specular highlights for a polished emblem.

Learn to create specular highlights for a power-up by adding a layer and exporting as svg, refining highlights with smooth nodes, and applying screen blend mode.

Learn how to import and prepare a steampunk factory background in gimp, set to 800 by 600 resolution, and tile it seamlessly for a long side-scrolling level.

Learn to create a seamless, horizontally tiling texture for side-scroller backgrounds by offsetting pixels with wraparound and importing the image into GameMaker: Studio.

Plan and assemble tilesets by using top sets to tile backgrounds and level components, import graphics from Inkscape, and export a repeatable tile set for GameMaker: Studio.

Create a 64 by 64 pixel tileset for a side-scroller in GameMaker Studio, using Inkscape to design, configure the grid, and build dirt tiles with layered pixels and multiply blending.

Assemble a 64×64 tileset by extracting tiles from a prepared image, insert a pixel buffer between tiles to prevent artifacts, and export a transparent background for import into GameMaker: Studio.

Learn to extract 64x64 tiles from a tileset, copy and snap to the grid, and paste them into a platform object, while managing buffer zones between tiles.

Manually bridge buffer zones between platform tiles to create seamless gaps. Flip tiles horizontally to make flat tiles, then copy and paste 64-pixel rows to align collisions in GameMaker Studio.

Export your tilesets by saving the buffer zones between tiles in the top set, exporting to the game format with transparency, and using the overwrite option to update the original png.

Explore anime studio pro, import vector art from Inkscape, and animate the main character using layers and blending for shading; preview rendering and craft a walk cycle for a side-scroller.

Learn to explode a 2d character into separate parts, rig a skeleton, and reassemble for animation in a side-scroller platformer project using GameMaker: Studio.

Create a new bones layer, bind the character layers with region binding for high-level movement control, and place hip, head, arms, and legs to form the skeleton.

Adjust bone influence with the bone strength tool, repair hierarchy and parenting, then reassemble the character using the bone offset tool and manipulate bones tool to test movement.

Learn how to create a crude run cycle using keyframes and a timeline in GameMaker: Studio, including setting frames, cycling poses, and exporting animation frames for import.