Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 13 hours ago
News have come yesterday on how GameMaker moves forward. By the start of the next month the we will get the last update on GameMaker for everybody that has the old perpetual licence. After that a new runtime is being set and if you want to use it commercially you need a new perpetual licence under the Professional Tier or if you need to have exports for consoles the more expensive Enterprise Tier subscription.
What did change?
The new Free Tier is an upgrade because now you can export to all platforms except consoles. That means you are no longer locked in the GameMaker file format which allows you to create demos or full games and share it in a playable version with everybody. The only restriction is that you cannot use it commercially (sell it or use for commercial purposes).
The indie subscription (and the others ones) is gone and being replaced by a one time license for deskop, mobile and Web exports. This is a good move because the majority prefers to buy a software and keep it. The downside, if there is that the Free Tier does allow the same exports aswell, so if you are not using GameMaker commerically, there is no need to buy it.
For people already having invested in the old subscriptions, you get discounts/a reduction of the set price of the Professional/Enterprise Tier.
So should you get it the Professional Tier?
I would wait and see if it makes sense for you, personally I will stick for now on the last update and see if transition makes sense. In the futuer I will get the Professional license anyway, but not now (maybe on a discount).
I have a subscription running, what happens now?
The old subscriptions as far as I understand will cease to exists/run out and you get a discount of payed money towards the new payed Tiers.
Tldr:
- Free Tier: Has best of all worlds, exports now free!
- Professional Tier: Like the old perpetual licences, buy once keep the licence and sell your games
- Enterprise Tier: Only interesting for developer teams or developers that really need to export their games to consoles
// yes it is satire
Offical blog and release notes:
gamemaker.io/en/get
help.gamemaker.io/hc/en-us/articles/14954144182941
github.com/orgs/YoYoGames/projects/13/views/1
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23 (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00 The newest GameMaker pricing/tier roadmap
0:31 Tldr
2:12 New and old GameMaker
3:42 New Free Tier
5:25 Professional Tier
6:38 Should you update to the new runtime
7:18 Enterprise Tier
8:12 What happens for current/old subscribers?
News have come yesterday on how GameMaker moves forward. By the start of the next month the we will get the last update on GameMaker for everybody that has the old perpetual licence. After that a new runtime is being set and if you want to use it commercially you need a new perpetual licence under the Professional Tier or if you need to have exports for consoles the more expensive Enterprise Tier subscription.
What did change?
The new Free Tier is an upgrade because now you can export to all platforms except consoles. That means you are no longer locked in the GameMaker file format which allows you to create demos or full games and share it in a playable version with everybody. The only restriction is that you cannot use it commercially (sell it or use for commercial purposes).
The indie subscription (and the others ones) is gone and being replaced by a one time license for deskop, mobile and Web exports. This is a good move because the majority prefers to buy a software and keep it. The downside, if there is that the Free Tier does allow the same exports aswell, so if you are not using GameMaker commerically, there is no need to buy it.
For people already having invested in the old subscriptions, you get discounts/a reduction of the set price of the Professional/Enterprise Tier.
So should you get it the Professional Tier?
I would wait and see if it makes sense for you, personally I will stick for now on the last update and see if transition makes sense. In the futuer I will get the Professional license anyway, but not now (maybe on a discount).
I have a subscription running, what happens now?
The old subscriptions as far as I understand will cease to exists/run out and you get a discount of payed money towards the new payed Tiers.
Tldr:
- Free Tier: Has best of all worlds, exports now free!
- Professional Tier: Like the old perpetual licences, buy once keep the licence and sell your games
- Enterprise Tier: Only interesting for developer teams or developers that really need to export their games to consoles
// yes it is satire
Offical blog and release notes:
gamemaker.io/en/get
help.gamemaker.io/hc/en-us/articles/14954144182941
github.com/orgs/YoYoGames/projects/13/views/1
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23 (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0:00 The newest GameMaker pricing/tier roadmap
0:31 Tldr
2:12 New and old GameMaker
3:42 New Free Tier
5:25 Professional Tier
6:38 Should you update to the new runtime
7:18 Enterprise Tier
8:12 What happens for current/old subscribers?
![(De)-activate + spawn enemies around player [#9 Vampire Survivors Remake in GameMaker ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bdjyR48G6Qo/mqdefault.jpg "(De)-activate + spawn enemies around player [#9 Vampire Survivors Remake in GameMaker ]
This is the 9th video in a series on remaking Vampire Survivors in GameMaker.
The first part of this video tutorial shows you how to setup a system that activates instance (of enemies) in the view and deactivates them outside the view (plus some extra buffer around the view). Deactivated instances are very light weight and have no running code, which make theme easy to get rid off and when the view is close enough you can re-activate them so that they become functional again. The second part is simply showing you how to spawn radially around the player new enemy instances. Thats it!
🚧 For the future: This series will will build expanded the further we go into the series.
Video on lenght_dir:
https://youtu.be/pl7-sr6zeT8
Culling system like in Forager (advanced!):
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/forager-optimization-in-gamemaker
💻Project + assets found here:
https://1up-indie2.itch.io/vampire-survivors-mini-engine
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
0:52 Subscribe
1:04 The concept what we do
1:59 Drawing the enemy instance count for checking
2:36 Loop an alarm event to activate/deactivate + spawn enemies
4:23 Use functions (de)-activate region
6:57 Spawn enemies around the player")
![Data structure - ds grid [Game Maker | Basics]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/c9qwFCvHTuM/mqdefault.jpg "Data structure - ds grid [Game Maker | Basics]
This basics video tutorial shows you how to use ds grids in GameMaker.
The first question would be, do you need learn about ds gird in Gamemaker Studio. And the answer is yes because it a way to store informations in this specific data structure. So if you want to have an inventory system, and upgrade tree or a bestiary, then it is quite useful to understand what ds grids are and how you can use them for your own game in Gamemaker. To put it in a nutshell, ds grids are basically collums and rows of stored data in Gamemaker, like an exel spread sheet so to say. Thats it!
Video on ds lists:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ygcKjltSQY
Video on accessors of data structures:
https://youtu.be/hnYtW4ang4I
Cool monster image from video thumbnail:
https://opengameart.org/content/bevouliin-underground-worm-sprite-sheets-for-game-devg-2
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do
0:49 Subscribe
1:00 Theory ds_list
1:58 Theory ds_grid and what we build
2:38 Use case for a ds_grid")
![Forager style bounce [Game Maker Studio 2 | Advanced]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/c_RrRbLoD14/mqdefault.jpg "Forager style bounce [Game Maker Studio 2 | Advanced]
This advanced video tutorial shows you how to create a bounce which you see in popular games like Forager in GameMaker Studio 2.
The idea is quite simple. You scale an object with the help of an animation curve in a bounce motion. Thats it!
// General video on animation curves:
https://youtu.be/gMIzQGjmkFA
free tileset from video found here:
https://opengameart.org/content/dirt-and-grass-forager-inspired
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
0:00 What we will do
0:27 Subscribe
0:37 Concept explained
1:10 Coding part")
![DnD - No coding way to make games [Game Maker Studio 2 | Crash course]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cuHEKpO3BSA/mqdefault.jpg "DnD - No coding way to make games [Game Maker Studio 2 | Crash course]
Gamemaker Studio 2, Gms 1.4 or even the Game Maker 8 have an alternative unique way to make video games without coding.
Most ides like Unity, Godot etc. use an already existing scipting language that is not visual. Gamemaker has its own version of a scripting/programming language. Here it is called GML which stands for Gamemaker language. But as an alternative you can use a block tool that substitutes the programming language visually with DnD which stands for drag and drop.
DnD:
These visual blocks are instructions/commands in every object to do things like moving, setting and getting values or drawing things on the screen. This crash course will guide you through the most important/essential parts of making games which is:
- detecting a keyboard input
- moving things by updating x,y values or by direction plus speed
- instance creation and destruction
- randomness and variables to store values
These topic build the foundation to build fast and easy with DnD small video games in just a few minutes.
// free resouces found here:
background, ships, shots, asteroids by Ansimuz: CC0
https://opengameart.org/content/space-ship-shooter-pixel-art-assets
https://opengameart.org/content/warped-fast-ship
explosion by JROB774 CC3
https://opengameart.org/content/pixel-explosion-12-frames
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
0:00 What we will do
0:49 Subscribe
1:00 Setting the room up
3:00 What are objects and where is the DnD system
3:56 Setting up the player - Get keyboard input to move the player
10:58 Setting up the player - Get keyboard input to create a shot/bullet
14:30 Setting up the shot - moving up plus rotate
16:31 Creating enemys and naming the assets to keep it organized
18:02 Setting up the enemy - moving left
20:30 Adding walls for the enemy to have a collision with and reverse the enemies direction
22:30 Destroying the shot when the touch (collide) with the enemies
24:00 Make fancy explosions to indicate visually a contact between shots and enemies
26:15 Add destructible rocks/asteroids to shoot at
31:28 Create spawner for rock spawing
34:10 Why variables are useful
41:07 Is DnD for you? Game shown - Rayman Legends")
![GUI and hidden mechanics [Super Demon Survivors devlog #3]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dEfnTROUcoU/mqdefault.jpg "GUI and hidden mechanics [Super Demon Survivors devlog #3]
Super Demon Survivors is a homage to time survival reverse bullet hells, set in a familiar world pitting multiple characters against hordes of demons and monsters in a multistage free for all.
Can you outlast wave after wave of increasingly difficult, minimalistic gameplay using an array different weapons and power ups?
Where you like the genre or you want to be part of the active community, you will have direct influence on how the game will be done via comments below or directly with me and my community on my discord server.
The game is made by me and Gutpunch studios to create a game that is in the spirit of the good old games but with modern standards.
https://gutpunchstudios.com
// content of this video:
In this video I take you on a journey through the eyes of the developer and the player. A passive understanding how to interact with a game is through the user interface (UI) or rather the graphical user interface (GUI). This interface allows the player to do predefined interactions to control aspects of the game and also gives the player feedback how the game works, like basic rules and an understanding how the core loop works. The GUI is not just for the player, it can be used also for control metrics/rules that are hidden for the player to control the flow of the game and to optimise it by the developer. These things may appear on the outside natural and understood passivly but are fundamental for a successful game to be done correctly.
I am not sure if I sufficiently explained this concept with the anecdote. So what I was refering to is that a child uses/learns from a haptical device like a screen to swipe/pinch/enlarge with their fingers to control content on the screen. And that small one from the story tried this by swiping on a glas tank for fish to enlarge the image, which to the childs suprise didnt work. All that is learned behavior but feels to us now natural (which it isnt).
Video for the best underwater fx:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O05I_vW8kO4
Video for quick overworld map:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGCJk2JtAI
Video for transitions and fade in/out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkrRykZj9Mw
Video for a dmg popup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ8FZHprqOw
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)")
![Wind effect fast my way vs shader [GameMaker Vfx]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dPymiS_KECM/mqdefault.jpg "Wind effect fast my way vs shader [GameMaker Vfx]
This video tutorial shows you how to achieve a simple wind effect which you see in a lot of 2D games with trees, bushes etc., basically foliage that is being moved to make the level pop more. Here I show you an easy out of the box way or the advanced shader way (based on Xors shader code).
The easy way is simply to have an asset player and apply the underwater effect on it. Then place all image you want to be be moved/animated through it there. Aaaaand that is it. The downside of this approach is that it can look a bot artifacty (if that is even a real word).
The default way is to have instances and use a shader for drawing. This approach looks cleaner, but you need to take into account that you have to assign each sprite its own texture page (so 4k texture page default size is no bueno). For more details how the whole code works visit Xors website and there you can find a sample project.
@XorDev
Xors shader blog with the shader code found here:
https://xorshaders.weebly.com/tutorials/8-wind-shader
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
0:00 Easy wind effect with GameMakers effect layer or the normal way with shader code
1:27 The easy way
3:15 The normal way with shaders
5:17 Issues with drawing")
![Boost compile/test time [Game Maker | Basics]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/deQKpHW-O5o/mqdefault.jpg "Boost compile/test time [Game Maker | Basics]
This basics video tutorial shows you how to use reduce testing/compiling time in GameMaker.
So this is the scenario, you write two lines of code and want to test your changes and hit F5. But this is not good because that takes more then one minute. How do we get this faster because waiting one minute or more each time for short testing isnt fun.
But lets start from the beginning, what is compiling and what has it to do with testing or even creating executables? To put it into laymends terms, compiling is the act of assembling or putting things together from different sources. That is what is happening when you press F5 and run your game in the virtual machine (VM) or the YoYo compiler (YYC). It stores all files in a temporal folder and create a useable/runnable version of your current project. So if you have tons of big images and high quality songs in your project you increase the compiling time by a lot.
To remedy this temporary:
- put no or dummy images/songs to reduce files size
- use compressed sound files (.ogg)
- use as little images in total which are not needed in early to mid stage production
- good hardware (cpu/ram + ssd) for loading fast in and out
In later to last stages of making your game you put in the art and music to not bloat/cripple up your testing/compiling capabilities. Having thousands of objects and scripts is not affecting the overall testing times (almost) at all.
Offical manual on compling/testing:
https://manual.yoyogames.com/Introduction/Compiling.htm
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 Testing speed is terrible, how to fix this
1:00 Subscribe
1:11 What is compiling
2:02 Target platform and virtual machine
2:58 What compiling is doing in GameMaker
4:08 Replace big files with dummies or compressed versions
4:49 Capitan Obvious, faster hardware will boosts test times")
![Update V2023.1 - No bling bling but 2 must have functions [GameMaker]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ePlAaqK8UFQ/mqdefault.jpg "Update V2023.1 - No bling bling but 2 must have functions [GameMaker]
The newest patch V2023.1 comes with some good quality updates. The highlight is the new move_and_collide function and audio_play_sound_ext. These two are worth the update by itself.
In a nut shell, move_and_collide is taking in vertical and horizontal movement inputs and checks if there is a collision, if yes you cannot go there. This is super easy to use for beginners and advanced users.
The audio_play_sound allows you to directly influence the sound file with a struct. It makes playing and controlling sound files more convenient. The other additions are that you can oscillate through a sound file with a sound effect (no idea what this is good for) and you can use sdf fonts, which smoothen pixelated fonts. This method is only of externally pulled fonts during runtime, so the use is limited. This feature will be in the future expanded to the internally stored fonts.
Sdfs are very powerful way to create light weight bitmap heat maps, which are use for fast light system or other means. Xor has a wonderful article for this:
https://xordev.substack.com/p/gm-shaders-mini-raymarching-1351092
Tldr:
- move_and_collide for easy collision setups
- customise sounds further
Offical blog and release notes:
https://gms.yoyogames.com/ReleaseNotes.html
https://gamemaker.io/de/blog/version-2023-dot-1-easy-collisions-crisper-fonts-and-new-audio-functionality
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
2:39 xor
CHAPTERS
0:00 The newest GameMaker update 2023.1 has dropped
00:26 Particle editor and new fx effects postphoned
00:39 Should you update to this version?
01:02 Easy collisions
02:30 SDF fonts - make pixelated fonts crisper
03:26 Static structs - Nope
03:36 Temolo audio effect
05:20 audio_play_sound_ext - more instant control over a sound file
5:30 Game shown: Garlic")
![Slime jumper [Game Maker Studio 2 | Enemy Ai]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eY4kcxdUH3s/mqdefault.jpg "Slime jumper [Game Maker Studio 2 | Enemy Ai]
This enemy ai video tutorial shows you how to make an enemy that that jumps randomly in GameMaker Studio. Typically those kinds of enemies are slimes for a reason.
The idea is quite simple. You need to the enemy that goes left and right like you maybe saw in my previews enemy ai videos. After that you setup a variable that runs down. Once that variable is 0 or smaller you reset the direction to an upwards angle plus set gravity to a value so that it pulls down the enemy. Now the enemy is jumping. To reset the jumping motion you have an additional collision in the step event that resets the jumping. Thats it!
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
Previous video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTPHzHM2KQ0
Emcee Flesher CC4by
https://opengameart.org/content/super-dead-space-gunner-merc-redux-platform-shmup-hero
https://opengameart.org/content/space-war-man-new-laser-and-enemies
0:00 What we will do
0:34 Subscribe
0:46 Quick theory how it works
1:44 Coding part")
![Hexgon cells - How to draw [Game Maker | Basics]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fXYyV3OnidA/mqdefault.jpg "Hexgon cells - How to draw [Game Maker | Basics]
This basics video tutorial shows you how to setup hexagon cells in GameMaker.
Hexagon cells are pretty popular in strategy games and can make each cell look fancy. Drawing/placing these cells can be challenging because their shape is not as straight forwards as rectangles. So what you need to understand here is that you have to place them correctly near to each other. Each horizontal line of cells is a sum of the cell width or the sum of a cell width plus half. The height is bit wonky also, since you cannot take the full height nor the half.
Tldr: It is complicated, not too much but a bit
👑 Support me and get fresh game art and game maker projects every month:
https://www.patreon.com/1upindie
Follow me on:
📸 Instangram: https://www.instagram.com/1upindie
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/1upIndie
💬 Discord: https://discord.gg/gvr98nb
📜 Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/become-a-video-game-developer-with-gms-23/ (See youtube about page for discount)
CHAPTERS
0:00 What we will do, hexagon cells/shapes
0:38 Subscribe
0:55 How hexagon shapes stick to each other
3:55 Quick setup, a spawner creates all hexagonal instances
4:50 Double repeat loop to add cells vertically and horizontally
5:30 Create each time a loop ends a hexagon instance
5:48 Set xx and yy to place the instances in their correct spot
7:16 Setting xx to with the width of a cell
7:52 Nullifying the iterated hor_ADD values to create a new row
8:17 Setting yy to with the height of a cell
8:37 Adapting the xx to snap correctly horizontally
9:10 Correcting the nullifyed xx values")
