Version 8.0 of
Game Maker has a large number of improvements
over version 7.0. Below the most important changes are described.
Incompatibilities
Text splash screens can no longer show images. However, web splash screens have been added that can show full html documents with images, etc.
A number of changes have been made to the functions related to sprite and background resources. This is due to the fact that
Game Maker uses a completely new mechanism for these resources. If your game uses a lot of calls to functions that load or save image resources on the fly you are strongly recommended to keep using the old version 7.0 for that game.
News
Game Maker now default shows a News page when it is started. Here new version will be announced, new resources will be indicated, there is information about competition, and game design tips and tricks. News is shown only once a day. In the Pro Edition this can be switched off. You can always access the news through the Help menu and you are encouraged to regularly check the news for important information about
Game Maker.
Tutorial
Game Maker now has a standard built-in tutorial for beginners. It is shown in a panel at the right of the screen. Experienced users can indicate that they do not want to see the tutorial anymore. To accommodate for the tutorial panel,
Game Maker is now default started in full screen mode. It does however remember its settings so changing it once to windowed mode will from that moment on start it in that mode.
Alpha-blended backgrounds and sprites
The new version
Game Maker uses backgrounds and sprites with alpha (transparency) channels. This makes it possible to create and use much nicer sprites. PNG files with such information are now correctly loaded. The sprite and image editor have been completely rewritten, including many new drawing options and effects. A new sprite file selector was added that shows the animations in the sprites. Also we bundle a large number of high-quality sprites with
Game Maker that you can use for free in your games.
Enhanced collision checking
You now have more collision checking options. For example, you can indicate that collisions should be with an enclosed disk and you can enlarge and reduce the collision mask. The sub-image of the sprite can have a combined mask and you can set the dependence on the alpha transparency value.
Splash screens
A new function splash_show_web(url,delay) has been added that can be used to show web pages as splash screens. You can also use local html pages for this. This allows for a powerful mechanism to e.g. create help pages. A close button is added to the splash screens. Also a number of new actions have been added to show the different types of splash pages and to change splash settings. (The old Show Video and Webpage actions have been removes as the new actions include them. They will though still work in old games.)
Trigger events
A new type of event has been introduced: Trigger events. Trigger events you can specify yourself. You give them a name and a condition, written in GML. After this they can be used in all objects, just like other events. With this you can easily extend the functionality of
Game Maker.
Time lines
The timelines have been extended. The property form has additional buttons to e.g. spread out the moments and to delete or duplicate ranges of moments. Timelines can now be paused and restarted and they can even be played backwards. Also they can now loop automatically.
Importing and exporting resources
The possibility to merge games has been replaced by a much more extensive system to import and export resources. The user can indicate which resources to export to a file (.gmres). Next they can be imported in a different game. In principle only one resource can exist for each name. When there is a name conflict when importing the use can specify to keep the original, replace anyway, take the one that is most recently changed, or keep both (not recommended). To be able to do the third option, all resources now keep track of when they were last changed.
Rewritten script and code editor
The built-in script/code editor has been completely rewritten, making it a lot easier to write code. For example there is pop-up function name completion, argument help, matching brackets, improved color coding, line numbers, on-the-fly error checking, code snippets, and a sophisticated find and replace functionality.
Other changes
There are a number of other changes and additions. Here are some of the important ones.
- Constants can now be defined in their own form (rather than through the Global Game Settings). As a result they can remain visible while you are e.g. writing scripts. You can also load and save the constants to text files.
- Also included files are no longer shown in the Global Game Settings but in their own form.
- The loading time for games has been considerably improved. Also when running a stand-alone game.
- Many small visual improvements
- Added function random_range(x1,x2), irandom(x), and irandom_range(x1,x2). The latter do give integer results and can include x or x2.
- There is now a game setting to disallow screensavers or powersaving options (sleep, hybernate) while the game is running (default disallowed).
- ...
Corrected bugs
The following major bugs were corrected. A number of other smaller bugs were corrected as well.
- An error message when starting the Maker on Vista with Active User Control is now removed.
- Corrected a bug that when using Alt many fields in forms became invisible under Vista.
- Corrected a bug with action hints not showing in the object and time line forms.
- When opening a game or starting a new one, no longer for all open changed resource windows a separate save confirmation question is asked.
- Corrected a (sort of) error with the precision of comparison operators in code.
- ...
