#tool suggestions

There are three useful tools I use with visual studio that I would like to suggest for you today.

First, I like using [Entrian Source Search], especially if your project has a lot of code. It maintains an index which allows you to search for things very very quickly. It's like find in files, but instant because it's all pre-indexed for you. The bigger the project becomes, the longer find in files takes. ESS can search your stuff faster.

Second, I suggest getting the [Smart Command Line Arguments] plugin. If you're working on a project and command line arguments are a thing, this plugin will help a lot. It allows you to create a tree structure for different command lines so you can activate the different command line arguments you want by selectively turning specific arguments on and off. You can even group them within subfolders and turn everything within the subfolder on or off when you like.

Finally, I suggest [Search Everything]. It's not actually a visual studio plugin, but I use it all the time anyway. Search Everything is similar to Entrian Source Search in that it creates a searchable index for fast results, but instead of finding within files, this searches for specific filenames (or fragments thereof). This is really helpful if you're looking for a file or asset path somewhere within the project, but don't remember where it is or the exact name of it. You can search with fragments of the file name you're looking for, and it will show you all of the files that match your criteria.

Happy coding!

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To be honest, 2D game development is not a very good way to go through the future. The biggest reason for this is mostly because it’s way easier to create 3D game animations and assets. You can play an animation on a 3D model and view it from multiple camera angles by doing some mathematical transforms without needing to redraw every frame of animation, whereas traditional 2D lacks this ability. It’s been one of the biggest time savings in the move to 3D. 

If you want to learn something that will actually be directly transferrable to a professional setting and stay with 2D game development, I would suggest trying to pick up Flash (and, by extension, Actionscript). Adobe began supporting Object-Oriented programming with Actionscript 3.0, which means that the sort of things you can do with it are much bigger and broader, and you can build games and applications that can easily be run and playtested with just a browser. Learning how object-oriented programming works would also help push you toward a career in software engineering, if that’s something you’re interested in. While it is sometimes looked down upon by the hardcore gamer audience, Flash is a great way to make your own games and make them interesting.

A second option I would suggest is trying to remake your game (I believe I recall you saying before that it was a Tower Defense game?) in the Starcraft 2 editor. You'd make the transition to 3D (which I assume you'd want to do eventually), and you'd have a new tool to learn and play with. I know for certain that the Starcraft 2 editor is pretty robust, and a 2D game can be built pretty easily on a 3D game - you just fix the camera at a specific height and angle, and you're good. The Starcraft 2 editor was the tool the designers used to create the campaign for the game, so it should provide a lot of options you might not have available in GameMaker.