ID:1497720
 
What is the goal of BYOND's Dream Maker. How is it designed to be used. What is it designed to be use for. If it's goal has changed how so?
It's... the IDE for BYOND. You use it to compile your code and organize your game. That's it. It has always had the same goal—be a development kit to help develop games for BYOND.
What types of games was it designed to be used for? What was the inspiration for its design? Is BYOND'S only unique feature dream seeker?
For ... 2D games, preferably that use some kind of multiplayer mechanic?
Which 2D games does it specialize in? Or is it perfect for all 2D games?
In response to Sir Quizalot
Dream Maker was designed to be an all-encompassing development kit for any kind of game. I'm not sure what inspired it, though it isn't anything unique because virtually every language has some sort of IDE. If I had to guess though, its design is probably inspired by Visual Studio, which is what BYOND itself is developed in.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Is BYOND's only unique feature dream seeker?" As far as I'm aware, Dream Seeker is the component that executes instructions from a DMB. This is a pretty standard thing that any language that runs in a VM uses.
It's ... alright for most kinds, whatever you fancy? Twitch-gaming play-styles are a little debatable at times, but I've seen it done alright before (The Magic Man did a pretty reasonable DotA-esque thing once).
Flipping this around, why are you asking?

Are you trying to evaluate BYOND against other platforms for a particular kind of game you're planning on making?
I want to know what the long term goal for BYOND is to see how best I can use it. So twitch gameplay I assume works poorly because of communication required between sever and client? So any games which rely or efficient communication are not BYOND's strong suit?
Well, if you can forgive my slightly antagonistic nature, you might best use it by actually using it and getting some experience, instead of making these posts, which you seem to do a fair bit :P

This kind of discussion has been had a fair few times before, let me dig you up a few topics on it.
Sir Quizalot wrote:
What is the goal of BYOND's Dream Maker. How is it designed to be used. What is it designed to be use for. If it's goal has changed how so?

A man who wished to carry his future harvest of carrots more easily once walked up to a horse salesman and asked "What is the purpose of this horse? What are its long term goals?".

"It is a horse. It can walk and it is pretty strong."

Not hearing in the salesman's response any indication that the horse could carry carrots the man left and went back to what he was doing without purchasing a horse. The man's harvest consequentially rotted in the field and the rancid carrot stench filled the forums... I mean neighboring fields.
Topics that mention what applications (tasks/games) that BYOND doesn't work well with. Topics that mention specifically which 2D games BYOND doesn't work well with is what I seek.

To KickingKangaroo: Hmm... well, I got seeds still yet to plant, so rotting isn't a promblem.
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=818336 - A fair discussion topic regarding networking in BYOND. There's a lot of noise in the topic, but the general "it's server driven movement, but that's still pretty slick" is the conclusion. I can provide you a more detailed explanation if you'd fancy, but I dare-say I'd just be teaching you networking basics if I did.

http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=748804 Feature Request / Discussion regarding the other main question area, ticks, frame-rates etc.

http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1454904 Bit of a discussion on BYOND's status, position within the market etc.

But definitely I'd love to see you provide a more detailed answer about what it is that you want to make, first, before we can speak in any useful sense about BYOND's suitability. It's after all, a tool suite, so it's suitability depends on the job you have in mind.

Other than that, it lets you make 2D networked games pretty easily, as we've said. There's no point discussing more than that, until you have a clearer idea of what you want.
Let me try this one more time:

What are you trying to make with it?

Just try things. Failure is the best teacher. Take some time to learn DM and figure out what works and what doesn't. It's a lot more fun than it sounds.
In response to Sir Quizalot
Sir Quizalot wrote:
Topics that mention what applications (tasks/games) that BYOND doesn't work well with. Topics that mention specifically which 2D games BYOND doesn't work well with is what I seek.

To KickingKangaroo: Hmm... well, I got seeds still yet to plant, so rotting isn't a promblem.

Curse my imperfect analogy!
OH I get it. "Sir Quizalot", asking a lot of questions. Lol it took me a minute.
Plot Twist. Sir Quizalot is Tom trying to justify keeping BYOND running.