November 19, 2013Game Development: Tips & Tricks
I don't often (or ever) post non-GameMaker stuff here but, this is such a nice thing any developer can use, I feel I must.
Connor Ullmann (a GM vet, so I guess this is legit) curates a Google Doc of tips and tricks for game developers. It contains dozens of gems covering graphics, audio, programming, and design in general. It also has a few links to other useful resources for the independent developer.
It's a public document which anyone can edit and is well worth a look and a bookmark in your development quiver.
Game Development: Tips & Tricks
July 12, 2013GameMaker: Studio gets shaders and compiler
YoYo Games have recently released GameMaker: Studio v1.1058 which they consider a beta release of v1.2. This is a significant update that adds two huge new features.
The first of these is the addition of GPU shaders. One of the places GameMaker has always lagged behind is in 3D graphics support. GameMaker's primary purpose is for making 2D games but many users have found its basic 3D capabilities tantalizing enough to go to great lengths to get around some of its limitations to create games. Over time these limits have been reduced with simple improvements like better z-buffer control and render-to-texture abilities. With the addition of shaders and an improved vertex interface, there is now little that can't be done. GLSL ES shaders are available for most platforms and Windows users have the option of using more powerful GLSL and HLSL shaders.
The second major new addition is a native code compiler. As an interpreted language, GML has earned a reputation for being slow. The new compiler should put an end to that. CPU intensive games can expect significant performance improvements. YoYo has even gone so far as suggesting some processes running up to 100 times faster. That's probably an exceptional case, but expect at least modest improvements for all games. For now, the native code compiler is only available for Windows desktop games and requires the installation of Visual Studio or free-to-use Visual Studio Express.
May 13, 2013GameMaker: Studio Documentation Now Online
YoYo Games have quietly launched online documentation for GameMaker: Studio. For a long time GMLscripts.com has provided online documentation for all versions of GameMaker released in the last ten years. For reasons given below, links to some of them have not been published and all will cease to function in the future.
Over the last several months, during the ongoing site update, enabling help file access to all versions of GameMaker was a big relaunch goal. Through some scripting and a lot of regex magic, I developed a simple system to automatically convert GameMaker CHM help files into files suitable for the web and that goal was largely achieved. Getting the GameMaker: Studio documentation online has been troublesome due to the use of mixed-case file names within the help file. On Windows, these are not an issue, but on a web server with a case-sensitive file system, this often results in broken links. This is one reason the documentation has not yet been publicly linked.
However, a bigger issue is YoYo Games themselves. They have been very clear recently that they do not want anyone but themselves hosting their copyrighted documentation. Although I believe hosting this information falls under a fair-use copyright exemption, I will respect their wishes. After a lot of hard work, it disappoints me to say I will no longer be hosting any official GameMaker documentation here.
One of the original missions of GMLscripts.com was to provide a way for the GameMaker documentation to be annotated and accessed. There are always places where things in the documentation can be made more clear or supplemented with examples. Mark "Nocturne" Alexander's hard work on the official GameMaker: Studio documentation has gone a long way towards eliminating that need.
That said, extra clarity is always welcome. I encourage all GMLscripts.com users to visit the GMDeveloper blog. There you can find news, tutorials, and an evolving supplemental guide to GML. It is still in its early stages but I'm hopeful we will see it continue to grow.
October 2, 2012GameMaker: Studio now on Steam
Today, YoYo Games announced a new partnership with Valve Software, creators of the extraordinarily popular Steam game distribution network.
The first part of this partnership regards the opening of the new Steam App Store. Steam is moving beyond games and will begin selling application software as well. GameMaker: Studio will be one of those apps and I'm told that it will be the only development software available during the expanded service launch. Steam users will be able to download the recently released free version of GameMaker: Studio to try out, and will of course be able to purchase the standard version and its various development modules. It looks like GameMaker: Studio is about to get a lot more popular. Hopefully, this also means downloading updates to GameMaker: Studio will go a little more smoothly and quickly for members who link their software to the Steam service. This is wonderful news in and of itself, and with any luck it will be lucrative for YoYo Games, but that's not the end of the story.
The second part of this partnership is a lot more interesting. GameMaker: Studio will be integrated with the Steam Workshop for users who wish to interact with this large creative community. This is expected to work a bit like the Sandbox on the YoYo Games web site, but with the full might of Valve's servers and community behind it. GameMaker: Studio users (including users of the free version) will be able to create Steam Workshop community pages with information about their projects (including pictures and videos), upload their games to the Steam servers, and provide the ability to launch those games from within Steam. It may even be possible post HTML5 games right in the Workshop environment, but this is not yet clear and is admittedly doubtful. YoYo Games have been working closely with Valve tweaking GameMaker: Studio to ensure it is a "good fit" for their creative environment. Valve are reportedly "very excited" to see what GameMaker: Studio users will bring to their community -- and who can blame them! This also looks like a smart way for developers to get going on Steam Greenlight since it should be very easy for them to link directly to a Workshop page to launch a game, demo, or prototype with almost no barrier to entry. For the start, only Windows games will be supported, but Mac support should be coming soon after. More information about working with the Steam version of GameMaker: Studio can be found on the YoYo Games wiki.
This partnership has the potential to greatly increase the reach of GameMaker users to Steam's vast online community, as well as bring more attention to GameMaker from people who want to create games themselves but don't know where to get started. The Steam Workshop has always been a great way to jump into game development and now it's just gotten better. The existing Sandbox community on the YoYo Games web site will continue to operate and may see some minor updates in the future. It is hoped that games already posted there will find new players drawn from within the Steam community. In the distant future, the Sandbox may give way entirely to Steam Workshop. Only time will tell ... but what exciting times they are!
UPDATE:
YoYo Games has now posted its formal announcement.