Introduction

The Shape of the Game

Before we dive into the building process, let’s first have a look at the finished version.

This is the full Click the Clown project exported from GameMaker. It’s a deliberately small first project, excellent for getting your feet wet in game dev.

What this course is about

In this course, we’re going to build this little game from scratch.

That means we’ll cover all the practical pieces that turn a blank GameMaker project into something playable:

• Creating and preparing sprites.
• Setting up objects.
• Placing things in a room.
• Responding to user input.
• Changing score.
• Adding a simple loop of feedback and reward.

The finished game is intentionally small, but it still has a proper game-shaped arc. Players can interact with a thing, the game reacts to their actions and there’s a score keeping track of the player’s skills. That tiny chain is the seed of a lot of games.