Ok, this is my first article i wasnt going to write one but i feel that the majority of new (and sometimes old) click users fail to learn anything about MMF or TGF, the first part will be a mini-rant.

Im not flaming anyone here im just stating a point which has come to annoy me, new (and sometimes old) users simply do not learn. They seem to have this weird mental block which says "i cannot learn this, somebody could post an example for me" this trend has been increasing especially in the clickteam forums where a lot of the new file archive submissions are basically solving a users problem. But even then, they'll get the example file; copy the code, paste it into their game and attempt to hack at it until it works. THAT DOSENT MAKE SENSE! and heres the first pointer

1. If you get an example or view an example file, study it! Look at what each bit does, talk to yourself over what each event does, analyse the code. Until you can figure out how to do the same, without help.

After circys amazing parralax tutorial, a lot of people will just paste it in and not figure out why the elements scroll at different speeds, they'll just copy, paste and change the image, maybe change a value with a bit of trial-and-error.

But if you shut them off from all examples and told them to make a quick parralax platformer, they simply cannot or they take ages as they have not learned how to do it.

2. Play around, make 600 cca or gam files just playing around, say with ball bounce movement, just experiment with all the values and create a mini game out of it see what happens if you change value X or reposisitioning, then move onto other bits of MMF/TGF learn the actions, conditions and expressions as best you can, you dont have to memorize them, but once you learn MMF and TGF well a lot of things begin to be totally natural to you, once you can make a decent game within a day or so then youre ready for step 3

3. Push yourself; Don't just say "it'l do" if i said that with iPublish, it'd be worse than notepad as once youve learned MMF/TGF as best you can, you also learn on how far you can push it and go over the boundaries. Theres many interesting things you can do even with TGF if you show a little initiative and imagination If there isnt an extension for what you want to do, try to figure out how to do it with what you have, it can surprise you what the tools can do.

Notes: This dosent mean all clickers dont do this, ive seen so many amazing creations of people who have played around, studied and pushed the limits of their tools. It is also not n00b bashing, as i love to help n00bs or people who need help but only if they take it in, i also understand it can be difficult, i find learning certain things (like OOP) very taxing but i still try so im not being elitist, just a little annoyed
It is also my first article, so be easy