Day 5: The Tutorial is Completed

After a long and exhausting first week back at school, I finally found the energy to sit down and place the final pin for the tutorial phase of the maze game. I'm thrilled to say that I've worked through the last two videos in Mr. Ridgway's series, and the core of the game is now fully functional!

The final videos covered creating a main menu, a win/loss condition, and adding a life-tracking system. However, as I got into these final steps, I found myself going off-script more and more, which led to some fantastic discoveries.

For example, the tutorial manually calculated when the mouse cursor entered or left a button to create a hover effect. I had a feeling there might be a more direct way, and after a little digging, I found GameMaker's built-in Mouse Enter and Mouse Exit events. Using these made the code much simpler and more intuitive. It's a great example of how, as you get more comfortable with an engine, you start to anticipate its built-in solutions.

I also added a lot more of my own touches. I used Inkscape for the graphics, added a variety of new sound effects to make the game feel "juicier," and used different room transition functions like room_goto() for more specific control over the level flow.

With the tutorial now complete, the foundation is set. The levels in the game right now are just placeholders from the videos. The next, and most exciting, step is to take everything I've learned and design three of my own unique, challenging levels. Once those are complete, I'll be ready to officially publish the second completed project of the bootcamp.

It's been a tough week, but finishing this feels like a huge victory. Now, the real creative work begins.