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For Apple Macintosh Computers
(c)1995-2011 by Al Staffieri Jr.
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Document revised 8/10/11
* Update your version to v3.9.95. Download the
patch.
Latest Updates
Download the Demo
Screen shots
Version History
Ordering Info
FAQ
GameMaker
Wiki
Users Guide
Source Code
Add-ons and Tools
Tech Notes and Support
Game Maker's Garage
Download Games
GameMaker 4.0 News
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GameMaker Info
- Latest Version: 3.9.95
- Release Date: 8/08/11
- Minimum Requirements: MacOS X 10.1 or better
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What is GameMaker
GameMaker is an easy to use card based development system
which allows you to create adventure games with graphics, buttons, and
text. There is no programming required, but it does have a scripting
language which can be used to make better games. For beginners, just
draw some pictures, type some text, click a few buttons, choose some
options... and an adventure game is created! When you are ready to get
more advanced, you can add some additional features to your game by
using the simple scripting language to use sprites, play movie files,
do actions based on player choices and variables, etc. You can
then compile your game into a real application that you can upload and
let others download and play. There are no royalties to pay, so make as
many games as you like.
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GameMaker is $20. There are several ways to order GameMaker. NOTE:
I am
no longer using kagi.com for orders.
Option #1. Order online
using PayPal.com
Option #2. Print out the order form from the "Print
Registration"
menu item under the "Run" menu in the Demo version of GameMaker or if
you
can't print out the form, write your name, address, E-mail address, and
a
short note saying that you want to register GameMaker on a piece
of
paper and mail it with a check or Money Order drawn on a US bank for
$20
to:
Al Staffieri Jr.
1061 Crestwood Dr.
Williamstown, NJ 08094
USA
v3.9.95 - 8/08/11
- FIX: Clicking on Al's Home Page in the Internet menu was not
correctly linking to the page.
- FIX: In OS X 10.6 after accessing external files, a "Can't access
temporary file" error would occur causing GameMaker to not be able to
save the project.
- FIX: When importing graphics files, all files are now shown as
available for importing.
- MOD: SPRITEPATH command was missing from the help text.
- NEW: Added SPRITECOLLIDE syntax to test if sprite is touching a
specified area or coordinate.
v3.9.94 - 6/12/09
- FIX: Using the command INVENTORY WINDOW made the inventory list
invisble in certain situations.
- FIX: Using EXIT REPEAT inside an IF THEN structure was causing a
script error in compiled games.
- FIX: Only 25 sounds could be shown in the Sound window. It
should have been able to show up to 50 sounds and now does.
v3.9.93 - 2/08/09
- FIX: There was still a REPEAT bug that caused an error when
changing cards from inside a REPEAT loop with GOTOCARD command.
- FIX: A change in the graphics copying routines caused crashes
when using Undo menu or the selection tool.
v3.9.92 - 1/30/09
- FIX: Using REPEAT with a negative number resulted in an infinite
loop. All REPEAT loops will now execute at least once even if the
variable is less than 1.
- FIX: Additional fixes for any remaining REPEAT bugs.
- FIX: PRINT text wasn't showing up until the entire script was
completed.
- FIX: The "Do on mouse down" option in click areas did not work
correctly in compiled games.
- MOD: Increase the maximum lines of code to 750.
- MOD: Updated internet links to point to alstaffieri.com and
macgamemaker.com
v3.9.91 - 8/23/08
- FIX: There was a bug in compiled games that wouldn't show more
than 10 sprites.
- FIX: REFRESH TEXT did not erase the card text if the original
card text was blank.
- FIX: The PRINT command wasn't printing text in compiled games if
a semicolon was used at the end of the text.
- FIX: Adding strings together was not always adding the strings
correctly.
- FIX: SPRITECOLLIDE was returning true even if one of the sprites
was hidden.
- FIX: There were still some cases where the line after END REPEAT
was not being run.
- FIX: There was a "Nested REPEAT" error when running a 2nd repeat
loop inside an ON event structure (On MOUSEDOWN, ON MOUSEUP, ON TIMER,
ON KEYDOWN).
v3.9.9 - 1/17/08
- FIX: A bug in the Applescript code made sprites flash and
disappear when a script was finished running.
- FIX: The text field no longer flashes when multiple PRINT
commands are used.
- FIX: The MOVIE command was not showing the movie at the correct
location (was always 0 0)
- FIX: There was a bug in FILEIO WRITE that was not always saving
to the proper folder.
- FIX: The END command with no parameters (to end the game) was
not working.
- MOD: Remove quotes from text returned in END APPLESCRIPT.
- MOD: WINDOW TEXT loads text files faster.
- MOD: The maximum number of sprites on the screen has been
increased from 10 to 20.
v3.9.8 - 11/03/07
- FIX: A new bug in WINDOW TEXT wasn't displaying contents of a
text file if the file didn't contain end of line characters.
- FIX: There was a disappearing sprite bug in card scripts if the
previous card layout was the same as the current card.
- FIX: The REPEAT and possibly other block structures were running
some code fragments of their structures when they were in IF blocks
sections that should not be exectuted because the IF section was not
true.
- FIX: The MouseDown built in variable was always returning 0
inside TIMER, MOUSEUP, and MOUSEDOWN structures.
- FIX: Another bug with movies, sprites, etc not always displaying
depending on if they are in a folder or not.
- FIX: Recompile with new FB compiler to fix possible crashes when
running in new OS versions.
- MOD: Now requires OS X. GameMaker will no longer run in
Classic/OS 9.
- NEW: You can now pass variables to applescript in the BEGIN
APPLESCRIPT command using BEGIN APPLESCRIPT var1 var2
v3.9.7 - 9/1/07
- FIX: Selecting 'Window at Top' in the Game Options window
displayed the wrong window size.
- FIX: Cursor names were not showing up in the pop up menu in the
Click Area Options window.
- NEW: CLEAR PICT command clears the card picture.
v3.9.6 - 8/23/07
- FIX: Any remaining bugs with Select All and then pasting a
picture from the clipboard should really be fixed now.
- FIX: The ALERT command was showing garbage text if the text to
display was an empty string.
- FIX: When running a game in the editor, if the New menu was
selected after an ALERT was displayed, the game would stop running and
switch back to editing mode.
- FIX: An old bug resurfaced that would not display files in
folders with IMAGEFILE, SPRITE, MOVIE commands.
- FIX: Cursors were not always being saved to the compiled games
and thus not available to be shown in compiled games.
- FIX: If a cursor other than the standard arrow cursor was in
use, it was not getting reset to the arrow cursor when starting a new
game.
- FIX: The current cursor in use was not being saved to players
saved games and was unable to be set correctly when the game was later
loaded to continue play.
- FIX: An 'IF x$ = " " THEN xx' would return 'IF without THEN'
error if x$ contained only space characters.
- FIX: Click areas were not being displayed when the Click Area
tool was selected and the user switched to another card.
- FIX: Block command structures inside a SELECT CASE that were not
executed because the CASE was not true was returning errors.
- FIX: DOMENU QUIT was not always asking to save even if the
"Don't use save alert" option was not selected.
- FIX: Having multiple REPEAT blocks inside a TIMER block was
returning an error.
- FIX: The window created with WINDOW TEXT was displaying line
feed characters in the text file instead of breaking to the next line.
- MOD: Placement of most OK and Cancel buttons reorganized to more
closely follow Apple guidelines.
- NEW: CurrentCard built in variable returns the current card.
- NEW: ASC command returns the ASCII value of a character.
v3.9.5 - 3/01/07
- FIX: When using paint tools, If you use the edit menu to Select
All and then delete, some paint tools wouldn't work correctly unless
you painted a dot or put a picture on the card.
- FIX: Using END SELECT inside a IF structure was returning an END
SELECT without SELECT error if the part of the IF structure where the
END SELECT was placed was not being executed.
- FIX: Adding strings together caused an error if the length of
the new string was more than 255 characters. The new string is now
truncated to 255 characters.
- FIX: The Paint Bucket tool was not working correctly on some
Macs with OS X 10.4.x.
- NEW: TIMER x can be used to change the amount of time in a
timer.
v3.9.4 - 2/05/07
- FIX: The kagi store link in the Demo version has been updated.
- FIX: In OS 9, the movie picture disappeared if the window later
needed to be refreshed.
- FIX: The SELECT CASE command didn't correctly check for
numerical variables. It only checked for either an actual number or
strings.
- FIX: Saving the project file did not always save the "Loop
Script" card option to the file.
- FIX: The keydown$ variable and KEYDOWN code block structure were
not getting reset after a new game was started or a saved game was
opened.
- FIX: Some block structures did not work or returned syntax
errors if they were inside other block structures.
- MOD: The "Requires QuickTime" option has been updated to include
newer versions of QuickTime.
- MOD: ON KEYDOWN now returns case sensitive characters in
KeyDown$ rather than only upper-case characters.
- NEW: The Delete/backspace key now works with ON KEYDOWN by
returning a "DELETE" string.
- NEW: LoopScript builtin variable to check if code has looped yet
or not in card scripts.
- NEW: UCASE$ command sets a string to all upper-case characters.
v3.9.3 - 8/31/06
- FIX: REFRESH was not clearing the text area in compiled games if
there was no text originally on the card.
- FIX: REFRESH was not always updating the card layout correctly
if used in card scripts.
- FIX: Playing movies with QuickTime 7 or higher installed caused
GameMaker to crash.
- MOD: STOPALERT commands are converted to CAUTIONALERT because
STOPALERT is not available in OS X.
v3.9.2 - 8/06/06
- FIX: There was a bug that was drawing the wrong size frame
around the window if the status bar or counter was hidden using script
commands.
- FIX: A bug in INVENTORY WINDOW did not correctly display the
inventory if the command was used in a card script.
- FIX: The EXIT command was not always exiting a structure or
script correctly.
- FIX: Pressing <COMMAND> + <PERIOD> was quitting
compiled games. This is now disabled.
- FIX: Click Areas would not always work correctly if "Loop
Script" option was used in the card script.
- FIX: Using SELECT CASE structures sometimes incorrectly caused a
"Nested SELECT CASE not allowed" error.
- FIX: Sprite information was not being saved to players saved
game files.
- MOD: The NOTE command is now asyncronous (script continues to
run while the sound is being played), but will still wait before
playing if a previous sound is already playing.
- MOD: No Classic version. Now requires CarbonLib 1.6 with OS 8.6
or better or OS X.
- NEW: The Internet menu in GameMaker now has links to the Users
Guide and message board forums.
- NEW: You can hide the cursor by using SETCURSOR with any
negative number.
- NEW: ON KEYDOWN command structure.
- NEW: FILEEXISTS command.
If you're experiencing bugs or problems with GameMaker, first make
sure you're
using the latest version. See the Latest Updates section
to download the update patch for your version.
I downloaded GameMaker, but It says I need an application to run
it.
GameMaker is a Macintosh application and requires the user to have an
Apple
Macintosh computer. It will not run on any version of Windows. Current
versions
are compressed as zip archives. They should be able to be extracted
simply
by double clicking on them after making sure the file has the 3 letter
extension
of .zip. Previous versions of GameMaker were compressed as StuffIt
archives
(.sit file). StuffIt is the older Mac standard of compressing files for
the
web before OS X came along. You can open those compressed archives
using
the free StuffIt Expander which you can download from
http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/download.html
Is there a Windows version of GameMaker available?
No. There might be one at some point in the future, but there isn't one
at
this time.
I'm not a registered user. How do I get the full version?
See the Ordering GameMaker section above.
Why should I register?
Once you become a registered user, I will send you the latest full
version
of GameMaker which lets you have up to 750 lines of code per script
(the
unregistered version is limited to 15 lines of code per script),
removes
the nag windows that ask you to register, and can compile your games
into
real stand alone Mac applications that can be run without the need for
GameMaker
or any game player type of program.
Can I get the full version for free?
No. Please don't ask me to send it to you for free. I can't accept
software
trades either. I'm not trying to be mean to you, but I spend a large
amount
of time and my own money to constantly update this software and provide
support
for it.
Can I charge shareware fees for games that I make?
Yes. If you are a registered user of the full version, you can charge
fees
for your games. You can send your games to anyone or upload them to any
internet
location or online service that allows uploads. However, you are NOT
allowed
to give away or charge money for GameMaker itself.
How do I use the inventory, status bar, midi files, counter, any
other feature?
There is a new GameMaker Guide web page that discuses various features.
Please
visit the GameMaker Guide page to see if
your
question is answered there.
Can v3.x open documents created with a previous version?
GameMaker v3.x can open game files made with any version of GameMaker
as
far back as v1.5.
Do I need other software to run GameMaker or compiled games?
No. GameMaker is an application. No other software is needed to use
GameMaker.
Games created with GameMaker can be compiled into stand alone
applications
so that no other software is needed to run them.
Application I created won't launch or shows wrong icon
In some cases, after creating an application, you may need to close the
folder
and reopen it for the Finder to properly recognize the new application.
If
that doesn't work then you may need to rebuild the desktop. To rebuild
the
desktop press the Option & Command keys while restarting your
computer.
If you don't see your problem listed here or above,
please
visit the Tech Support page or E-mail
me at
AlStaff@aol.com.
Late Breaking News
The notes below are for GameMaker v3.9.95. If you're using an older
version,
please get the latest update here.
8/10/11 -Application icons for GameMaker and compiled games
are not being shown correctly in OS X 10.6. They are shown as
default application icons. Status:
Unable to fix at this time.
8/10/11 -GameMaker does not run in OS X 10.7 Lion. Status: Unable to fix at this time.
This will be corrected in a future update.
Known Issues For All Versions
- Version 3.x may still have some problems when encountering a
full disk (unconfirmed because we haven't been anywhere near having a
full disk in several years). It is highly recommended that you use a
Hard drive with at least several Mb of free disk space and always keep
a backup copy of any game you're working on.
- There is approximately a 16Mb file size limit for GameMaker
files. Creating a project that is larger than 16Mb can cause GameMaker
to crash. This is a Macintosh resource file limit so I can't fix this
easily. Future versions will eventually use multiple data files to
correct this problem. If you are experiencing a disappearing card
picture, then you've probably reached the file size limit. Try using GM
Toolkit to compress your game pictures or use external graphics files
with either the IMAGEFILE or SPRITE commands.
- GameMaker will not run on locked or read only media such as a
CD. If you recieved GameMaker on CD, drag the entire folder to your
hard drive and run it from there.
Other Problems
If you have any other questions, comments, or problems, please fill out
the
form on the Tech Support page or E-mail
me
at AlStaff@aol.com.
Go to Al's Home Page