News on GameMaker v4.0

[GMG Kurt]

If you're in the middle of making a game, and GameMaker gets an update would you be able to take advantage of that update for that game?

[Charlo]

My guess is that a small change like GM 3.9.5 to 3.9.6 wouldn't affect your works-in-progress, but I doubt that our old game files will work in GM 4.  If that is the case, a converter would be cool.

[Zoo]

Agreed. But don't worry. GM 4 wont come out for a while now.

[Raphael]

Hey Al,

Is it possible to make a small update for GameMaker to v 3.9.9.5 that makes it a Universal Binary application?  Because on the new OS Lion, it has dropped PowerPC support.  It would be a small update, and it'd make those who want to update to Lion very happy.  (I don't want to update to Lion because I know that I'll loose this GameMaker.)

[Gan]

GM was built using FutureBasic, it appears to compile only PPC applications. Unless something radical occurs I doubt GM will be able to run on Lion.

Edit: Al, I sent you an email.

[Zoo]

Oh well, I guess I'm not getting lion then.

[Silverwind]

Nor I! How could Apple do something so evil? I don't think it's at all questionable of me to say that this is the worst thing that anyone has ever done.

[Al Staffieri]

GM was built using FutureBasic, it appears to compile only PPC applications. Unless something radical occurs I doubt GM will be able to run on Lion.

FutureBASIC 5 creates Universal applications that will run in Lion. GameMaker 4 is being made with FB 5 and will be Universal. I've been having some sticking points though, so I haven't actually been able to get certain parts working correctly.

[Al Staffieri]

Hey Al,

Is it possible to make a small update for GameMaker to v 3.9.9.5 that makes it a Universal Binary application?

Not possible because the code is too old and support of many of the functions has been dropped by Apple, so most of it does not work as Universal. GameMaker 4 is being written as Universal, but it's a complete rewrite which I really don't have the time for anymore which is why it has never gotten finished yet. I'll work on some of the sticking points and see if I can get something running in Lion.

[Al Staffieri]

I've been able to convert and compile my Hangman game to Universal and it runs in Lion (with a few glitches that I'm fixing). This is good news because it means I should be able to get GameMaker running in Lion soon.

Thanks to Gan for testing.

[Connors]

Well TNTBasic is absolutely screwed, it's not being updated ever...

It is open-source though.

[Gan]

The source is a jumble of chaos.

Try contacting Danny. Last I hear he was working on it.

[Al Staffieri]

Early this morning I was able to compile and launch a universal binary version of GameMaker 4 for the first time !!!  Working on the easier HangMan conversion helped me solve parts of the file handling issues, although I'm still having more problems with that. The whole thing still needs a LOT of work. I had to delete some stuff just to get it to compile and run, so now I will start putting things back in.

[Zoo]

Wonderful! Any estimate release date yet?

[Al Staffieri]

File handling is working correctly. Script editor is partially working now. I was having trouble with text editing because it's handled differently on Intel Macs and new OS versions, but that is mostly solved. No more 750 line limit for scripts.