Category:Information

Recreational Software Designs’ Game-Maker was a boxed design suite from the early 1990s. It offered aspiring pre-Web designers the world over their first taste of game development. And for its era, it was darned powerful: VGA graphics, Sound Blaster sound, infinitely huge games. There were some strict limitations and quirks, but at the time there wasn’t much else like it — and it sure beat breaking out Lode Runner for the hundredth time, plus the graph paper and pencil to record your levels.

The program consisted of two basic elements: the actual executable file that functioned as the actual “game”, which called upon all of the user-specified graphical and sound and design elements to give itself a face; and the Game-Maker package itself, which consisted of a bunch of design utilities tied together with a text mode wrapper. The package also came with a wealth of demo material, most of it by the lead programmer and his brother; some of it public domain material, gathered from who-knows-where.