Reddit mentions of The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners

I've recently completed my first game using Game Maker, and I couldn't be happier with the results. Game Maker is a pretty simple program to use, and it does wonders for making game development seem approachable and manageable. No coding is required, but you can still put in your own scripts if you want to get fancy (or you can just code the whole thing).

There is a pretty substantial free version that you can download here. Plus there are plenty of tutorials online that can help you out with the basics of making a game.

After that, I would recommend getting a book to help walk you through some of the more advanced things. Being a fan of platformers, I found this book to have everything I needed to help me learn what I needed to know to make my game. It has tutorials that walk you through step-by-step when creating a platformer game, and it does a great job of explaining what each and every bit of code does.

If making a platformer isn't your thing, you can maybe try this book. I've never read it, so I can't attest to what's in it, but it's written by the same people, so I'd imagine the quality is top notch as well.

Good luck with the motivation, man! Try not to compare yourself too much to other people though. Sure your first few games aren't going to compare to today's blockbusters. Hell, when you're starting out, you might even be envious of some indie developers as well. But these people have had years of experience. They started out making mediocre things too. You just have to keep at it, and eventually you'll be on the same level as them (and you won't even notice it!).

Pro-tip: Try to make as many games as possible, instead of trying to polish one game to perfection. You learn a lot more from completing projects than you can trying to perfect one. Having an opportunity to reflect on what you would do differently for next time is invaluable.

Anyhoo, just try to stay positive, and think about how awesome it is that you plan to make things that entertain other people (I mean seriously, how cool is that?!)

I'm basically following along with this outdated book which is required for my game design course: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590596153/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The movements are declared with GMS's event/action GUI. I wish I could explain it better, but this is literally the first day that I'm using GMS. The only script that I wrote is for the game pause functionality and as well as the text prompt window.

I TAed a seminar for incoming college freshman with no prior programming experience, learning video games using Game Maker. It went extremely well.

I'd strongly recommend this book. It's great to let them do a few projects where it tells you exactly what to do and why you're doing it and gives you all the art assets already so that you can focus on just getting it up and running. After they've made a few using the tools provided, they can then apply those skills with their own ideas.

What helped me get into game design and works for all sorts of people is [Game Maker Studio.] (https://www.yoyogames.com/studio)

It's a program that contains easy drag-and-drop code for beginners, and real deal code in its own, simple to use language (GML) that takes inspiration from many other languages. Many professional games have been made with Gamemaker Studio (like Nidhogg, Spelunky, etc.) and it is absolutely great for any 2D game.

If you wanna get pretty serious on using Game Maker (you should, it's awesome) I recommend this book made by the creators of the software. It teaches you by guiding you through making games. At the start you're making simple shooters, and by the end of it you're making huge maze games.

Game Maker is so easy a kid could do it, and once you get into it, has pretty much everything you need to make a successful professional 2D game.

The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners (Book & CD)

If you want to be a good writer, you have to read.

If you want to be a good game designer, you have to play.

But if you are gonna play... then learn to make them too:

Good book on Game Design: Level Up by Scott Rogers

Design your own games easy: GameMaker and I suggest the book The Game Maker's Apprentice or Stencyl or even App Inventor for Android