GameMaker: Studio

Game Maker (GM) is one originally developed by Dutchman Mark Overmars integrated development environment (IDE ) for creating computer games for Windows and Mac OS X. games can be created in a graphical programming language without or almost without any programming knowledge. Next to it is a scripting language with optional extensions. Game Maker itself is developed in Embarcadero Delphi.

Since 2007, Game Maker by YoYo Games is marketed, founded one for this purpose, based in Dundee in Scotland company in which Overmars is involved. In the grounds of YoYo Games Game Maker Community (GMC ) 's reportedly over 100,000 games were created about 56,000 are available for download (as of November 2010).

• 4.1 Game Maker 5.3A
• 4.2 Game Maker 6.1
• 4.3 Game Maker 7
• 4.4 Game Maker 8

History

First Game Maker was designed under the name Animo as 2D computer animation program, it was later expanded into a development tool for beginners and for training purposes. The first version was published by Overmars on 15 November 1999. Since version 3.0, 2001 DirectDraw is used for graphics output, since version 6.0 from 2004 Direct3D. Since August 2010, is a version for Mac OS X available versions for PlayStation Portable and Apple iOS have been announced in 2010.

An official and numerous unofficial communities deal with the development of Game Maker games. The official, operated by YoYo Games Community has over 167,000 registered members, the largest German -speaking community around 2750 (as of December 2011). In the communities partially doped with prices competitions are organized regularly.

User interface

The graphical user interface is very easy for beginners. Each program created with Game Maker is divided into various resources: sprites, sounds, backgrounds, paths, scripts, fonts, timelines, objects and spaces. By drag and drop, you can develop the program sequence by simply dragging icons on the desktop. Objects, for example, is a series of events and associated actions assigned to that trigger as in the collision of an object with another its destruction. Nevertheless, variables and code can be used here already. Each of the symbolized by the icons program blocks is then available for a short script section.

The program offers the possibility, for example jump 'n ' runs, Puzzle, Maze, and other retro games to create drag and drop, but can be used with the scripting language and its diversity even for large projects.

With Customized games can regardless of the Game Maker compiled source or be published as stand-alone executable file ( Windows EXE ). The compiled Games are interpreted, thus they are inferior to the maximum execution speed native implementations over.

Scripting language

For complex tasks, Game Maker its own scripting language called the Game Maker Language (GML ) is available, inspired by high-level languages ​​such as Pascal, Java, and C and the user leaves a lot of leeway when creating the scripts. To block structures can optional or even mixed begin and end ( Pascal - style) are marked by curly brackets (C- style) or the keywords. Strings can be included in both single and double quotes.

Extensions

As of version 6, the registered version allows the integration of dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that perform tasks that Game Maker can not itself perform. Examples include network and database functions that use compressed archive formats (including 7Z ) or other audio formats such as Ogg Vorbis or tracker formats.

Versions

Game Maker 5.3A

A special role is played by the somewhat older version 5.3A of Game Maker. This is compared to the 6/7 series significantly lower system requirements, it is running on a Pentium system under DirectX 5 This makes it the most appropriate version for your computer below the gigahertz limit, since he and the games created with it run better performance on these systems than newer versions. In contrast to the version 6/7 is here set to DirectDraw as a graphic system, which has the consequence that changes to sprites (turning, coloring ) are a bit slower. Even owners of a S3 card of the Savage family is recommended to use this version. Due to incorrect implementation of Direct3D 8 in the driver this graphics card can result in Game-Maker-6/7-Spielen to massive errors. The version 5.3A is also often used as the " Lite " version as opposed to the versions from 6 has no functional limitations.

Game Maker 6.1

Game Maker 6 builds for the first time on Direct3D, which, albeit limited, use of 3D and vector graphics is possible. Also, there is thus quickly create effects such as snow, rain or fog easy ways.

The engine of Game Maker has been improved over the years and since version 6.0, especially in the graphics area significantly better, now supports hardware transparency and color mixing functions for the sprites.

A disadvantage of the Game Maker 6 is the inaccuracy in very large numbers and numbers with decimal places. Furthermore, it does not support as opposed to Game Maker Game Maker 5 and 7 Windows Vista because Vista no longer supports its compression method. However, there is a patcher for Game Maker 6.1, mitdem already created games with Windows Vista and later versions of Windows can be made compatible.

Game Maker 7

The Game Maker 7 was published in February / March 2007 by YoYo Games. It contains over Game Maker 6.1 mainly an expansion system that can be seamlessly integrated into the syntax, run- time system scripts and dll files of third parties. Furthermore run Game Maker 7 and thus generated games under Windows Vista, but the support for Windows 9x has been completely abandoned. With version 7 of Game Maker YoYo Games Ltd went to. about. The new registration and activation system that unlocks similar to Windows XP, Game Maker copy locally on the PC, has led to some controversy, so many Game Maker users are stuck with version 6.1.

Game Maker 8

Version 8 was released on 22 December 2009 and replaced by version 8.1 in March 2011. Innovations have included a completely revised script editor, the ability to import and export of resources and support for images with alpha channel.

Availability

A limited Lite version can be downloaded from the website of the developer free of charge. With this, for example, lack the functionality to reload external files, advanced drawing functions, 3D functions, a particle system, data structures, surfaces and the internal network multiplayer features. Since version 8.1, a permanently visible watermark is in games that were created with the Lite version, also inserted into the game surface.