Title: Levels and Cheats in YOUR Games.
Course: RITA MC - GAME DESIGN > Section: Module 2

Have you started to consider how you will add LEVELS to your game? Some of you have, perhaps intuitively, or naturally, or it’s just something you KNOW to do because of all of the games YOU have played in your lifetime.

When you start working on levels, remember that duplicating rooms saves you a lot of work, so right-click on the room in the resource list and select Duplicate from the pop-up menu. Once you’ve made your levels, let someone else try to play them and see how difficult they find it. Game designers often find their games very easy because they have played them so much, but it is often much harder for everyone else. This is something you should always try to bear in mind when designing your games. The only way to verify this is by sharing your game and having someone else test it out.

One more thing: you may find it helpful to add a cheat in your game that allows you to skip between levels. You can do this as follows.

Editing the controller object to add cheats:

1. Open the properties form for the controller object.
2. Add a Key Press, <N> event and include the Next Room action.
3. Add a Key Press, <P> event and include the Previous Room action.

Leave the CHEATS in your Games when you submit them for a Grade.  And provide a comment, telling your instructor WHAT those cheats are.  Remember, Cheats are used to make you more productive when working on a game.

Good luck, and don’t forget to remove these cheats when the game is finally finished!

(Adapted from Game Maker's Apprentice by Jacob Habgood)

Here is one of the YouTube Videos for adding Cheat Codes in Game Maker Studio:

Cheat Codes by CODE ScrewOz (2016, January 21). CHEAT CODES ~ GM:S Toolbox (Ep 8) ~ Game Maker Tutorial [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/9dJ9PjiDe6E