Gamemaker 1.4 in 2020

[BeardyElf]

Hello all. I'm wondering if GM 1.4 is still worth to continue my project in 2020. I have pretty big project with that version and I'm thinking of moving it to Unity. But thats huge amount of work and the project
have been on a bit of a hiatus lately. And have't really followed what's going on with gamamaker. I dont have GM2 license and I'm wondering if its worth to continue with 1.4. I know its not supported any more
and for example few times windows updates have messed something with gamemaker in the past.
So is anyone developing/releasing projects with 1.4 and is there point to continue with it. Or is it better to try upgrade it to GM2 or Unity? Everything in the project i've made myself except lighting system - Glare Engine 2D illumination.
I remember reading here that glare had some problems with GM2. And I'm pretty sure I have to write lot of new code with GM2. For example, just today read about arrays in 2.3.

 

[kburkhart84]

I believe you should update to GMS2. I also believe I saw mention in the topic about Glare that it was recently updated to 2.3...not sure what all needs changed. If it was me though, I would have updated my project a long time ago.

As far as switching to Unity...its going to take a LOT of re-writing stuff....I don't really recommend itr if your project is as far along as you say it is. The code you have to fix for GMS2 is going to be much less than the whole project re-write for Unity.

 

[curato]

If you are mostly done and have a publication schedule to keep, I would stick to 1.4 until the game is released. If your game is mobile or you have a flexible development schedule then I would upgrade to 2 as the port is pretty straight forward with only minor issues and there are a lot of new features to take advantage of and the mobile doesn't work with some of the major stores at this point on 1.4. Honestly, I wouldn't try to port to another engine unless there is a specific feature you are trying to get from unity it is going to be a bunch of development time just to get back to where you are now. That is not to say there is anything wrong with Unity. I have used it but I think gamemaker is easier to use and the work flow is better.

 

[BeardyElf]

I've been doing a lot with unity for a while now and havent really touched gamemaker long time. But now I have a chance to concentrate on this project or something else for few months.
And I like what I have done with my project, so its no brainer for me to continue with this. But 1.4 is old, and I'm pretty comfortable with unity and gm, but I'm unsure how big
task is it to move to gm2. That's why I'm also thinking about unity. And I'm 40y but been programming/making games as a hobby all my life, but year ago started studying in
school as a game and software developer cause had a chance for a new career. And because of my school we use lot of unity and I can get all the help I need with it.
But maybe GM2 could be easy too.
Sorry, dont know how to explain this better.

 

[David Richard]

Game Maker 4, 5.3, 7, 8.1 and Game Maker Studio 1.4 are all good to compile games as of 2020, so it is still very possible to finish or even start a game with these versions (I volantarely omitted GM6.0 because of weird compatibility issues which require games to be converted to GM7 to work on Win10). NOW, that being said, I agree with what a user posted about how far you are in your project and how big it is. It also depends on your will to do things. Converting your game to Unity may seem easy if you are experienced, but you will most certainly find some bugs to correct and things to change that don't behave the same way because they are 2 seperate engines. If your game is Mobile and you have the mobile export option for GMS 1.4, keep it there and finish it because it will require at least 200$ US to get that export option in GMS2. The fact that your project is that far, maybe it's good to keep it in GMS 1.4. But AGAIN, if it's a game you will publically distribute and make people pay for it, you will need to maybe debug at some time which means you will need to maintain support updates with V1.4 so knowing this, you may want to pay for a GMS 2 license and upgrade and as a user mentionned, the importation process should not require you huge changes.

Those are my points of views, but in 2020, the mentioned versions of Game Maker still work perfectly fine on Win10 depending on which features of GM you need and want to use for your game.

For me, if I want to program very basic 2D platformers, GM8.1 is VERY tempting because it requires no internet connection and the interface is way faster than GMS2. GMS2 also has a steeper learning curve because they changes how the environnement works so in the end, the question is: How much time do you have in front of you and how much patience? From there, you can know if you have patience and time to convert to Unity or GMS2, and if not, almost no time or eager and a bit out of patience, GMS 1.4 will be very good too.

I hope this helps you. Happy Game Making!!!

 

[BeardyElf]

Thank you all for your replies. I was really tired yesterday when I made the posts so I realize they were quite vague.
Project is for pc and possibly linux.
I meant for 1.4 that windows updates has broken things in past and does the steam integration work anymore?
I'm not worried about engine and development but more about updates etc. because there ano none and if something brokes and
there's nothing to do about it.
But I think I'm gonna upgrade it to gm2 when I get the time and continue with that.
Anyway, thanks for your replies.

 

[NewHopeGames]

Since it's a pc game I would keep it in gms1.4. I have a large complicated game on steam with several dlc's that was made in 1.4 and I kept it in 1.4. I havent had a single issue with it yet and update it often.

If you had a mobile game I would upgrade to gms2. It's a very simple process to import gms1.4 games to gms2. I had several mobile games I have successfully done that with without issues.

It would be a good deal of work to convert it to Unity but if you wanted to do the work go for it.