Sample

The game is well-named. It is basically a final lesson in combining all of the elements you’ve learned in the tutorials into a functional game. And indeed, it’s a simple game; it all takes place on a single map, and its elements don’t really cohere all that well — and yet it’s fascinating and evocative, and its influence on end-user games approaches infinite.

Sample is an attempt at an action-adventure exploration game, using a two-block-tall character. The effort is hampered by an awkward sense of perspective and the inability in Game-Maker to set foreground objects, for the character to walk behind. So when you walk into, say, the top of a tree or the top of your house, you bang your shins on it instead of just walking past, partially obscured from the camera.

And yet the sense of space, and the use of space, are both charming and clever. Within that one map you will find several mazes, swamps, forests, traps, gardens, and a sort of a village. For such a small area, there seems no end of surprises to find or new areas to lurk around in. And as the game takes place all on one map, there’s never any loading. It’s all one seamless adventure — and one that may take a while to complete.

It is significant that the background tiles pop up again, in some form, in nearly every Game-Maker game made. Furthermore, find me a game with a two-block-tale male protagonist, and I’ll find you a sprite edit of our protagonist here.