For the past year, I've been trying to make the coziest game possible using Scratch
with a hope that I can someday claim the title of creating the most wholesome game of all time
And though, I still have a long ways to go for that, I thought that today I could put myself to the test
But this time, with a little spin on it. And by a little spin, I mean the hardest challenge of all time
Can I make a cozy game that's educational? I don't know why I thought this was going to be a good idea
Anywho, and with the release of my first commercial game, DoDrop Dynasty, happening in a few months
Which, by the way, you should totally wish list on Steam helps me out so much. Thank you. I love you
I only have a few days to make this happen. So, let's get to work. I'd be completely lying to you if I said I had any idea what I wanted to do for this challenge
At first, I was fixated on the idea of making a river otter fishing game
But after wasting an entire day on this, I realized I don't like that idea. I also made this
I'm not really sure what's supposed to be happening. Anywho, I really just wanted to create something new, something I had never made before
And then that's when it hit me. I should do what people love the most. And that's pop quizzes
Wait, that's something, right? So that's what we're going to do. We're going to make a game show or a trivia or quiz game, whatever you want to call it
And you know what? I blame games like Pokemon Stadium, Paper Mario, or Big Brain Academy for making me love this genre so much
I mean, who doesn't like being asked insanely difficult questions over a broad range of topics and time periods
Am I right? Anyone? All right, that's fine. Just ignore me. So I started off on this quest doing what any sane human being would do And that was having a cat asked you what color an apple is Okay so maybe that not a great question But the point is I started programming the basic quizzing mechanics
After that, I made it so when you clicked on an answer, it would go to the next question
that next question being a blue square instead of text on it
I also temporarily made it so that the buttons would say if you got your answer right or wrong
And now you can answer difficult questions, like, what is the meaning of life
And with this barely functioning quiz system, I started to get a little cocky
I thought, you know what, I should start polishing these buttons, just making them look a little bit more fancy
They do look good, though. And with that, we have the core fundamentals, the basics, the meat of this game
Kind of. And by that, I mean, it's time to work and some art. Now, you can't have a trivia or a game show or a quiz without some kind of host
I started off by making this rabbit character and immediately regretted it after seeing his soul-piercing eyes staring at me
So I decided to make a mouse character instead. It took a little bit for him to get to his final design
but here he is, in all his glory, mouse with a little pointy stick
I don't know what those things are called. After that, I mocked up a little scene with a question and the answers
and the checkered background because, of course, and we were pretty much set
So I jumped back into Scratch and spent an embarrassingly long time
trying to get this background to move. And you know what? It was worth it. Now, at this point I was starting to get a little worried
because the Scratch Cat was just acting a little insecure asking questions that were contradicting what I was trying to ask the player So I felt like it was time for me to add the mouse character and I did I also animated the mouse hand so it looks like it instructing you Even though it a quiz I don know
Just go with it. After that, I replaced the buttons, and then I made these circle and X marks at the bottom
So when you get something right, it shows up, and so you can keep track of your score
Now, at this point, you might say, hey, you know what? This looks like a pretty complete game. And that, my friend, is the wrong answer, because we're going into my favorite segment, which is polishing
I started off by adding a couple more questions so I could properly test this. After that, I randomized the questions and the answers at the bottom, so it felt fresh
every time you played it. The game was also just completely lacking in sound effects, so I took the time to add sound
effects to the clicking, to the answering, to getting wrong, all the stuff
And man, sound is everything for games. I also reached out to my buddy Bonzo to make some music for the game, and that really was just
the icing on the cake. If you want to hear the full song, make sure to go check out his YouTube channel, which
there will be a link in the description. this, I made big circle and X marks when you get something right or wrong. I just felt like it needed
a little bit more of an indication when you did something good. After that, I worked on the cover art
which I'm calling this game Professor Mousie's trivia fever, and you can't stop me. And the last thing
I added was a ranking system to the end so you can see how well you performed. I also added a ton
of questions, and I added some more details like the mouse clapping when you're successful and a little
transition when the game starts. Overall, this is probably the most polished game I've made in scrap
or even ever for a YouTube video I weirdly proud of this game and I learned a ton from all the trivia questions that I end up looking up And by the way these questions are insanely hard I have no idea why I made
these so hard. And honestly, the only regret that I have is I didn't add more questions because this
game is just super fun to play and I don't know. I just like it. And speaking of hard questions
people ask me all the time what engine is great for beginners? And luckily I have the answer with a
word from today's sponsor, Game Maker. It's no secret that Game Maker holds a special place in my heart
And that's because it was the first engine I ever used. It has this really cool drag-and-drop programming language that's now called GML Visual
And that's what taught me how to program as a kid, which was pretty sweet
So if you're a beginner or you like visual scripting, it's a great way to actually like make commercial games without having a 200 IQ
But if you like coding, you can also use GameMaker's built-in language called, wait for it, GML
Another thing is that GameMaker has been around since like forever, so there's a ton of easy to follow tutorials and resources to learn online
I can't tell you how many devs I met throughout the years from the Game Maker community
Not to mention how many of my favorite games are actually made with it. Like obscure titles, like stick online to more modern classics like Undertale
The legendary Undertale. I don't know. It's a really great community. It always makes me smile when I think about the good memories I've had with it
And honestly, I wouldn't be here today in my game dev journey if it wasn't for GameMaker
And for that, I'll always be grateful. And if you want to check it out for yourself, go to gameder
And start making games today. And as always, for the latest, greatest news, make sure to check on my website
website, goodgist. Fun. If you want to see awkward photos of me holding my play button
you can, you can, I don't know why that's on there