GameMaker Studio 2 impressions: Start Page

[Rather than posting a long article that takes days to organize, I’m opting to do short-form posts that focus on a narrow aspect of the new GameMaker. This means more frequent, smaller posts, which will hopefully be more timely and more digestable for readers. For more articles in this series, just follow the GameMaker Studio 2 tag.]

Here’s what the new Start Page looks like:

GameMaker Studio 2 Start Page

Observations

  1. My display resolution is 2048×1152, and yet the Start Page still doesn’t fit all on the screen without scrolling. Wow.
  2. The top third of the Start Page is taken up by a rotating slide show of images. Personally, I find this annoying. Granted, the Start Page is not a screen I’ll be spending a lot of time looking at, but I just don’t care for the rotating images. I find them distracting. I want a dev tool, not a marketing delivery system. It’s one thing to have the “did you know” tips that provide useful information, and I of course love the news and release notes, but a image that updates every few seconds when I just want to set up a new project is a bit much for me. The images don’t do anything for me, and they take up a lot of space that could be used for something more useful.
  3. Hovering over the rotating slideshow, I noticed the cursor changed to the pointing finger which indicates I’m hovering over a hyperlink. Intrigued, I clicked, wondering what would happen. This is what happened:
    GMS2 Start Page 2Where did Getting Started and Explore go to? How do I get them back? Why did clicking the image at the top of the screen make that happen? It took me a few minutes, but I figured out that if I click the GameMaker Studio logo at the top left of the Start Page, in the transparent ribbon overlaying the rotating slideshow, it puts the Getting Started and Explore sections back.This is really weird navigation. They should just have left and right arrows at either side of the sections, or tabs.

    Start Page UI suggestion

    UI suggestion: Rather than switching between [Getting Started|Explore] and [Tutorials] by clicking on the slideshow or the GMS2 logo, which have no apparent connection to these sections, just use a straightforward left/right arrow navigation system to switch between them.


    Clicking links on the top, which aren’t even obviously links, which have no apparent relationship to the bottom half of the screen, just isn’t good UI design.
  4. I notice Start Page is a tab within the GMS2 window, but I can’t close the tab. What other tabs will appear here when I start using the software?

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