Is this hard to use?

[isakiih]

Is this hard to use? Does it have good instructions? Does it have much programming, etc.. Is it hard to make the games? Is it simply a good engine?

[Amir Dayyef]

It's a good engine to start with, it has the Drag and Drop Feature which helps you code without any experience.
There is a lot of tutorials and the documentation is fairly simple to understand.
The difficulty of making a game depends on what type of game you are planning to make.

[Chameleon_Silk]

for 2D games its the cats meow and GML has a very BASIC like syntax that is easy to roll with once you get going.

for 3D games use Unity and C#.

[FrafMonster]

GameMaker studio was the first ever game engine I used. I made little games with it and generally got to know the concepts of game creation.

Then a few years later, GMS2 came out, and I started using it. It reaaaally taught me a whole lot about game making in general, object oriented programming, etc. Like it's literally because of GMS2 I decided to study computer science.

At first I used the drag and drop, but quickly switched over to GML because it was much much more practical. In general, DnD is good for beginners that want a taste of what GMS2 can do, and how to conceptualise a game. I really recommend switching over to GML as soon as possible, as it offers so much more for not a lot of effort. It really won't take you long to get a hang of it (but it will take time to master, just like anything)

Concerning GML, the language is a good mixture of a few different languages (emphasise on good). It basically is a mixture of Python and C++, both widely used languages.
It has (honestly) beyond simple syntax, very straightforward coding processes, and just is in general a really good beginner language. Also, the fact it uses a nice event-based user interface for objects clears a lot of obstacles for beginners.

GML will teach you the basics of high level programming, but it will not teach you how everything works underneath. Once you master (or at least get used to the language), you will definitively be able to head over to different languages, like Python, C#/Java, Swift, and even maybe C++ or even C if you're really into that sort of stuff.

If I were to compare it to other Game engines (on the 2D spectrum), like Unity for example, I really prefer using GameMaker studio 2. Every time I use Unity, I feel like I'm making really really messy games; not optimised, organised, you name it. Also, Unity is great for 3D games, but honestly sucks at 2D.

Overall, GMS2 is a really really really good game engine. Like seriously, It's the funnest one I've used in my life, it just feels good to use.

Hope it helped! :DD

[Valcura]

but late I think. As now it's been changed to just gamemaker. But not really hard to use. But it can be a bit frustrating at times. Example. I'm new to gamemaker... Well game dev in general really. So I'm using it with GML visual to make my first game. I opted to make the asteroids clone game that they already have a format for, and followed their tutorial since I literally have no idea at all what I'm doing. I follow the tutorial to a t, yet I can't get past the 2nd phase of development because every time I shoot a rock I get an error message.

[Chameleon_Silk]

a bit late reply

but in game development learning how to read and determine what an error message means is part of the process.

where you are annoyed by it, its actually a god send that its telling you whats wrong and what line is the issue so that you can debug.

you can post your code I'm sure lots here would be willing to help sort it out as well as guide you in your debugging the problem.