Discover the Power of GameMaker: Is It the Right Game Engine for Your Project?

For newcomers to the game development industry, selecting the most suitable game engine can be a daunting task. This article aims to address various concerns surrounding GameMaker, one of the most popular game engines, to help you determine if it's the ideal choice for your project. GameMaker is renowned for being an engine that caters to novices, including artists, writers, and non-programmers who have never written a line of code. However, it offers more than that - it's a high-end 2D engine perfect for creating top-down action games, puzzle-platformers, and pixel art games. Vadym Diachenko, who has built a career working with GameMaker, highlights the engine's versatility. He was recruited to work on notable games like Nuclear Throne, Forager, and Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, all of which were created using GameMaker. The engine was developed by YoYo Games 23 years ago with the goal of streamlining the development process using GML Visual, a drag-and-drop visual scripting tool. Currently, GameMaker is available in its latest version, GameMaker Studio 2 (GMS2), which was released in March 2017. The engine has been downloaded over 12 million times and sees more than 2,500 new users registering every day. Since its acquisition by Opera in 2021, GameMaker has experienced a three-fold increase in active users. GameMaker supports a wide range of platforms, including PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu, Android, iOS, tvOS, Amazon Fire, and HTML5. In November 2023, GameMaker simplified its pricing structure, making the engine free for non-commercial use. Hobbyist and indie developers can pay a one-time fee of $99.99 to access the Professional tier, which includes a license for commercial use. Creators targeting console releases can subscribe to the Enterprise tier for $79.99 per month or $799.99 annually. There's also an Education version of GameMaker, which is free for teachers and students as long as it's not used for commercial purposes. The advantages of GameMaker include its ability to make 2D games, handle all genres and styles, and its fast and simple nature. It also has its own easy-to-learn language, GML, and makes exporting to multiple platforms and building in-game tools easy. However, GameMaker has its disadvantages, such as not being suitable for 3D games, having a language that can lead to bad habits, and making recruitment more challenging due to its unique language. The engine's ecosystem is also small compared to Unity or Unreal Engine, and it lacks support for automatic deployments and has limited features. To get the most out of GameMaker, it's recommended to test its capabilities, start learning GML, and lean on the community for support. With its strong community and versatility, GameMaker can be an excellent choice for developers looking to create 2D games without extensive programming knowledge.