I decided to gripe more about the fact that simple additions that make the experience much more enjoyable are left out of most games.  It doesn't take much to add them and not only with they aid people greatly, they'll make the game much more professional looking.

The Menu

Easily the most overlooked part of a Game Maker game.  People will generally have three buttons: play, help, and quit, and that will be it, which is a shame.  The menu is the first thing the player will see and will colour his / her impression for the whole game.  All information about the game and any sub-rooms should be available from the main menu or sub-menus...

• New game
• Load game
• Options
• Help
• High-scores
• Quit

Options Menu

The Options menu should contain controls that allow the player to change every aspect of the game; music, graphics, speed and such.  And it's not that difficult either.  These are the options that should be available in the Options menu of any game....

• Music
• Display
• Colour Depth
• Display Frequency
• Game Priority
• Frame Rate

Music
Not everyone will enjoy your taste in music.  Give them the option to turn it off.

Display
Never start a game in full-screen mode; you take away the control of a persons computer and it really does nothing more then annoy them.  Allow them to switch back and forth.

Colour Depth
Changing colour depth from 32 to 16 will sometimes increase the speed of the game.  And by keeping the colour scheme simple and avoiding the use of gradients, the play may not even notice the change expect in speed.

Display Frequency
There's no guarantee that the player has the refresh rate of his/her computer set to the same as the game, and matching them will allow the game to run more smoothly.  Allow the player to switch between the set refresh rate of their monitor and the rate of the game; don't just set the refresh rate automatically as that again is taking control away from the player.

Game Priority
This is a little used option that I rarely see in any games which is too bad since it's the easiest to add.  Game Maker allows you to set the priority of the game and allocate more computer recourses to it to add speed to the game.  As Game Maker games get more complicated and laden with effects it's almost necessary. The priority setting has several levels from -3 to +3.  Below 0 will allocate more resources to other programs while a positive number will give more to the game.  Note: never set to +3 as that's real time meaning other programs that are running will falter.

Frame Rate
This can be an 'optional' option as it doesn't work well with 'Display Frequency'  but you can allow the user to change room speed and just put a global variable in all speeds of the game to adjust to it.  This will you can change the game from 30 fps to 60 fps and back again.


This may seem like a lot, but not really.  Once you get an effective menu system set up, use it in all your games.  And you'll show the user that you actually care about their input in the gaming experience.

Hey, I learned a good bit from this, especially concerning those options bits. Thanks for the tips!

Though, in my own opinion, if there's an option to turn music off in games, I think there should rightly be an option to turn graphics off as well. Seriously. Not everybody might have your taste in graphics as well. It seems a rather silly thing to suggest, but I think turning off a game's music is silly :P

And I also just learned that the word silly used more than once in a sentence, even within separate clauses, is a ridiculous thing.

In further thought, I think you should place this in the resources section as well, honestly. Possibly with a few code examples in how to achieve some of these manipulations, wouldn't you say? It'd increase the likelihood of them being used, if nothing else.

Game Priority

Just a note on this, make sure this is fully optional.  Never have your game set to a different priority above normal as some configurations (such as my old machine) have issues with a higher priority setting then not (for example, a GM game on a higher priority level actually runs slower and input becomes unstable).

~Brandon

But people can easily play their own music over the game. They can't put their own graphics over it.

Turning off music is fairly standard in most professionally released video games.  It's also a good thing to do for those with hearing impairments.  Loud or continuous music can actually be painful for people with certain types of hearing problems so it's a courtesy to them.

My point was otherwise, I wasn't just being an idiot.

I disagree with the

"Never start a game in full-screen mode;"



I think it should be never change their monitor resolution. Sometimes a game is simple ment to be played in fullscreen mode. It helps add to the mood of the game when it covers the entire screen.



-Elmernite

In GM5, there's no choice but to change resolution AFAIK. Not changing resolution and just scaling up can also lead to blurry graphics in 6.

And like Shaltif said, setting the priority to anything above Normal has only given me trouble, mainly with input and the game slowing down, so I usually let it be?

I disagree with both. Sometimes a game ought to be played in a certain resolution as well, to achieve the proper effect. Just stretching to fill the whole screen, or using view scaling, can never have the same effect as a different resolution.

You make some good points, but sometimes I don't think it's a great idea to let the player choose their experience, so much. I guess it depends on the game; if it's one that's intended to be "artistic," (i.e. a complete, fine-tuned experience, where all of the game's parts contribute to the whole) then letting the player turn off the music, etc. don't seem like good ideas to me.