![Draw things on top each other - Depth sorting [Game Maker | Basics] @1upIndie](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/igp2Ac_X_Jo/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded April 2022 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
This basics video tutorial shows you how to depth sort (depth system) in GameMaker.
Things feel natural if they are being draw correctly. Image a stack of cards and it is obvious that the top card would be visible to you. So what we do is to check where the instances are and sort them to their own depth (or their own layer so to say) according to their y position in the room. We cluster all the instances into a parent object and swap their current depth to their -y value. We do that with the "with" statement that allows use to go through all the instances and swap their own depth. That's it!
Advanced version of controlling depth:
youtube.com/watch?v=8QCgN2RDA9I
(Free) Art shown in the project and in video thumbnail:
Ansimuz CC0
opengameart.org/content/tiny-rpg-forest
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23 (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00 What we will do
0:59 Subscribe
1:11 Theory of depth and how things are being draw
2:03 Depth sorting
2:37 Grouping instances into a parent object to sort
3:44 Pitfalls of this depth sorting
This basics video tutorial shows you how to depth sort (depth system) in GameMaker.
Things feel natural if they are being draw correctly. Image a stack of cards and it is obvious that the top card would be visible to you. So what we do is to check where the instances are and sort them to their own depth (or their own layer so to say) according to their y position in the room. We cluster all the instances into a parent object and swap their current depth to their -y value. We do that with the "with" statement that allows use to go through all the instances and swap their own depth. That's it!
Advanced version of controlling depth:
youtube.com/watch?v=8QCgN2RDA9I
(Free) Art shown in the project and in video thumbnail:
Ansimuz CC0
opengameart.org/content/tiny-rpg-forest
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23 (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00 What we will do
0:59 Subscribe
1:11 Theory of depth and how things are being draw
2:03 Depth sorting
2:37 Grouping instances into a parent object to sort
3:44 Pitfalls of this depth sorting
![Draw things on top each other - Depth sorting [Game Maker | Basics]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/igp2Ac_X_Jo/mqdefault.jpg "Draw things on top each other - Depth sorting [Game Maker | Basics]
This basics video tutorial shows you how to depth sort (depth system) in GameMaker.
Things feel natural if they are being draw correctly. Image a stack of cards and it is obvious that the top card would be visible to you. So what we do is to check where the instances are and sort them to their own depth (or their own layer so to say) according to their y position in the room. We cluster all the instances into a parent object and swap their current depth to their -y value. We do that with the with statement that allows use to go through all the instances and swap their own depth. Thats it!
Advanced version of controlling depth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QCgN2RDA9I
(Free) Art shown in the project and in video thumbnail:
Ansimuz CC0
https://opengameart.org/content/tiny-rpg-forest
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
0:59 Subscribe
1:11 Theory of depth and how things are being draw
2:03 Depth sorting
2:37 Grouping instances into a parent object to sort
3:44 Pitfalls of this depth sorting")
![Gradient water/sea background - The easy way [GameMaker | Vfx]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/imIDu84jIF0/mqdefault.jpg "Gradient water/sea background - The easy way [GameMaker | Vfx]
This vfx tutorial shows you how to make a sea/gradient background for showing off in GameMaker with just a few mouse clicks.
The setup of this background consists of 3 visual effect layers. A gradient with a light and dark color, the underwater effect for a nice distortion of that gradient and a vignette to give the whole thing a more pleasant look. Super easy and no keyboard was used/hurt in the process.
Tldr: - vfx for the win
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
0:48 Set a gradient effect layer
0:42 Set an underwater effect layer
3:11 Finishing with a vignetter effect layer")
![Gravity Storm under the hood [game design, make in GameMaker]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jY_0SUvzbDE/mqdefault.jpg "Gravity Storm under the hood [game design, make in GameMaker]
Gravity Storm: First Mission is an action platformer similar to Metal Storm which was a Nes game in 1991. The idea is that the player can change the gravity on a button press and use the environment to his advantage.
This game design series will be each Friday on one of the games from my (community) discord channel or here youtube channel. The idea is to softly analyse and give useful feedback for the game. So you are all invited to chip in!
Game/demo found here:
store.steampowered.com/app/3482870/Gravity_Storm First_Mission")
![Weapon damage [#7 Vampire Survivors Remake in GameMaker ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k3evjBNv0Cg/mqdefault.jpg "Weapon damage [#7 Vampire Survivors Remake in GameMaker ]
This is the 7th video in a series on remaking Vampire Survivors in GameMaker.
The video tutorial shows you how to use the weapons created to damage the enemies and if their hp pool is zero to destroy them. For that we first assign a damage value to the weapon parent and assign a hp variable in the enemy parent which is getting substracted later on. So we need to create a collision rectangle list (or any other collision you prefer) to get the id of the enemy being hit/collided with and there we substract from each enemy hit the hp the damage value. If the hp is zero or below we remove the enemy instance from the game. Thats it!
To refine this system, we organize the damage values of each weapon in the player and each time we spawn a weapon we grab the current value, which will increase/change during gameplay. Normally you would do that in an outside controller object, but this simplified version does the trick also. Also note that we use a collision [rectangle] list because this is making sure we get each step all the instances getting hit by the weapon. The regular collisions only collide with one instance each step which would result in instance visibly hit not getting any kind of damage or hp reduction.
🚧 For the future: This series will will build expanded the further we go into the series.
💻Project + assets found here:
https://1up-indie2.itch.io/vampire-survivors-mini-engine
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
0:43 Subscribe
0:55 The concept what we do
2:05 Create a damage variable for all weapons
2:36 Create a health variable in all enemies
3:24 Make a step event that can collide with all enemies
6:55 Refine the system by storing and grabbing unique damage values for each weapon
8:32 foreshadowing the next video
9:00 Game shown: Astalon: Tears Of The Earth")
![Structs - light objects [Game Maker | Basics]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k874pndLJEs/mqdefault.jpg "Structs - light objects [Game Maker | Basics]
This basics video tutorial crash course shows you what structs are in GameMaker. An advanced video will go into constructors and more functions.
Structs are in principle ligh object or simply data containers. These data containers have a specific syntax which is very similar to the JSON standard (OOP: object oriented programming). Jason stands for Java script object notation and is an universal file format for human reading. The idea is that you have keys (the name of a variable) and values (the actualy value assigned to the variable) inside a struct. That can be used to created topdown hierarchies (nesting, a struct in a struct etc.) that can be chained (with the dot operator) together .
In short: Structs are light weight object with key values data inside them. Thats it.
Offical manual:
https://manual.yoyogames.com/GameMaker_Language/GML_Overview/Structs.htm
Video in detail about structs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe2GziffrIo
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
0:33 Subscribe
0:44 What is a struct? Spoiler, a light object
2:04 Syntax of a struct (JSON format)
6:02 The big no noes what not to do
6:42 Why use structs
7:50 Game shown: Tears of Astalon")
![External Hit Animation - Juice up any game [GAME DESIGN CODE]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kalIpZffZ3o/mqdefault.jpg "External Hit Animation - Juice up any game [GAME DESIGN CODE]
This video shows you how to juice up any video game with good Game Design. External Hit animations are the backbone of any video game and indicate to the player with an animation that something is happening to the player/npc instance. Note that external hit animations are coming from the outside and can be considered as an additional animation being drawn on top of the instance being hit and can be one or multiple animations being created.
There are two most common ways how to do this. A visual and easier way is to simply have an hit animation image that is running down its animation and once it is finished you then remove it. That can be used as a default hit animation for all cases or as specific type of hit animation (elemental, weapon hit or internal bleed/oil/rubble) or both.
The most common way in video games is to use particles that are being spawned in a particular way. This approach is more complicated and needs fine tuning becaues these animations are a composite of different particles. A vanilla hit effect for example has a fast moving ring that goes from the center and exands plus small lines that rapidly move out of the center in an circular fashion.
Tldr:
- sprite/image or particles or both to create hit effects
- can be default, specific internal/external effects
🚧 For the future: There will be follow up video that shows these hit animations with code and a visual
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 Hit animation with sprites/images
0:18 Specific hit animation (elemental, weapon etc.)
1:04 Hit animation with particles
1:40 Combined hit animations
2:14 Game shown: Celeste")
![Metroidvania Map the easy way - Concept [GameMaker]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kgZjhEuhgNc/mqdefault.jpg "Metroidvania Map the easy way - Concept [GameMaker]
This video tutorial covers the concept of how to create a metroidvana map in GameMaker. Every good sidescroller/metroidvania has it and now I can offer a simple, scaleable and performative version to you without tanking your performance.
The idea is quite simple, you define how many columns and rows you want to have, draw on each cell one empty image/sprite and draw one active cells recolored rectangle and their walls (connector walls optional). Or do create for each cell one specific sprite (delux version) where you have less repeated cells to work with but map clarity is much improved.
The following parts will be coding and add, start location, visited/not explored cells aswell as map movement and zooming.
You can find the project file in my discord server under this section:
free-stuff_gamemaker or the first pinned comment by me
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
0:00 What we will build in part 2
0:45 How the my old map worked and now is fixed
1:35 Step 1 - Define how many rows and columns you want, draw empy cell
1:55 Step 2,3 - draw active cell on x,y cooridnates that have a level via one white block and recolor it
2:20 Step 3 - Draw walls to show where the player can go, alternative draw wall-connectors
3:28 Delux version is where you have one specific image to draw and recolor it
4:45 - Concept again, one event, we draw all pieces, draw that on a surface and store the whole thing in one image/sprite
5:20 The basic version will be free to download on my discord server")
![Contra style turret [Game Maker Studio 2 | Enemy Ai]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lHSidYF8zxg/mqdefault.jpg "Contra style turret [Game Maker Studio 2 | Enemy Ai]
This enemy ai video tutorial shows you how to make a contra style turret that rotates slowly towards the player in GameMaker Studio.
The idea is quite simple. You first define a distance towards the player on when entered the turret starts to rotate toward him. Because we dont want an instant rotation we delay the rotation. Then when we are in a good enough angle towards the player we can start shooting. Thats it!
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
Totally not mario and boomerang found here:
https://opengameart.org/content/admurins-general-items
https://opengameart.org/content/super-miyamoto
0:00 What we will do
0:46 Subscribe
0:59 How it works
2:05 Coding part
10:51 Game shown - The massenger")
![🔴Loot Vfx - The easy way [GameMaker | Vfx]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mVMZJ7toglI/mqdefault.jpg "🔴Loot Vfx - The easy way [GameMaker | Vfx]
This visual effects video tutorial shows you how to almost create a cool looking loot visual effect like you see in Nioh, the souls series or other games but this time for in a 2D engine.
The idea is to create a cone texture and use that as a particle to be spawned and moved slightly upwards. This method works in any engine and is not exclusive to GameMaker. If you use Unreal/Unity/Godot you got 3D particles and well, they are superior in looks. In GameMaker we use the inbuild particle System to create the 2D particles and optional other effect to round it off. Thats it!
// to create and spawn the visual effect use this code in GameMaker:
var partSys = part_system_create_layer( Instances, 0, ParticleSystem1 );
part_system_position( partSys, x, y );
Game shown: Nioh 2
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
1:06 Subscribe
1:17 Preview
1:40 Creating own textures for the loot vfx
3:19 Customizing GameMakers particleSystem
6:37 Optional effects on top")
![Splash Screen Parallax [GameMaker | Vfx]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/miHP3zn3EY8/mqdefault.jpg "Splash Screen Parallax [GameMaker | Vfx]
This vfx video tutorial shows you how to visually upgrade your splash screen/backgrounds in GameMaker with a parallax plus some neat and cheap light effects.
The idea is quite simple: You need to have seperated images to create a pseudo 3D effect by enlarging and making them smaller in a rythmic slow time frame. For that you simply need to use the GameMakers animation curves to tween in a loop. You also use the animation curves for the flashing lightning effect aswell as for some fake blinking lights on important spots. If your images are angled not like in the video straight forward (for example to the right like in Fury Unleashed) you also can use the animation curves to move (change the x,y position of the layers) where want to move. Thats it!
Video on animation curves in detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMIzQGjmkFA
Art from Valeria The Pagan Priestess:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC BuvjesA39JuN4cZ5gxug
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
1:12 Subscribe
1:26 Another example how have a parallax splash screen
2:23 How it is done
4:19 Setting up the animation curves
6:08 Code part
8:42 Lightning/flash setup
10:03 Flat light sources")
