Should I invest in Game Maker 8?

[LordofPurple]

I want to start learning how to apply basic game design principles so I downloaded Construct. I love how easy it is to use but it doesn't have a very large internet community and doesn't seem to have a lot in the way of tutorials.
Game Maker 8 has been around much longer (well..obviously) and seems like it'd be better for someone first learning to make games since it has more tutorials and help available. Should I buy it or am I better off sticking with Construct?

 

[rutger5000]

I used Game-Maker too, and I'm quiet sure there are free variants. Of course these don't have all the features, but I fail too see why you'll need them all.
Game-maker is an excellent learning tool to get a feeling for programming, it'll introduce you to both programming through pictographs, and programming due actual text. But it's too simple to suffice as much more then an introduction. If you're serious about learning how to program, then I suggest you'll first have some fun with gamemaker, and after that buy an actual programming tool and learn how to use that.

 

[LordofPurple]

So just learning with the Lite version(s) will be fine?

 

[Tharwen]

For learning the principles of game design, the free version is fine.

However, I personally don't like Game Maker. I think it's far to clunky to be effective for making anything but concept demonstrations.

 

[warchief809]

I want to start learning how to apply basic game design principles so I downloaded Construct. I love how easy it is to use but it doesn't have a very large internet community and doesn't seem to have a lot in the way of tutorials.
Game Maker 8 has been around much longer (well..obviously) and seems like it'd be better for someone first learning to make games since it has more tutorials and help available. Should I buy it or am I better off sticking with Construct?

To be honest, I wouldn't recommended gamemaker as a starting point for programming anything, be it games or regular software. The picture based simplified programming is OK for programming IN gamemaker, but it will get you nowhere in REAL programming. Personally I would recommend XNA. It might be confusing and overwhelming for someone with no programming experience, but because it is C# based you will learn the syntax of a real programming language on the way, it also has tons of free tutorials around the web and everything you need is completely free.