Tag: GameMaker Studio 2

Vote for GameMaker Studio 2 on Linux

development, games, programming
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I just created a Twitter poll to assess the interest in a Linux port of the GameMaker Studio 2 IDE.

One of my biggest wish list items for GameMaker Studio is to have the IDE on Linux, so I can stop being a Windows user. I’m on Windows 7 currently, and Microsoft will not support this version forever. Already they have stopped selling new computers with Windows 7. After the way Microsoft treated Windows users who were not interested in upgrading to Windows 10, using unethical, underhanded, and very likely illegal tactics to try to force Windows users to upgrade, I am not interested in ever purchasing another product from Microsoft, and my preferred platform to migrate to would be a popular Linux distro such as Ubuntu or Mint. GameMaker is the only Windows software that is holding me back.

I’ve asked on the GMC Forums if YYG intend to release a Linux port for GMS2, and currently there’s no plans to do so, but they are open to considering it if they see sufficient interest.

In 2014, then-YoYoGames CEO Sandy Duncan had teased us with the possibility that GMS2 would bring an IDE that ran on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Obviously things can change, and a lot of things have changed with YoYoGames since then. Whether or not we see a native Linux IDE for GMS2, it’s still my #1 wish list item for GameMaker.

GameMaker Studio 2 announced

development, games
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Today YoYoGames released an announcement with some details of the impending release of GameMaker Studio 2.

The biggest news in today’s release:

  1. It appears that they are not moving to a subscription model at this time. YoYo will be selling permanent licenses on a per-module basis for $99 each. There will be upgrade discounts for users who hold a paid license for GM:S1.x, for a limited time. This is very good news for casual users of GameMaker, who would be turned off by a subscription for something they don’t use all the time.
  2. At launch, the IDE will only be available for Windows, but a Mac OS X version of the IDE will go into beta shortly after launch.
  3. No word on a Linux IDE. This was something I had very much hoped would be introduced with GMS2, but at this point at least it seems like there is no plan for it. I really hope that it does happen, so I can get off of Windows.
  4. Confirmed that this is the total re-write that we’ve been waiting on for years, which has been known about for some time. Still not a lot of details on what improvements have been made with the IDE, or whether the GML programming language has changed dramatically. Ideally we’d all like old projects to import into GMS2 and just work, and we still don’t yet know whether they will. There are some significant changes to GML that will impact compatibility with old projects. No doubt this will generate a lot of complaints, but we’d also like GML to add new features and modernize so that it will be more powerful, more easy to use, less prone to bad programming, etc. So this is a balance/trade-off kind of thing. There is a porting guide to help projects that were created in 1.4 migrate to 2.0.
  5. The public Beta for GMS2 begins today, but they are limiting the number of users who have access to the beta for now. At the moment there are no slots available, but YoYo will be adding more slots gradually in the near future.

Additional information

More specific details about changes in GMS2 are available at the YoYoGames Help site.

They’ve brought back a product roadmap! I’m extremely happy to see this.

Deeper dive

Over the last few years, I had been an active contributor on the Suggestion Box subforum in the GameMaker Community Forums. Many of my suggestions were denied, because YYG interpreted the forum as being for suggestions for the 1.x line only.

This wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the forum rules, but came out after numerous ideas that I’d suggested had all been shot down with some mention of “Not feasible in 1.x” and I kept replying, “OK but I don’t care what version it gets delivered in, I still want a GM:S that works this way someday.”

It’s nice to see that one of my suggestions, to have an inheritance system for rooms, has been adopted. Reading the article on this new feature, it sounds a bit more complex than I would have expected, but it is powerful and more fine-tunable.

It should be fun to discover what other ideas from my wish list may have been made a reality in this new version.

GameMaker Studio 2 nearing release

development, games
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In the last couple of days, YoYoGames have released some teasers that seem to be signaling the immanent release of GameMaker: Studio 2.0. This long-awaited release will overhaul the GM:S GUI, which YoYo have been rewriting in modern C++, and usher in a new era for GameMaker. Beyond that, little is known, as YoYo have been pretty secretive about their plans for the future of GameMaker since being acquired by PlayTech in 2015.

My greatest hope is that GM:S2 will have builds for Mac OS X and Linux. Out of all the software I use today, GameMaker is the last product that runs only on Windows, and I am eager to move to Linux full-time.

It remains to be seen what the release will bring.

Recent purchases of GameMaker who picked it up through the Humble Bundle have been speculating about what GM:S2 will cost. Obviously, a major release isn’t going to be free. It’s typical practice for software companies to sell upgrades to existing users at a substantial discount, so I’m expecting no less.

If YYG do extend discounted upgrade pricing to Humble buyers, most of whom paid around $15, they’ll still be getting an incredible value.