Game Maker's Garage Forum
Game Maker's Garage => Trash Talk => Topic started by: Gnome on November 23, 2009, 09:50:29 PM
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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?
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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
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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.
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The SAB guy moved on to making movies and stuff. The movies aren't really interesting like the games were though.
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I'd love to see a timeline of GM's history :)
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The SAB guy moved on to making movies and stuff. The movies aren't really interesting like the games were though.
LOL! ;D
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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. :)
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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?
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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?
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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
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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
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Cool, thanks Eq! :D
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LOL! ;D
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.
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Maybe its just me but I cracked up to the first reply.
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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. :(
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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.
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Maybe its just me but I cracked up to the first reply.
Yeah same!
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Like what was the Quest of Magic of the age? Who was the most active user? Why did the community collapse?
The major GameMaker community was on the old AOL message boards, and completely fell apart when AOL eventually decided to close it down. There used to be lots of posts every day - it was a pretty active community. I think someone made an archive of a bunch of them at some point, but I have no idea where that might be. The GMG became the main hub for GameMaker and SilverCreator users at that point, but it was never quite as big.
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?
The main reason I did atypical games was because I wasn't really good at the whole "game making" part. So I decided that if I couldn't develop a better game then I needed to make something unique.
I was planning on taking a college course in game programming, but eventually I had a reality check and realized I wasn't nearly good enough to go professional. Movies, on the other hand, I might have a chance at.
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.
Hey, Mike! I don't mean to forget my "roots," I just haven't considered myself a game maker for a long time. I had an archive of my old games up at one point, I'll track it down and put it up again. I'll also see if I can find any old GameMaker games that might be currently lost to time. I'm not sure what I still have - I lost my computer in New Orleans during Katrina and I'm worried most of it was probably on that.
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Hey, Mike! I don't mean to forget my "roots," I just haven't considered myself a game maker for a long time. I had an archive of my old games up at one point, I'll track it down and put it up again. I'll also see if I can find any old GameMaker games that might be currently lost to time. I'm not sure what I still have - I lost my computer in New Orleans during Katrina and I'm worried most of it was probably on that.
Sorry to hear about Katrina and all that. I've still never seen any of your movies though :/
I'm probably the one who archived the most stuff from AOL - I have a pretty decent run of posts captured from the thumbtack boards, as well as some really old archives from before I joined that AFL Rod had made (where the hell is he?). I also archived both file libraries 1 and 2, so I have anything you uploaded there.
The GMG and the Plaza are the new community (and the official GM forums when I get them back up, sorry Al :(). Lots of old AOL message boards have continued on in different ways. The community was one of the few things AOL had going for it, and it was the only reason why we kept AOL even after we got a cable modem, I know several other people kept it even after they got cable or DSL as well.
AOL seriously fücked up when they closed down all of those forums - not just ours but hundreds of other ones as well. It cost them sh¡t all to maintain compared to the ? x $9.95 monthly fees all of those customers brought in.
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I remember back on the old GMG I wanted so badly to be a part of the community, but I was inexperienced with the ways of the internet so I never really took part. Anyway, by the time I got there, it was pretty much stagnant; not many people were actually making games anymore. This must have been in 2001.
Seeing those old archived sites really brings back the memories. It also makes me want to write some reviews for the current iteration of this site, because I remember that the reviews were my favorite part. Those guys really weren't shy about tearing into the piece of crap that was "Super OS" (the game which actually inspired me to make a really good GM OS until it got lost in some GM crash).
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Also forgot to mention - you can now convert older GM games into Carbon games. They are still PPC but they run fine in Rosetta, so new Macs can play them.
http://mikerichardson.name/gmutils/GMCarbonizerBeta.sit
Arbitrary Google find: GameMaker v2.61 demo: http://www.applefritter.com/node/14001
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I'm probably the one who archived the most stuff from AOL - I have a pretty decent run of posts captured from the thumbtack boards, as well as some really old archives from before I joined that AFL Rod had made (where the hell is he?).
Haha I forgot about AFL Rod. Wasn't he the AOL moderator?
I also archived both file libraries 1 and 2, so I have anything you uploaded there.
Man, I'd love to play some GM games from the AOL days. I have an original iMac with OS 9 on it - I've been meaning to look through my old hard drives and see if I saved anything from those days.
I only vaguely remember what file libraries 1 and 2 were. About how many of the AOL-era GM games do you have saved?
The community was one of the few things AOL had going for it, and it was the only reason why we kept AOL even after we got a cable modem, I know several other people kept it even after they got cable or DSL as well.
Yeah, it was the same thing with me. I kept AOL until they deleted the message boards.
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I just saw this thread now. Don't know how I missed it. I have a bunch of old GM games from the AOL forums on my G3 iMac. They only run in OS 7, 8, 9. When AOL closed the forums I saved most of the better games at the time. I'll try to make an archive of them all and post it on my site.
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Dan Grover (nuttdan) - Created Wonderwarp software back when he was making GameMaker games. He originally had his GM games on his wonderwarp.net site, but eventually went on to become a legitimate software company still using the WonderWarp name and web site.
http://www.wonderwarp.com/
Nick Ver Voort (Moldormavx) - Started with GameMaker and went on to create Wanilla Entertainment and makes iphone apps.
http://www.wanilla.net/site
Mobuli - Created Space Can Suck and 2nd Terror Protocol. Went on to create and star in his own movies. His first movie was called Hitman's Handbook and he was making a movie based on the Space Can Suck GM game.
Mindsoftpro - Read about a GameMaker user from way back on the AOL forums and his attempt to create some GM games with others.
http://mindsoftsw0.tripod.com/mindsoftproductions/id4.html
An old log of an AOL Games Forum chat with Spiderweb Software. If you were around back then you may see some familiar screen names. A few were GameMaker users such as Fsccr99, sugura528, FX Wzrd, TS TomDale.
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/misc/interviews/NETH_AOLchat.txt
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I just saw this thread now. Don't know how I missed it. I have a bunch of old GM games from the AOL forums on my G3 iMac. They only run in OS 7, 8, 9. When AOL closed the forums I saved most of the better games at the time. I'll try to make an archive of them all and post it on my site.
That would be amazing. I remember playing so many cool games back then, it would be great to revisit some of them.
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I just saw this thread now. Don't know how I missed it. I have a bunch of old GM games from the AOL forums on my G3 iMac. They only run in OS 7, 8, 9.
GM Carbonizer should be able to convert any v1.5 or newer game to Carbon.
Also, I think you wrote your own converter for the super old games.
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Hey! Nice to see you back Jason. :) I wasn't sure if you'd found the GMG since the MGM forums went down. What's with the animation hiatus?
An old log of an AOL Games Forum chat with Spiderweb Software. If you were around back then you may see some familiar screen names. A few were GameMaker users such as Fsccr99, sugura528, FX Wzrd, TS TomDale.
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/misc/interviews/NETH_AOLchat.txt
Wow, that was interesting, especially this segment:
B5 RobMan: What's the toughest part of creating a shareware game?
SpidWeb: My wife just said "carry through."
RayDunakin:?
SpidWeb: She is right, although perhaps I
SpidWeb: should explain what she means.
SpidWeb: It's easy to start a game.
SpidWeb: It's easy to write most of it.
SpidWeb: But then, when it's mostly done, you awlways hit this
SpidWeb: wall. Where it will take a huge effort tofinish it.
SpidWeb: Getting past that hurdle, gritting your teeth, and finishing the game when there's
SpidWeb: nothing you'd loathe more than working on it more,
SpidWeb: is the hardest thing about making a shareware game.
User877845: hehe
BGraceFild: ?
B5 RobMan: Thanx
SpidWeb: Many, many promising games hit that barrier, and then disappear for a few words.
SpidWeb: Or forever.
SpidWeb: GA
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i wonder what happened to brandon ballinger, ide be interested in what hes up to now, after makeing such an epic game with chronicle of ekan how could he ever abandon game design or even programming
and TSReid, he was a pretty talented artist and animator, and that was 10 years ago, he must be at a proffessional level now if he continued to pursue it
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Brandon seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
The last time I saw him around was 5 years ago when he made a few posts on the Plaza.
He doesn't appear to be on Facebook.
I remember he used to sign onto AIM occasionally, but I haven't had him on my buddy list since it crashed over a year ago. (lost a ton of other screen names too when that happened :( )
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I vaguely remember some of this stuff. I was a lurker back in 1998 onwards.
Still am mostly.
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It amazes me how long people lurk on forums. I thought Alias was a record holder with like, 9 years or something, but 12 years?! Why in the name of Jiminy Cricket didn't you post man!
Welcome to the forum btw. ;D
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It amazes me how long people lurk on forums. I thought Alias was a record holder with like, 9 years or something, but 12 years?! Why in the name of Jiminy Cricket didn't you post man!
Welcome to the forum btw. ;D
Thank you for the welcome, I usually can't find a reason to post. I think I only posted once on the GM forums haha.
I must have got my dates wrong when I last posted my starting point. I was recently cleaning out my old mac and found a copy of GM v2.something and I had the old GM forum on as a favourite. Last time I used that computer was 1998 so I have extrapolated that I was a lurker back then. I am alias by the way. I lost my old email account and couldn't log in, I couldn't be bothered re-registering it and so I just used my current email.
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Wait, Alias like the guy I just talked to recently over aim?
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No, Alias as in I used to post here under the username alias.
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Oh crud. I gotta figure out who I was talking to over aim.
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lol
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Oh crud. I gotta figure out who I was talking to over aim.
QOTM?
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I am alias by the way. I lost my old email account and couldn't log in, I couldn't be bothered re-registering it and so I just used my current email.
Ah... I see...
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alias sounds familiar, but its not on the members list, otherwise silverwind could give you your password, you might have deleted your account
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I most certainly could not! It might be someone posing as Alias, and Alias might use the same password for his GMG account as he does for his email, or dare I say, his bank account! For such reasons, it's usually not lawful for webmasters to disclose such information to clients, even if the information belongs to the client.
At most a password could be reset.
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Dan Grover made shovebox? I use that program all the time! And his origins are from the GMG? Wow, we're a team of success stories.
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I deleted my old account.
Silverwind, relax, if I had really wanted my old account I would have just got my old computer and logged in using it since the password was saved.
And I am alias; which is why I remember us trying to make a group project under the guise of a company called Eclipse. I registered the forum for it. I also remember Eqwanox telling us that all group projects fail, which was fairly apt.
Search around, you're bound to find a few posts by me under my alias of... 'alias'....
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And I am alias; which is why I remember us trying to make a group project under the guise of a company called Eclipse.
Pay no heed to my rants on web security. I believe you. ;)
I also remember Eqwanox telling us that all group projects fail, which was fairly apt.
I think all indie game developers remember Eq telling them off at some point or another!
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Pay no heed to my rants on web security. I believe you. ;)
I think all indie game developers remember Eq telling them off at some point or another!
You should see me rant about web security. I once spent a week trying to GIFAR my own image host to make sure it was impossible.