Dangerous Dave

GM for Mac: Beta Two

Sunday, June 28, 2009 12:33:02 AM

finally, mac, beta, game maker, game maker for mac, bugs

Some early hour this morning I received an email with a (somewhat amusing) user name and password to access the new version of the Game Maker for Mac runner and editor. I eagerly downloaded the file and tried to unzip it. Last time there was a missing runner, this time the file wouldn't unzip. I tried three different unzipping programs, one reported the file was busy (even after a restart), one froze up completely and one complained that I was copying something to a directory that already had a file or folder of that name in it, which was some file deep inside the runner and editor.

I wasn't going to wait any longer, so I just told it to skip those files to see if it would run. I started by copying my TimeRift GMK and double clicking it. Game Maker opened, with a clean project. That's one bug not fixed. It is still listed in the bug tracker as confirmed but not fixed, so I wasn't expecting too much. If I had to theorise, I would say the "Upgrade to the Pro edition" window at the start was somehow interfering with the loading of the file, since the actual editor is not started until you click "Don't Upgrade Now", but that's just a guess.

One bug that has been fixed is that views could not be set larger than 100x100. One bug that has been marked as fixed but isn't is the ability to move all objects in a room by a negative amount. At the moment you can only move them right and down, not up or left as you would do by using a negative number.

In total, only 6 bugs in the bug tracker are marked as resolved. Two of which were reported by myself, and one of which isn't actually resolved. So we are down to 5. Two of these are related to the inability to reorder resources, so we are down to four. One was the YoYo Games logo that was stretched across the width of the resource tree at the bottom, and has now been given a fixed scale. Hardly a bug. Down to three. One was being given an error when trying to access extension packages from the resource tree. Now it just says "Extension packages are only available in the pro version" (most pro features are available for us to use, this message is because extension packages aren't supported on Macs). Really there are just two confirmed bug fixes: You can now set rooms larger than 100x100, and you can reorder items in the resource tree.

I am pretty sure that there are more bug fixes that the developers are waiting for the reporters to confirm the fixes, but there's a really long list of bugs and hardly any are fixed. If I had to guess, I would say the main reason for this new beta is to try to get Power PC support. Being an Intel user, I can't test this, but I don't really see the point in PPC compatibility when even Apple themselves are dropping PPC support in their newest Operating System version, Snow Leopard (and shaving 6GB off of the OS install size mostly due to this). But if they can have support it can only be better for them, though it would be nice if we could have an Intel only build to save on file size, what with the runner being 19MB and all.

Hopefully the Power PC users appreciate this build (if they ever got it unzipped). I sure didn't gain anything from it.

Opera 10 BetaFlash Drive Ubuntu 9.04 on MacBook 3,1

Comments

Unregistered user # Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:00:05 AM

Dr. Watz0n writes: I was able to unzip the file no problem. Regardless, I was not expecting much from this build to be blunt. I had access to a near complete build of Beta 2 about a week ago, and from that I was able to garner that no real progress, the exception being a few bug fixes, had been made. In all honesty, I don't see Game Maker for Mac getting off the ground in the next year, at the least. To me, and I have said this since day one, the UI is just too messy and non-native that it will scare away a lot of dedicated Mac users. Secondly, the fact that it seems to be a whole version behind Game Maker on Windows will play a critical factor in how well it works with other versions of the software on other platforms (including Linux).

Dangerous DaveDangerous_Dave # Sunday, June 28, 2009 11:41:18 AM

Originally posted by Dr. Watz0n:

I was able to unzip the file no problem.

Odd, I shall try downloading it again (a third time) and seeing if all is well. However, my troubles didn't seem to affect the running of the program.

Originally posted by Dr. Watz0n:

To me, and I have said this since day one, the UI is just too messy and non-native that it will scare away a lot of dedicated Mac users.

Simple things are really annoying. Such as when you open an object properties window, it shows up fine, but when you try to open another beside it, the first disappears behind Game Makers main window.

Originally posted by Dr. Watz0n:

Secondly, the fact that it seems to be a whole version behind Game Maker on Windows will play a critical factor in how well it works with other versions of the software on other platforms (including Linux).

Definitely. If Game Maker is to remain a version behind (as the recent glog post suggests) I can only see myself continuing to use the Windows version for development. However, I would be more than happy to tweak the Windows version of a game to work on Mac should it not be lacking a critical function, but the development would still be done on Windows.