GameMaker TImeline

[Gnome]

Can anyone fill me in on the timeline of the program and its community? Has anyone else shared SecretAgentBob's Success after Gamemaker? Who were some famous, now gone, users? What was the old GMG like?

[jeremymaharg]

Can anyone fill me in on the timeline of the program and its community? Has anyone else shared SecretAgentBob's Success after Gamemaker? Who were some famous, now gone, users? What was the old GMG like?

Here's a link to an archive of the old GMG's Articles Page from 2003 if you are interested. Sifting through the archived content and old abandoned sites often reveals some interesting stuff...
http://web.archive.org/web/20031001230829/www.silvernetwork.net/~gmg/features/

EDIT:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://darkdragon.com/gmg
This one is an even older version from darkdragon.com, before it moved to silvernetwork.net

[Silverwind]

Can anyone fill me in on the timeline of the program and its community? Has anyone else shared SecretAgentBob's Success after Gamemaker? Who were some famous, now gone, users? What was the old GMG like?

Ah... the old days of Dude, Mage Wars and Terminal Dream. Now the stuff of legend, because nobody wrote them down.

I've been piecing together clues on what it was like since I joined the MGM forums, but there's still so much I don't know and would very much like to. Like what was the Quest of Magic of the age? Who was the most active user? Why did the community collapse?

I've gathered that SAB did things nobody thought possible with his series of RPGs, but what happened to him then? Did he move on to a more advanced language? How did he suddenly make the jump to motion media?

I think the best person to ask is Al, as he's witnessed everything since the very beginning. I also think we should write a historical log to preserve our age, as one day people might be asking these questions about us.

[GMG Mike]

The SAB guy moved on to making movies and stuff. The movies aren't really interesting like the games were though.

[WarHampster]

I'd love to see a timeline of GM's history  

[Silverwind]

The SAB guy moved on to making movies and stuff. The movies aren't really interesting like the games were though.

LOL!

EDIT

Wait... I assumed you were kidding, but are you? SAB/Jason Steele is the creator of Charlie the Unicorn, one of the most famous animations on the internet. There's scarcely a teenage hooligan in the entire western world who hasn't seen his work. He earns more moola a month with his t-shirt stores than Yvette Fielding does giving herself the heebeegeebees on Most Haunted.

Jason's a guy who did what he liked, did it really well and made a career out of it. He's pretty cool in my books.

[EqwanoX]

yea, jason made a ton of movies, live action and 3d rendered, he also made the largest gm game of all time, it was like 300mb, it wasnt that good, his movies are though, the lego matrix, lol

what i remember most out of all the gm games was RPG NEO and War of Shadows, BUT the best game to come out of that era was Chronicle of Ekan made in hypercard, that game was incredible, ide like to know what happened to brandon ballenger, how can you make a game like that and not persue game design?

[Silverwind]

Ekan eh? I think I played a demo of that sometime way back. Do you still have it Eq? I'd love to play it if I could boot up an old iMac.

P.S. Was that the game with the imp who comes to brake you out of prison at the start?

[jeremymaharg]

Ah... the old days of Dude, Mage Wars and Terminal Dream. Now the stuff of legend, because nobody wrote them down.

I've been piecing together clues on what it was like since I joined the MGM forums, but there's still so much I don't know and would very much like to. Like what was the Quest of Magic of the age? Who was the most active user? Why did the community collapse?

I've gathered that SAB did things nobody thought possible with his series of RPGs, but what happened to him then? Did he move on to a more advanced language? How did he suddenly make the jump to motion media?

I think the best person to ask is Al, as he's witnessed everything since the very beginning. I also think we should write a historical log to preserve our age, as one day people might be asking these questions about us.

In the GMG Manual Wiki I added a category for GameMaker games...it's nowhere near complete (I started it off with only a tiny handfull of old stuff), but with expansion it could be a great way to log the games, complete with storylines and innovative-at-the-time features, and possibly make them easier to find for download (working download links)...
http://manual.gamemakersgarage.com/index.php?title=Category:GMGames

EDIT:
Here's a listing of GM games from the old GMG. None of the downloads work, since they require server-side scripting that no longer functions, but it's still very informative stuff...
http://web.archive.org/web/20030817114643/www.silvernetwork.net/~gmg/downloads/catview.php?cat=1

[EqwanoX]

i think this is it, it says demo, if its not the full version let me know and ill upload it

http://www.tucows.com/preview/207682

it only runs in native os9

[Silverwind]

Cool, thanks Eq!

[GMG Mike]

LOL!

EDIT

Wait... I assumed you were kidding, but are you? SAB/Jason Steele is the creator of Charlie the Unicorn, one of the most famous animations on the internet. There's scarcely a teenage hooligan in the entire western world who hasn't seen his work. He earns more moola a month with his t-shirt stores than Yvette Fielding does giving herself the heebeegeebees on Most Haunted.

Jason's a guy who did what he liked, did it really well and made a career out of it. He's pretty cool in my books.

I wasn't kidding. I have never heard of "Charlie the Unicorn".

His old games were cool because he pushed the limit of GameMaker, you know, he had 3D and stuff. And we were just in this small group, you know? Maybe hundreds of people saw those games, that's it. It's not special anymore if 50 million people see "Charlie the Unicorn".

Look at this thread. It kind of pisses me off. http://www.filmcow.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19596&highlight=gamemaker

It's just not the same. I don't mean to discount his success or anything... but you forget your roots. He doesn't even post those old games. At least I still have Dude on my site.

[Gnome]

Maybe its just me but I cracked up to the first reply.

[Silverwind]

His old games were cool because he pushed the limit of GameMaker, you know, he had 3D and stuff. And we were just in this small group, you know? Maybe hundreds of people saw those games, that's it. It's not special anymore if 50 million people see "Charlie the Unicorn".

I think it's still rather special.

Look at this thread. It kind of pisses me off. http://www.filmcow.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19596&highlight=gamemaker

It's just not the same. I don't mean to discount his success or anything... but you forget your roots. He doesn't even post those old games. At least I still have Dude on my site.

Yeah, that's kinda sad actually. I mean I don't like linking to my old games because they were crap and I've made better ones since, but I'll never forget them and I'll always be proud of the good ones. It seems the legendary figure of our secret community has outgrown his past.

[Telstar5]

I haven't spoken in three weeks so I thought you might want to chuck this in the timeline:

27/11/09: Telstar asks everyone if they want a few of these lovely old biscuit tins.