Looking to make side-scrolling platformers mostly using my 3D models (ie; Tomba).

Game Maker seemed to be the tits but it was bought out and now being used by big wigs to bring in bling.

Is Klik & Play for School practical and fully functional?

You might give Scrolling Game Development Kit 2 a try. It's not very easy to get into, but once you do, I think it's very powerful. It's not 3D though. I messed around with the first one years ago, and just started looking at the new one recently.

Gamemaker is fantastic. Allows you to do pretty much whatever you want in 2d. Not as good for 3d, though, so maybe not what you're looking for.

Although the 8.1 free version puts a nasty watermark on your games, and some features aren't present. If you're seriously thinking about game development, I'd just pay for Gamemaker pro. It's a great starting point, especially for one person development. Also, you don't have to pay any royalties to sell your game, provided you use the pro edition (games made with the free version can't be legally sold, as far as I know)

This caught my eye a few weeks ago http://www.scirra.com/construct-classic There is a Youtube vid here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2dI8VXQJPE that shows it in action.

The version above has been open sourced now so is completely free but is limited to DirectX 9 features(at this time), that shouldn't matter if your just messing around at this stage though. The developer also has a 2.0 release that has limited resources bundled with it but still free within those constraints.

Not sure how useful they are but I've heard good things about them on a couple of blogs.

Construct is nice, but you can't really use it for 3D Models...

give this a try: http://www.3drad.com/

Free 3D Game Engine, and Platformers can be really easy been made with it :)

Oh, and you don't need any coding.

Gotta say thanks for mentioning 3D Rad. I normally ignore 3D game makers as my modelling skills are even worse than my 2D art skills, but I've been looking for a way to turn Sketchup models into game environments for ages.

Thanks to you, I can finally walk around that mockup of a new Crystal Maze set!

Anyway, to the topic in hand- as I said, I don't have much experience with 3D, but I've played with a few 2D oriented makers, and while I used Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion for years, I've recently found Construct Classic to be extremely good. It has some annoyances, but the learning curve isn't too bad and it's got plenty of great features. Just not very good 3D support, so a Tomba-esque multi-layered 2.5D game is probably out of the question.

It's funny to see kilk and play mentioned, as I used that a lot back in high school so it's way way out of date, 4-5 products behind.


(edit whoops I guess i was wrong never mind)

I think it puts a watermark on the screen if you don't get the paid version, but Unity3D is well known in the indie scene.

Thanks for the references.
My 3D skills are actually better than my 2D ones so I'm the opposite way around. lol.
I think RAD might be what I need but Unity looks sweet too.

Unity is probably one of the best ones to experiment with as it is very flexible in what you can do with it as one can see by looking at their game showcase page. Though it does require a good bit of coding knowledge. I wouldn't say it's really for true beginners, but at least they made it (non-pro version) free for non-commercial use, so it's worth giving it a look.

Kodu maybe?

http://www.kodugamelab.com/

how about giving Unity3D a try: http://unity3d.com/unity/
games created with it will work on windows, mac and iphones.

I think Dark BASIC has some free programming languages and game makers now.

www.thegamecreators.com

I might have an old version of Mark Overmar's Gamemaker some where. If you want it, I could send a link*. I used his 4.0 version ages ago -- it's a whole different program than it is today. Much easier to use.

*if indeed I still have a copy. I'd have to look on some old CDs.