Action Game Maker by developer and publisher Gotcha Gotcha Games—PC review written byNickwith a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.
The ‘Maker’ games have been around for many, many years and they have somewhat a mission that at the same time seems both simple and ambitious: they want to help creative minds to create video games. Action Game Maker is the latest attempt to give the power of game creation to those who don’t necessarily know how to program. Does it work, or is it more trouble than it’s worth? Overall, I’d say it is a solid option for would-be game makers, but there are compromises to be found as well.
At first glance, Action Game Maker feels somewhat like a spiritual successor to Pixel Game Maker MV. The engine is different, but like this title, there is a focus on action over strategy and story. Speaking of the engine, this is probably Action Game Maker’s most controversial topic. It’s built on the Godot engine, which is free to use. This introduces a host of concerns, such as there may be trailing upgrades to Action Game Maker that Godot gets first, and there’s more flexibility in the Godot system without the ‘Maker’ wrapper. For better and for worse, a base Godot engine is going to have less ‘stuff’ attached to it, making it a bit faster / lighter-weight.
That being said, Action Game Maker is attempting to bridge the gap between those who can leverage the existing Godot engine and those who need a bit more assistance. In particular, the UI here is likely going to resonate best with those who have played other ‘Maker’ titles like the aforementioned Pixel or RPG makers. Variables, switches, objects, database and more create an environment that is more newbie-friendly by nature. I will say that the trend of rough documentation (something the Maker series has long been known for) is still real. I was pretty capable of moving about the software and immediately understood some concepts because I have decades of experience in these programs. I’m not sure an entirely new player would slide in and hit the ground running quite as easily.
At its core, Action Game Maker is built on the concept of visual scripting. You can connect a variety of actions to structure the game of your dreams. That being said, I look at these interface options as training wheels of sorts. They help you get things figured out, but once you’ve worked with the software for a bit, you may decide to dig into the GDScript. Think of it as Godot’s scripting language. Most of the Maker titles have something like this, where you can fundamentally change the code around the game so you can further customize it. This can help make your title more unique – but also potentially unstable. You’re messing with the framework when you do this, and the results can vary wildly.
While the actual documentation could be clearer, the tutorials and sample projects are designed in a way that the fundamental concepts are at least shown in a way that should assist learning. Also, almost anything in the ‘Maker’ series winds up with some pretty strong community support. This can come in the form of graphic packs, music and sound files, coding snippets and more. Of course, this is a freshly released game and we don’t yet fully know what the community will look like, but historically that has been a great resource that I expect will occur here as well. If and when it does, this lends itself to scripts (mentioned above with the coding language) and new assets that allow you to make something that stands out from the pack.
That is one of the things that tends to hold the Maker titles back. They’re a lot of fun to play with, but if you’re using the default resources you start to realize that your titles get to look and sound rather ‘same-y’ as others released in the community. That’s great early on, but that tends to eventually become the wall for users – do they push further into custom visuals and code to differentiate future products or not? That’s for each user to decide, but it's one of those things that I see happen with all of this software.
Now, despite the name – you don’t just have to make action games. I feel like that’s the lean of course, but you can make RPGs and adventure titles as well. There are options that help you control the pacing and style of play. If anything, I’d say it’s probably easier to make an RPG with this software than it would be to make an action game out of one of the RPG Maker titles (though people have certainly tried and succeeded on that front as well).
Is Action Game Maker worth picking up? Your mileage may vary. I’ve enjoyed my time with it immensely so far, but I am the target audience. I’m not a developer, but I can script and I have more ideas than actual capability. I do however, have lots of experience with the various Maker titles over the years (and decades) and generally find them to be fun and useful. You’re probably not going to release the next great blockbuster action title by using Action Game Maker, but you can certainly use it to help get some of your creative ideas out of your head and onto a computer screen, and that’s what the software is all about.
Score: 7 / 10
