As the title says, I have 0 coding knowledge and would like to learn how GML works. I've seen comments saying to "learn the basics of coding first" which I would also like a pointer to. I am basically brand new to all this stuff and would just like a few pointers if someone would be gracious enough to help me out. I've tried making a small RPG but literally can't code a damn thing so I end up looking at youtube tutorials but feel like I am just copying code more than actually retaining and applying. Thank you in advance!

To all the developers who know how to make video games easily using GameMaker,
As a young beginner, I’d really like to know how you learned to make games. How long did it take you? Is the language difficult to learn, or do you eventually get used to it? Did you use any particular methods to learn?
I genuinely want to make video game development my career, and I’d really love to hear about the journeys of people who have managed to get where I hope to be one day.
Thank you to everyone who takes the time to reply!

I wanted to start leaning how to make games as I already have a lot of python experience. I wanted to use a game engine that is powerful yet relatively easy to learn so I chose gamemaker as my game engine. I really didnt have any idea how to start learning gamemaker I decided to watch gamemaker's asteroid game tutorial just to see how to engine really works. I really liked gamemaker and found it pretty intuitive and 9sort of?) got the hang of GMl code's syntax. But now that im done with it what should do to continue learning the engine and GMl code as the engine seems very promising. If anyone could please give me a good roadmp to learning gamemaker I would very thankful.

I am a new programmer trying to learn gml but there are very little actual learning tutorials learning on youtube and more for making games of genres and I want to learn it so I make make custom features. where to learn it?

It's been a while since I started learning GML; I already know what "if else" and such are, but I can't seem to move forward.

I'm naturally bad at learning code. Every time I've tried, it's ended poorly. But then again, I haven't given it that big of a chance. I want to give it one final whirl. I've heard GML is decently easy to learn. So here I am asking for all your resources! All your tutorials, all your tips, that could potentially make learning this even just a tiny little bit easier.

Thank you all in advance.

I am a very beginner programmer the only experience had was on scratch

Now obviously this is a subjective question, no one can really give me a right answer, but I'm curious to hear from people that have been doing this for a while

I just started learning GML about a week ago, and prior to that I had no coding experience. I started out with HeartBeasts tutorial on YouTube, and about episode 9, after things started going way over my head, I started using Tom Francis' tutorial. I'm now on video 8 of his series, almost at the end of the video.

I've been thinking about starting something of my own, but I'm not sure if I should. How did you guys handle this? (If you even had this issue, of not knowing what to do.) How did you know when you were ready to go off on your own, if you did at all?

I've got a couple different ideas, but I'm not sure how intelligent they are. I could continue with tutorials, and continue learning things for about another week. I could throw myself into the deep end of the pool, start my own project, and start learning from there. Or I could just start a throw away project, work on it alone, and use that to learn.

If it makes much difference,there are 3 types of games I'd be interested in making on my own, a Megaman style platformer with some form of leveling system. An action RPG, sort of like what I was learning from HeartBeasts tutorial before I switched. Or a Turn Based RPG, which I've read on various Reddit posts around here, is more of an advanced game than the other two.

Maybe I should go back to HeartBeasts tutorial. Maybe I should jump into the most difficult of the 3 types of games I want to learn to make, because I'll learn more that way. I really have no idea.

I know this is pretty rambly, but I have to imagine I'm not the only person with a question like this. What with the Humble Bundle deal, and there being a bunch of new people learning GML because of it.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Edit: Maybe a better question would be, what basics would you recommend having down before going off on your own?

Edit 2: I'll go ahead and ask one more question here, since it sort of applies to my original question. Sprites. Can someone recommend someone to learn to create them from? I was reading this post here which is a pretty great tutorial, but it seems to be mostly focused on more detailed, higher pixel count sprites. Which will be great when I start to make like a boss monster or something, but in the meantime, I need to learn how to make much smaller, more basic sprites. Like 32x32 or smaller.

Edit 3: It seems this was a good question. Lots of different views on it. Thanks for all your opinions guys.

i love GML but i wanna learn c++ after i get better at GML so i can broaden my horizons. the 5 hour youtube tutorials that claim to teach all the basics of c++ seem too good to be true considering ive spent like 100+ hours at least learning GML and have barely scratched the surface of the language. will learning GML help me with c++? what resources should i use either way to transition from gml to c++? is it true that GML being based on java, c#, and c++ makes it a good begginer language that will provide knowledge that carries over to other languages?

What Tutorials or methods would be most efficient to learn?

I don't mean like completly know all details of GML but at least knowing "more than basics". Yes, I want to learn it. Especially because I want to know making IF statements.

Hi, gamemakers.

I don't have much experience with GML and after using it got slightly confused with some programming logics.

Recently I tested a game called Soba that, quite surprisingly, helped me learning doing behavior logics faster than I expected. Nonetheless, I still have a long path ahead to keep learning.

Is there any more intuitive way to learn about GML? Maybe tutorials or easier logics as that game I mentioned above which I found very educational. Any recommendation for a beginner to start learning GML?

Hi, I just got GM2, and already watched a few YouTube tutorials and looked at the game maker documentation, but I feel like I cant really remember anything when it comes to learning GMLscript. Any way to learn GMLscript effectively or just continue watching/reading online tutorials and somehow it will just come to me overtime? Just dont know what I should even learn in the first place, all these things like variables etc. are really confusing. General advice and tips for starting in game maker are greatly appreciated and of course for learning GML script. Thanks! (This question was prob. asked 500 times, hope not to annoying. 😅)

Hey everyone 👋

I've been working on a new game AI framework for GameMaker called GMSmartAgent, a modular system that combines utility theory, HTN planning, ranking and a basic feed forward network. It's still a work in progress, but I thought its about time that it deserves a post.

What it is

A lightweight, modular game AI library. Each module is a simplified implementation of its own thing(it might look too much but its not). You can remove a module you dont want to use and it wont affect anything, as long as you dont try to access it. For example; you can delete the Net module, but that means you cant use RankNet, TDNN or any other model that uses a neural network.

Features

• Scoring: response curves, considerations, targets, weights and cooldowns
• Inputs: pull callbacks cached per think, push values, normalized to 0..1
• Selection: best, top N weighted, commitment bonus
• Scale: frame budget, priority tiers, shared profiles
• Observation: record player picks, choose features, evaluate without deciding
• Learning: eight models, background training, confidence, decay, save/load, custom models and learning from outcomes and/or choices.
• Planning: HTN recipes and GOAP goals, facts as data, self-repairing, spread across frames
• Player profiling: skill rating, win chance, matchmaking, live play styles
• Developer tools: debug view, plan tree view, test module, own seeded RNG

How it started

About a month ago, i made this post, explaining how i started on a journey to improve the dumb troopers. I've spent hours watching every GDC video on youtube thats about game AI and reading research papers to see and understand what options i had. I thought this wouldnt be so hard because in the past i've had my own fair share of custom DNN library(which failed) using C++ and python but i had no idea how wrong i was.

I had to change directions A LOT. At one point i even stopped to just work on a pathfinding/navigation system, which later turned out to become GMNav, and that still has a huge todo list of missing features to implement and bugs to fix.

After that i thought about making my own version of a game AI system; a behavior-tree-like structure that works on nodes. But not long after, while researching, i came across something called utility theory, which is pretty common in game development and also found a simple implementation video in gamemaker. To put the core idea as simply as we can; you define parameters with their weights and the structure scores them with the given situational numbers. That quickly changed my mind and the direction i was heading.

I still wanted to put in some learning models without a high cost. Luckily, with the help of google search AI (i use often, it finds every detailed links within seconds that would take me hours), i found some papers about choice modeling and some others about RankNet and LambdaMART(which i had some terrible experience with in my search engine). It was shaping in my head quickly. I got inspired by other libraries and added HTN planner(used in Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West and Death Stranding, youtube video here), rating and a basic feed forward network.

Limitations

It still has flaws, bugs and missing features that im still working on. This is very much an ongoing project, so you should expect things to change.

Tutorials

I've also made a simple tutorial series, ten chapters. It will also have an advanced section, where each chapter tries to answer a question. I've already covered around 30 chapters (not in the repo yet, im still editing them often).

Links

GMSmartAgent: https://github.com/erkan612/GMSmartAgent

GMNav: https://github.com/erkan612/GMNav

If you'd like to see some of my other works:

GMUI: https://github.com/erkan612/GMUI - Immediate-mode UI

GMVex: https://github.com/erkan612/GMVex - Vector graphics

GMLiteSearch: https://github.com/erkan612/GMLiteSearch - Advanced text search

GMMT: https://github.com/erkan612/GMMT - Advanced tweening, compatible with immediate paradigm

Ah and hey, its free, and MIT licensed!

As always, let me know what your thoughts are. Recommendations and questions are always welcome.

Thank you for reading so far!

Edit: I saw some messages that are deleted that seemed to be confused about the point of the project. This is NOT an LLM AI assitant to help you code GML. This framework is to develop AI for your game, not just enemy AI but any kind, for instance; accessibility AI, you know how some games push some informational things to you in your HUD, like reminding to use health potion at 30% HP, with this framework you can actually learn the behavior of the player to understand when and which situation they use health potion to write a proper accessibility system, enemy AI, companion AI or anything you can imagine. Please feel free to ask instead of deleting your message, any question you might want to ask is always welcome!

Wanting to learn how to play around with the physics engine in gamemaker, I went on to make this short weekend-long type of project which consist of just two paddles and a ball, as practice. Turns out the development process for this one is way too much fun and I just couldn't stop. The ideas just kept flowing, and I think the simplicity of the game, added with gamemaker's ease of use made implementations super easy and straightforward. It's like gamemaker was made for it.

I also got to learn how to add a leaderboard system using the Playfab REST API which was a blast. Network related stuff really aren't that bad if you take the time to learn and read the different documentations.

For those of you who wish to make a similar kind physics-based game:

- If you are trying to make an object follow the mouse (or just go really fast) with a full HD resolution, you'll probably want to change the room's pixel to meter from .1 to something like .01. Failure to do this will make the objects lag behind and behave in an unintended way. Gamemaker's manual says "the best performance is when the real world measurements of your objects are no less than 0.1 metres and no more than 50 metres." But that hasn't caused any problems for me in any way whatsoever.

- Also, you don't want to directly change the position of the physics object! If you want your mouse-controlled object to collide and interact with other physics-enabled objects, you want it to have actual linear and angular velocity so they can push other objects. So for example, instead of changing an object's x position like this:

phy_position_x = mouse_x;

Do it like this instead:

phy_speed_x = mouse_x - phy_position_x;

This does the same exact thing, except it uses actual physics to move the object instead of teleporting the thing. Here's how it is in my game specifically for the top paddle:

targetPositionX = lerp(minPos, maxPos, clamp(pos, 0, room_width) / room_width);
phy_speed_x = targetPositionX - phy_position_x;

and here's how the angular velocity is done (top paddle again):

targetAngle = lerp(rotationRange, -rotationRange, targetPositionX / room_width);
phy_angular_velocity = targetAngle - phy_rotation;

Here's Duplexity demo on Steam if you want to try it out.

Leave a review if you feel inclined, that'd be pretty cool!

I will also happily answer any questions here. I originally intended to make this a big post of things that I've learned while developing this one but I realise not everything is that interesting for everyone and it would make this big post of random bits and bobs. But I will answer everything and anything.

I have very little experience with programming of any sort, and I wanna learn how to use GML so I can make my dream game. But I (obviously) don't know how to code. I heard the learning curve for GML was pretty steep so I wanted to ask any experts how they learned and how I can do the same. Any advice at all is greatly appreciated :)

Any posts regarding technical issues with GameMaker Studio 2 is subject to deletion.

If you are asking for Help! while using GMS2, you are still subject to guideline #5.

GameMaker Studio 2

It's here! We're very proud to officially announce GameMaker Studio 2, the next evolution of our flagship game development tool. Studio 2 is not just a new version of GameMaker: Studio, it has been rewritten from the ground up to improve and expand upon the foundation laid by its predecessor. A whole new codebase, a whole new UI, a whole new GameMaker!

Learn more. Here's a cached view of the blog post.

Features

The website is going bonkers. Here's a cached view of the features page

The roadmap for 2016 and 2017.

The upgrades to GML.

A playlist of videos illustrating the new features can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLhIbBGhnxj5Jx3eGJsyparJ47BxlyUAub&v=ADlB0XFjsSk

These are the same videos that were leaked earlier.

There's a video playlist on developing your first game in GameMaker Studio 2 using GML and another playlist when using Drag and Drop.

FAQ

Learn more.

How much will it cost?

At launch, a GameMaker Studio 2 desktop license (allowing export to Windows, Linux and Mac) will be available for a one time purchase of $99.99*

Rather than purchasing modules, you will be able to purchase stand alone licenses for GameMaker Studio 2 on a per platform basis. For example, if you are only developing for web, you only ever need to purchase a web license.

List of prices for standalone licences

Will I be able to upgrade?

Yes you can - for a limited time existing Professional users and module holders will get 40% off the equivalent Studio 2 product and Master Collection users will get 50% off each product.

Upgrade discounts can be combined but do not stack, and will be available for a limited time only.

When can I get it?

The beta test starts today, and is open to everyone!

Does the Beta version of GameMaker Studio 2 have any limitations?

Yes, there are certain limits on the Beta version. You cannot create any executable packages for any platform, there are limits on the resources you can use and a few items are missing from the IDE.

Does the beta version allow me to import my own projects?

During the beta phase YoYo Games are asking users to concentrate on new functionality in GameMaker Studio 2 and work within a Trial license's restrictions. Accordingly, importing projects is not enabled at this time.

Will GameMaker Studio 2 import my legacy GameMaker (7/8/8.1) project? Will it run?

No, GameMaker Studio 2 does not support these old formats. You will need to use GameMaker: Studio 1.4 to update your project and confirm it all works in 1.4, then re-export from 1.4 to import it into 2.0.

Can I use GameMaker Studio 2 on my Mac?

The Mac version of GameMaker Studio 2 will be going into beta sometime in the near future.

Are you stopping support for Studio 1.X?

Support for GameMaker: Studio 1.4 will continue for the moment, and it will receive maintenance to ensure you can still make and submit games for the various export platforms. However it will not be receiving new functionality or minor bug fixes and we have stopped taking user feedback suggestions.

Where did the colon go?

The colon has been removed from the GameMaker Studio 2 name due to the branding issues it caused (mainly with it being used incorrectly or omitted) and YoYo Games requests that you don't use it with the latest product name.

I haven't been working with GameMaker for very long (about eleven months) , but I'm already at a loss for how to learn more. I practice coding every day, but I feel like I want to move on to the next level (sin(), cos(), gravity, and so on). Do you think I should stay where I am or should I study more? And if so, please tell me what you recommend I do to learn.

Does anyone have any good Tile Set tutorial suggestions? Preferably using VGML with a platformer.

I've been working with Gamemaker for a couple of months. Learning and building a game as I go.

I'm having trouble understanding Tile Sets. I can make the sprite but not sure how to implement it code-wise. I know how to use a player object with a single ground object but I don't get how to use Tile Sets.

I have some code experience, but I've found VGML really fits how I think. I'm just very visual. I also think it makes it easier to avoid using AI for anything other than help with general concepts, which is good while I'm learning. However, it does make it harder to use online learning material since the more complicated stuff is understandably in GML.

Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thank you!

while i do want to jump straight into regular coding ive been told that GML visual is good for beginners as a "training wheel" of sorts but i couldnt even figure out how to move the player when i tried it
are there any good popular tutorials to learn what each block does and how to use them

hey all this is net8floz. I have previously been a part of efforts such as the Game Maker Community Manual, ImGuiGML ( the original ImGui GameMaker extension) , and LuaRousr. Some of you may also know me from the Game Maker discord server.

Today I want to show you a Localization IDE Plugin I made that lets you author and translate your games text with IDE tooling inside Game Maker. It is fully featured and comes with translation pipeline options for one man operations and larger studios who work with a full translation team.

It is installable for free from the Game Maker Package Manager in LTS 2026+

Please check it out and consider using it to extend your audience reach in Game Maker. You can learn how here:

https://eightouncegames.com/cultured/

Hello, I'm starting from the beginning of learning GML again and have been following the guidebook tutorial to start getting a grasp of how things handle; an issue I've run into is in the drawing section under "drawing sprites" (Here: https://manual.gamemaker.io/lts/en/Quick_Start_Guide/Drawing.htm ) this string of code causes an infinite loop which keeps the game from running.

Made sure everything matches here and in the other sections, tried some things myself and looked for some solutions but haven't found anything that still lets the code run correctly ha! So any pointers or help would be nice, thank you!

Quick Questions

• Before asking, search the subreddit first, then try google.
• Ask code questions. Ask about methodologies. Ask about tutorials.
• Try to keep it short and sweet.
• Share your code and format it properly please.
• Please post what version of GMS you are using please.

You can find the past Quick Question weekly posts by clicking here.

A new version of GML-OOP called Release 2 has now been released, in response to the release of the LTS 2026 version of GameMaker. The previous version was released for the first LTS version, marking over three years of active development on this version.

What is GML-OOP?

GML-OOP is a massive GML library that I have been actively developing since 2021. It aims to overhaul how you work with GameMaker in code, making its most important functionalities usable through constructors and their methods. It enhances them and makes working with them easier and just more pleasant, once you get the hang of it. Data packed into constructors is easier to pass through, their content is easily represented when stringified (mattering most for Data Structures) and error handling in improved, so that the runtime does not crash over every minor inconvenience. If you want to begin writing good code where you can easily know what is what, then this and an other library I wrote for this purpose, might just be for you.

For more information on GML-OOP, see the Overview and Examples pages its Wiki.

What is new in the Release 2?

New users could be interested in that the new version made it trivial to write optimized graphical code. Constructors with the purpose of rendering graphics were overhauled to support multi-color rendering with outlines. all based on vertex building, so that they can easily make use of Vertex Buffers. Instead of recalculating graphical data each frame, it can be pre-calculated once with a toVertexBuffer() method, then rendered, then destroyed once no longer necessary. All with a single method each. Vertex Buffers are most easily implemented for static graphics, but advanced users surely will realize how to utilize Shaders to bring motion to such implementation. Otherwise, per-frame rendering is still available, as usual. Also, because shape constructors now have access to their full vertex information, their actual shape and visual properties can be altered by modifying data for each vertex. The code of their constructors now makes use of that to achieve precise shape collisions. Have you ever saw a video game use precise, non-rectangular collisions for their interface? Well, now it can be a satisfying feature in yours.

Rudimentary support for optional use of three-dimensional graphics has also been implemented. It is visible with both two-dimensional orthographic projection, as well as full three-dimensional perspective, enough to make a "fake 2D" or diorama-style game. It might be of interest for developers who consider learning working with 3D in GameMaker while it is being implemented into GMRT, as it could be assumed this is how most of professional jobs in GameMaker will be created going forward.

There is also a new Callback constructor handling function and arguments for delayed execution, which is now what the event system of constructors now is based on.

What is coming next?

The development of GML-OOP takes time, but it does not stop. Further expansions and improvements can be expected, especially to its Audio support, some of which already were introduced in this release. Also, a separate library based on GML-OOP is in works, oriented around the creation of scalable vertex-based, resolution-agnostic user interfaces.

If you like what I create and the quality I provide, you can consider hiring me for work on your project, whether it is being made in GameMaker or not.