Converting an IF project from Twine to GameMaker: Studio

Hey all, excited to be joining these parts! I’m a full-time freelancer/writer/author who makes games on the side (solo and with a small indie studio).

Curious to see if anyone here is familiar with GameMaker: Studio and has done any IF-style work using the software? Would love to a) learn about any cool IF projects you’ve made using GM:S and 2) connect with other GM:S users share thoughts, tips, and insights into creating IF with GM:S (a decidedly non-text friendly engine).

I’m also very interested in other IF engines, though most of what I’ve seen out there so far doesn’t have the easy export functionality I really need. (Though the new in-development YarnStudio sounds VERY promising!)

Anyhow, I created and launched my first IF project last year on Steam, a horror/dungeon crawler style game made with Twine, and I’m in the process of re-coding the game from scratch in GameMaker: Studio while adding more gameplay, better audio/save/systems, and more involved visual presentation. Coming up with an engine that accomplishes easy navigation like what you see in Twine has been tough, but I’ve adapted a cool plugin and reworked it to suit my needs while adding my own code into the mix.

The result is a pretty functional (though admittedly tedious to craft) engine that I’m excited to retool for a wide assortment of future IF projects.

If anyone wants to nerd out or talk shop RE: engines, projects, or tools for IF, I’m super into it! :smiley:

Side note: my indie studio is doing some development for PS4 and Vita, and one of the things I’m most excited about with using GM:S now for IF, is the potential to get some IF projects on Sony platforms. Curious to see if anyone would be interested in console-based IF? Haven’t seen that much of it yet, though Alone With You and some other projects are coming out soon. #excited

Cheers!

Hello!

While I’ve never converted projects between Twine and GM:S, I have used both and count both as some of my favorite game development tools. I think you’re right, GM:S is decidedly not friendly to text-oriented games. It caters best to low-res graphics and real-time gameplay. That said, I think it should be relatively easy to convert a Twine game to GM:S if you knew how to work the event system. The only question would be why? Expanding it beyond a text game into an actual RPG has its merits, and sounds like a cool project, but just building a hypertext game in GM:S would have my pulling my hair and running back to Twine.

What plugin are you using, may I ask? Also, what has the development time/investment been like in GM:S compared to Twine. Obviously you’re making a lot more assets.

I’ve used GameMaker extensively (it’s my go-to game jam graphical engine) but the text support has never been ideal, and I’ve never done anything IFesque with it as a result. Interested to hear that you have! (My one graphical IF work, “Does Canned Rice Dream of a Napkin Heap?”, was done in Unity.)

Are you planning to distribute the GM plugin?

I’ve been all over Unity for a month and it’s got all kinds of advantages… very stable so far, and it supports most build platforms.

The Chrome/Unity Player issue is not a good thing though, but there are workarounds.