GMG Video Documentary

[Silverwind]

Awhile ago I thought it would be cool to make a video documentary about the GMG, getting a few of us to talk about the people, projects and production history over the last decade. Is anyone up for taking part?

My time is extremely limited and as of yet the project is just ideas in my head, but it rings a warm note with me.

[Connors]

Reminds me of Gan's idea to make a GMG news show. Lacking a large amount of current events, this documentary might be easier to do. :1

[Circuit]

That sounds really cool.  When I think about all the great times I've had with the GMG community over the years, it makes me sad to know that there's no record written down anywhere, and that my memories are fading.  A video documentary would be a great way to preserve our history.

[Gan]

I don't remember much at all. I think I've been here a while though.

[Connors]

Well, Gan, you've made two fairly complex and functional game-making tools so I think that's definitely worth talking about.

And there was that Box2D plugin for Silver Creator to let it have some physics stuff goin' on.

And a chatbox for the website, and like 10 different online games.

And a complete port of QoM to iOS.'

Too bad the old Titanium Forge forum disappeared, that was cool stuff.

[Gan]

Titanium Forge has a forum? I don't even remember what was so great about the tool.

[Connors]

From what I recall it had it's own scripting language, much like HTML5GM, and surprisingly easy built-in sprite graphics functions. And a WIP hitbox detection tool. I think the forum you set up is long-gone, unless someone can find it on the Way Back Machine.

[Gan]

We need a new cool tool.

Here's a fun game about bunnies and adventure: http://armorgames.com/play/16041/demons-down-under

Edit 2: Game was fun for 10 minutes.

Edit 3: Here's a game that held my attention for a few hours: http://www.kongregate.com/games/casualcollective/the-space-game

Edit 4: I need to revisit old projects

Edit 5: My head's clouded, it's like I'm stuck in a loop pondering purpose, benefits, ideas and tools. It's easy to get demotivated by thinking Why do it. It's easy to get conflicted when you ask What should I make it with. So many techs, different platforms. And it's easy to get stuck when you ask How do I start? I wish I could wrap myself in a ball of anti-time to spend an eternity on my project to reveal it to the masses in absolutely no time at all.

Edit 6: Time's short. Maybe what matters isn't the stuff we make. Maybe it's the people. Stuff doesn't matter, neither does code nor invention. What matters is people. Look for the constants in the universe. Align your ultier motives to match.

Edit 7: I guess that leaves me with the question: What can I do for you guys?

[Connors]

http://gamemakersgarage.com/forum/index.php?topic=349.msg7156#msg7156

http://gamemakersgarage.com/forum/index.php?topic=369.msg7683#msg7683

Try not to abandon your project so much, especially if you just wanted to try a new language.

[Gan]

You're right. And that was some pretty cool stuff: http://screencast.com/t/2K5FIw02

I can't believe I abandoned this project flat out. I also remember creating a pretty cool ball physics game that resembled a skate-park in TF.

Oh I know what happened. I learned Obj-C and iOS. I started remaking the ball physics game for iOS. Made a lot of pretty cool things. Never released it though. Woulda made a fun ball puzzle game. I abandoned the puzzle game after I ported it to OpenGL and got super confused with OpenGL then started working on an online game called Avisaria in which I made a really cool world editor and you could walk around in the world and see other people online but eventually that project was too cumbersome and I got stuck trying to create super optimizations in C that eventually I abandoned that project and made the HTML5 GameMaker and started working on chat box games and QoM cause I got super sick of C. Then I got sick of Javascript and made the online Cannon Ball shooting platformer game in C++ which was pretty cool and I did pretty much finish it to a point, didn't do anything with it though. And then I switched to Dart and made some more chat box games and SpaceCraft where you are a ship and fly around with other ships(ship building was never completed sadly) and a website and have abandoned those in which right now I don't do much besides work, get prepared for school and play useless games.
I may have missed a few projects and in between I've worked on a lot of 3D stuff. I have a whole folder of 3D stuff I've made.

Dang I suck. I could have been making money from that puzzle game all along.

Lesson: Stick with a single language and a single goal. After it is complete you can make a large change.

Edit: To be fair, a lot of the abandons were because I was a terrible programmer. The Javascript chatbox games, Titanium Forge, the ball puzzle game and Avisaria all suffered from badly written code with little direction. I was self taught and before I took official courses in College I had little knowledge of design patterns and even proper uses of classes.
Things may have been different if my middleschool/highschool had a basic and an advanced programming course.

Edit 2: A lot of the abandons were also because I wanted cross platform languages and better performance.

[Gan]

If we want to make a Documentary, we should probably list names and what each name did in the community.

[Connors]

I'll help where I can but obviously I haven't been around as long as most of the users.

on a side note I haven't taken a college-level programming course yet, but I took a class in high school. I'm gonna be back in that college class soon, though... Gan, I knew you had used multiple languages but I didn't know you had taught yourself this many. Nice.

[Zoo]

I've been here a while, but I'm not sure I could really help out with a video documentary in terms of knowledge. I've mostly been here for the post-actual-game-making stuff, because it didn't take me that long to realize actually making games isn't really my thing.

[WarHampster]

This would be really cool if we could get some of the old-school people to give interviews... Al and Mike of course, and Eq and Silverwind, then maybe even AOL people like Secret Agent Bob.

Also Gan, I totally do that too. I started working on the AbsurdEngine almost 4 years ago because I wanted to make some silly mobile games and I hated the idea of duplicating lots of code or using non-native languages, and I still haven't finished a game with it. I've been working on the voxel engine for about as long! It's frustrating because I don't really enjoy coding for coding's sake, but I often feel like the tools I need to make what I want to make don't exist, so I have to build them first.