Chapter 3. Shoot 'em Up: Creating a Side-scrolling Shooter
In this chapter, we will create a very simple side-scrolling shooter that will introduce us to the basics of making a complete game utilizing GML code. We will have a player character that can move around the play area and fire weapons. If they collide into an enemy or enemy bullet, they will be destroyed and can respawn if they have any remaining lives.
We will create three different types of enemies that fly across the screen:
FloatBot: It has no weapons but is hard to hit, because it floats up and down as it moves.
SpaceMine: It is the slowest enemy and will fire a ring of bullets if the player gets too close.
Strafer: It is the fastest enemy that flies in a straight line and fires bullets directly at the player's location.
We will polish the game by displaying the score and player lives, scroll the background to create the illusion of movement, play music, and add explosions. Finally, we will restart the game by implementing a win...