2023.11 brings lots of behind-the-scenes performance improvements to both the IDE and Runtime; various new functions have been added to expand what you can do with buffers and rooms; following on from the SDF Effects added last release, you can now apply these effects to text tracks within your Sequences; you can now create your own Game Strip projects (and there is a new template you can use to learn about Game Strips); and there is a very large number of bug fixes and also some of the popular community requests since our public request system was revealed a few months ago.

• For all the public general changes and bug fixes click here to open the Bugs Milestone page[github.com]
  
• For all of the public new features click here to open the Feature Requests Milestone page[github.com]

Always ensure your SDKs and other external tools are the correct versions for this release before doing any builds - Required SDKs FAQ[help.yoyogames.com]

Also, if you use antivirus/antimalware or any restricted user permissions on your machine, always check your external settings allow for this new release to work properly - User Permissions and Internet Access Required by GameMaker[help.gamemaker.io]

• The milestone pages linked already higher up this page show what is fixed or changed in this release (the "Closed" list on each page)
  
• You can expand the "Show More" near the top of the page to read the overview/summarised information about what is in the release
  
• To see what is already planned for upcoming releases or (in future!) went into old releases, you can do this on the Milestones list pages also: Bugs[github.com] / Feature Requests[github.com]

Please be aware that following the recent licensing changes, where now everyone can get all modules free for non-commercial usage (apart from the consoles), 2023.11 is the last version we are going to release on our separate "GameMaker Desktop"/"GameMaker Mobile"/"GameMaker Web" products here on Steam.

Please install "GameMaker" in your Steam library now and use it instead of this one (if you are not already doing so), as that's the only Steam product which will receive future version updates!

A small-but-essential update to the IDE for stopping a start-up crash you may have seen in the release from last week whenever licensing had failed.

Now, if there is an issue with incomplete/stale licensing information in your user manager file, GameMaker will detect this and clear the file out, allowing you to start the program safely and log in again with no problems.

There are no runtime changes/no new runtime to download, so it's still version 152.

For the full info on this IDE update, see:
IDE Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]

IDE v2023.8.2.106 with Runtime v2023.8.2.152

Licensing Fixes, MQTT startup fixes, and iOS Fixes For Xcode 15 Support

Fixed that the IDE login state could still be inconsistent even after fixes in 2023.6 - now, your tokens are much more reliably refreshed (and more frequently), so you should no longer see an issue where the Account Panel thinks you're logged-in and so has a blue icon, but Target Manager thinks you're a guest user and so none of your licensed targets are allowed. Also fixes an issue where SSO users did not refresh the tokens and so got asked to login more frequently than once every 28 days even if all was working properly.

NOTE: If you do see any issues when trying to log in or with startup crashes in this version, then this will be because you already have invalid SSO licensing information. Before you do anything else, please delete your "um.json" file in Explorer at %AppData%\GameMakerStudio2 / in Finder at either ~/.config/GameMakerStudio2/ OR some newer macOS versions put it into /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/GameMakerStudio2/ - and this should stop the issue and give you fixed, fresh licensing information when you next sign-in to GameMaker.

A few fixes have also been made to the Xcode project GameMaker generates for you when building your projects (typically when the project contains Cocoapods in your extensions) - this stops a couple of issues where Xcode 15 would fail its part of the build until you changed a few checkbox values inside Xcode and tried again. There is also a fix for setting up Cocopods on some new Macs which have never had a working Cocopods install and a fix for ds maps being overwritten on some platforms when working with extensions.

For the full details, see the release notes:
IDE[gms.yoyogames.com]
Runtimes[gms.yoyogames.com]

IDE v2023.8.1.102 with Runtime v2023.8.1.148

A small update to address some of the commonly-reported issues since the original 2023.8.0 release last week. Amongst other things, it fixes an issue with the online manual not opening at your desired pages, being able to use Alt+F4 in Windows games, and adds support for tilemaps created in-game to use the new tilemap collisions system.

As always, the full release notes are on the pages below:

IDE Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]
Runtime Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]

August’s 2023.8 release brings to the IDE some important licensing fixes for both SSO and Legacy login users to stop issues with sessions not refreshing when expected; a fresh new look to the Templates screens on the Start Page; a change back to "Test" for the default target set when creating new projects (plus, a slight change to runtime names); the ability to open more asset types in external editors (and set in your Preferences if there is a specific editor you want to be used) and also to inspect Included Files; the ability to tell Feather to apply certain rules to specific files/groups; and a tweak to workspace tab-management so you can't accidentally drag a workspace tab out to be its own new window.

There is also a new tool for reporting GameMaker bugs to us inside the Help menu and have this a) somewhat automate the process for you, and b) report the issue to a new public-facing bug database using your GitHub account, so you can then get some progress on your issue later on. Please always check the current how-to information on reporting your bugs and the known issues on the bugs site before sending any reports!

https://github.com/YoYoGames/GameMaker-Bugs

The runtimes have received a large number of new functions for creating debug/design GUI elements and the ability to type in console commands to perform your functions or print values at runtime; support for checking arrays and using tilemaps in collision functions; a new Compressor audio effect and three new SDF font rendering effects; new functions for rotating and colouring particles and others which allow you to burst the particles previously created in the editor; IPv6 support on all platforms which support it; and many other new features and fixes.

Please do check your SDKs and other external tools are the correct versions before doing any builds, as a couple of platforms have been updated since 2023.6 - you can see our Required SDKs FAQ and the various platform setup guides that page links to in order to get all of this information at any time.

See the two links below for detailed information on all the changes/fixes since 2023.6.0:

IDE - https://gms.yoyogames.com/ReleaseNotes.html
Runtime - https://gms.yoyogames.com/release-notes-runtime.html

IDE v2023.6.0.92 with Runtime v2023.6.0.139 (it's important you get the runtime update if you need this fixed version)

This is a small but important release specifically for users who develop macOS games, as recent OS updates to Ventura and other recent versions of macOS have started showing prompts indicating the YoYoRunner.app package is "malware", so this release fixes just that one issue.

Please note that if you have additional permissions errors on your Mac after seeing these "malware" prompts, such as GameMaker saying "Unable to access vital folders", then even after updating to this new version you might need to review our permissions FAQ[help.yoyogames.com] in order to fix the additional issues.

As always, the full release notes are on the pages below, but it is just this one change compared to the original 2023.6 release.

IDE Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]
Runtime Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]

June’s 2023.6 release brings to the IDE: important SSO login fixes; a new project loading/conversion tool which GameMaker will use to convert older/newer projects into a format suitable for opening in this IDE version; a new Sprite Editor option for Spine collisions; Font Editor and Inspector options for controlling SDF font support in your games; a fix for copy/pasting in images from other art packages and also for pasting large amounts of clipboard text into Code Editors; a number of other stability fixes for various bits of functionality throughout GameMaker; and it also makes Feather default to being enabled for new users and users who have never tried enabling Feather in the past (if you have enabled it and then disabled it again, this setting will not be overwritten).

On the runtimes side there are: new debug overlays which use a new GUI system; 3 new audio effects; support for the new NPLN multiplayer system on Switch; changes to Xbox GDK to make video rendering require the same setup as the other platforms and being able to read old UWP saves in your GDK games; changes to Cocoapods to make them easier to setup and more reliably handle existing setup issues on the Mac; a new “game launcher” system; support for a struct “shorthand” style in the Code Editor and for the new Spine collisions and SDF font controls already mentioned above; lots of other new functions and a number of important bug fixes.

There are updates to our recently-introduced Live Wallpapers template included in this release, so if you have been developing your own wallpapers already, please do review the new template project and port any changes to your own projects.

Finally, you will also find that in the Help menu inside GameMaker there is a new "Create Your Bug Report Package" option - this new tool will collect and zip up all the various files we usually ask for when answering any tickets you have submitted, making it much easier for you to send us all the information we require if you do have an issue using GameMaker. You can find more info on this tool lower down in the IDE notes.

Please do check your SDKs and other external tools are the correct versions before doing any builds - you can see our Required SDKs FAQ and the various platform setup guides that page links to in order to get all of this information at any time.

See more
IDE Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]
Runtime Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]

IDE v2023.4.0.84 Runtime v2023.4.0.113

April’s 2023.4 release brings to the IDE: improvements to the licensing UI and an offline support fix; multiple performance fixes; string templates which allow you to compose strings with expressions in-situ inside the Code Editor; new ways to launch and clean your project, along with various other optimisations inside the IDE to help cut down on build times; another new set of filters in the Room Editor and for use in your games; plus a large number of bug fixes.

On the runtimes side there are: a selection of new functions you can use for loading sprites asynchronously, getting information on particles and structs, and also for toggling the window border on Windows games; a new event when audio has finished playing; Apple ProMotion support on those devices which have suitable screens; the ability to have a remote machine perform additional tasks required by extensions (plus several other additions to extensions support); and websockets now sends a suitable user-agent header on more platforms, which will fix compatibility issues for some stores/services. Oh, and even more bug fixes of course.

Please do check your SDKs and other external tools are the correct versions before doing any builds, as you can see from the release notes pages that several platforms have been updated for this release - you can see our Required SDKs FAQ below and the various platform setup guides that page links to in order to get all of this information at any time.

See the links below for all changes/fixes since 2023.2.1.

IDE Release Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]
Runtime Release Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]

And if you have any issues running GameMaker itself, project saving/loading, logging-in and getting your license, or building your projects, see the two of these first of all:

Required SDKs FAQ[help.yoyogames.com]
User Permissions and Firewall/Antivirus Configuration FAQ[help.yoyogames.com]

IDE v2023.2.1.75 Runtime v2023.2.1.90

This is a small-but-important update to fix the top-reported issues with the .0 release, including: hotkeys in the sprite/image editors, stretched frames in sprites not animating correctly, and that if you reused particle emitter names between two or more particle systems then they would all use the one sprite in-game.

There are a handful of other fixes also, so please do see the release notes links below for the full info.

IDE Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]
Runtime Notes[gms.yoyogames.com]