Again (see IG Maker so far), not a review of IG Maker but rather a list of pros and cons of this game making software.
Since it was asked on a game making forum, it seemed best to put it here for anyone who is interested (and for those who have more questions, our IG Maker forum is a good place to ask).
From time to time comparisons will be made with other game making software. Most of what is said for The Games Factory 2 holds true for Multimedia Fusion 2 too – the former is a crippleware version of the latter.
Pros:
General concept
It’s just fantastic how they managed to distill 2d action games into their most basic and common parts and set up a system for combining those parts. This may sound like something one would expect from a 2d game maker and not much of an achievement, but when compared to similar efforts like Game Maker or Games Factory 2 it becomes obvious how focused and practical the basic concept in IG Maker is.
Interface
Just about everything is handled through visual interface, which is in turn very nicely organized – makes the process of making games very close to drawing (and not like writing at all). A quick comparison with other game making software will help put it in perspective – Game Maker is pretty much programming and writing driven with an option of dragging the commands like icons, Games Factory 2 dispenses with typing altogether but is still pretty much based on the “writing” way of thinking, while IG Maker is in a category of its own when it comes to arranging the parts of games that are supposed to work together.
Assets handling
Making prototypes and changing graphics is a breeze in IG Maker thanks to the way it defines all the “skeleton” data of the game (different types of collisions, properties of tiles, assigned graphics etc).
This means making the whole game with placeholder art is very easy and updating them relatively painless. Of course this is supported in other software like Games Factory but IG Maker handles it better.
Cons:
General concept
IG Maker is focused on one thing and one thing only: making specific kind of 2d games. This makes it less flexible than both Game Maker and Games Factory 2 – for example, if you want to have the all-important online functionality and downloadable content, you can’t. Then again, for anybody wanting to make an MMO IG Maker is not the right tool anyway.
Problems arise when you expect IG Maker will be able to do a certain thing but it turns out it’s impossible – typical example is IG Maker’s collision system between what it calls “gadgets” and tiles: everything is well defined and controlled if the two collide from sides or from above, but there’s no way of detecting if the gadget collided with a tile from below! Probably because the engine needs to handle it internally (platformers and situations when the character bumps into something while jumping?) and ultimately it does make sense and is consistent with IG Maker’s philosophy, but it’s far from immediately obvious – and discovering such a thing after an amount of work has already been done is not pleasant.
Interface
Although being well designed there are areas where it reinvents the wheel. For example, something as simple as “Save Project as” (as opposed to a simple “Save”) is done through changing the name of the project in the “project settings” and the project will get saved with its new name the next time it gets saved.
Admittedly it does make sense and in fact all the software should work like that (it’s a more logical way) but for better or for worse we’re all used to Microsoft design and learning new ways to save a project can be bothering. Personally I don’t mind it that much anymore after I found out how it’s meant to be done but it did cause a bit of confusion the first time I wanted to “Save As”.
Once you realize what the designers thought would be the best way to do a certain thing it really does sound natural and well thought out but in most cases you have to arrive there first.
Lack of support
This is just a pure catastrophe… in short, there’s none. The English version (on IG Maker official site) for example doesn’t even get patched anymore – the latest Jp-only 1.03 version is still not available for English version a few months after its publication on the Japanese site! The tutorials also don’t have an official translation (which is a shame, some of them are really useful), not to mention lack of any books or even a place where you can report bugs.
Compiling can be slow
Currently, Robot Farewell takes almost 15 seconds to appear on screen after pressing F5 / “Play” button. For comparison – when ButaVX was in the equivalent development phase, testing it from Games Factory was instant (click “Play”, it appears on screen). Fortunately once the game is compiled, the loading is instant but still, testing it becomes somewhat of a chore.
File size
IG Maker demands all the music to be in wav format. While this can be cut down by converting wavs to ADPCM (which makes wavs just slightly bigger than an mp3 for example), it can still be a hassle. Also an almost empty file can be as big as a few megabytes even if they’re low-resolution three room games. Games Factory, for example, shines in this category – both exe and mfa files are very small.
Problematic translation
It’s bad to the point of being misleading. The terminology is sometimes different in software and in manual (or in different places in the manual) – for example sometimes they refer to “Switch Memory” as “Update Memory”. Confusing!
DirectX addiction
People with slightly older or not updated computers will not be able to play the game.
Flash exporter doesn’t work
Having a Flash exporter is nice… but unfortunately it’s buggy. Lots of small bugs everywhere, anything more complex than a character moving on screen and chances are, the swf won’t work the same as exe. Too bad!
Collaboration in programming is impractical
It’s all in one single file, copy / pasting from one application to the other is impossible etc.
Quirks:
Resets the layout
Every time a new project is started in IG Maker, all the window layouts and arrangements will be reset to default. Not that it matters much, since there isn’t much one can do to rearrange the default layout anyway (makes sense for the target audience I guess).
Price
It costs almost 100$. Admittedly it has a Flash exporter but then so does Games Factory… although in the case of games Factory you have to fork out extra 70$ or so – but then again Games Factory’s exporter works for the most part, unlike IG Maker’s. IG Maker has Xbox export… which we don’t really care about – your mileage may vary.
No copy / pasting between applications
You can’t open one application, copy a “gadget” from there and paste it in your application. Can’t be done. This is under “quirks” and not “cons” mostly because there’s no need for it, but in some occasions it’d certainly be handy.
Can have only one application open at any time
This means unless you have two computers it’s impossible to have a tutorial in one window and your application in another. Not a real “Con” since there’s rarely need for it, once the concept from a tutorial is understood, it’s like driving a bicycle.
Conclusion
Most of the Cons are coming from the fact that it seems IG Maker is aimed at people who save their projects in My Documents and want to make a simple game and have fun doing it – still, for an almost 100$ tool one would expect some extra flexibility.
Questions about IG Maker, comments, suggestions and discussion here.
