I have one little pet peeve when it comes to playing other people's games; it's minor but I can't help it; it irritates me.

People spend so much time on the spit and polish to make their game look just right, I play it through and then, bam!  Generic high score list.  It's not much, but the features in Game Maker make it so easy to build a custom high score list that to use the built-in one seems almost lazy.  highscore_value(place), highscore_name(place), and highscore_add(str,numb) make it incredibly easy to create your own high score list using the draw function.  This is a very simple script that will draw the text for a high score list, more or less centered on a 640 X 480 screen...

var a,b;
draw_set_font(font_title);
draw_set_color(c_white);
draw_set_halign(fa_center);
draw_set_valign(fa_top);
draw_text(320,40,'HIGHSCORES');
draw_text(200,80,'NAME');
draw_text(440,80,'SCORE');
draw_set_font(font_highscores);
b=120;
for(a=1; a<=10; a+=1){
    draw_text(200,b,highscore_name(a));
    draw_text(440,b,highscore_value(a));
    b+=30;
}
draw_set_valign(fa_bottom);
draw_text(320,470,'Hit any key to continue...');
screen_refresh();
keyboard_wait();

font_title is a larger sized font the font_highscores.  I use the basis of this script for pretty much everyone of my high score lists, just changing the x and y locations of the drawing functions in order to place it properly on the screen.  Just draw a nice background before you draw anything else and you're done.  You can even include the title headings in the background image so that all you have to do is draw the values themselves.

Like I said, it's not much, but why not personalize every part of your game?  It will look that much better.

Here's some examples of what I mean...

Yeah, the built-in highscores and dialouge boxes really make me cringe. Going the extra mile and creating your own is definitely worth it :)

Ditto. Few things bother me more. To me it's not even a matter of going the extra mile; if the creator really cares about the quality of their work, it's an obligation.

Pretty much anything GM-default has this effect, doesn't it? Message-boxes for instance... so grey. :/


Ah - wish I'd known about these two sooner. I've been using '- string_width(s)/2' the whole time. Ta.

Also, well put Jabbers. It's true.

I'm also irritated by a sudden standard-looking highscore box popping up. I'd enjoy the game if there was polish put in all aspects.