by BRIAN FETCHER
GAZETTE — If you missed out on part one, go back and read it! Here's the rest of the tour.
by BRIAN FETCHER
GAZETTE — It's finally happening, folks! YoYo Games is moving into their new Office! See how I said that with flared nostrils? That's how excited I am! Have you ever wanted to get a good look at the new YoYo Games Office (Located at: 5 West Victoria Dock Road, Dundee, DD1 3JT, Scotland)? You're in luck. Enjoy!
THEY EVEN BUILT A BUILDING WITHIN THE BUILDING!!!! Check it out!
by BRIAN FETCHER
GAZETTE — In late April YoYo Games announced that they were doubling their staff and relocating their office to a larger office space on the top floor of DundeeOne development. The new staff size goal is 50 in total (it's currently 25) and will fill positions such as: systems development, software engineering, sales and customer service.
YoYo Games says they will be moving into their new office on the 3rd of June. So far everything is looking great. Sandy Duncan says that their new office is making good progress.
by BRIAN FETCHER
GAZETTE — Softwrap (popularly known as SoftCrap among a vast number of GM users in the Game Maker Community) handles registration upgrades (GM Lite to GM Pro). Softwrap was to distribute GameMaker without fear of piracy (as they do with many other products). Sandy Duncan just received the following letter from Softwrap, which he says "will make some long term GameMaker devs smile quite a bit". Softwrap service termination date has been announced for: September 1st, 2013.
by BRIAN FETCHER
GAZETTE — 1 year ago YoYo Games developed an amazing product. A product that would revolutionize game development for mobile platforms. That product is GameMaker Studio, and it just turned 1 years old today! Help YoYo Games celebrate by retweeting and telling YoYo Games what you love about GameMaker Studio.
"We've even got a few bday presents to give away!" -- YoYoGames, Ltd.
Happy Birthday!
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES — The official, non-beta version of the Windows 8 native export was released on May 16th, 2013. The export is now available to all users with FREE, STANDARD, PROFESSIONAL, and MASTER collections. The export allows for easy deployment of GameMaker: Studio games onto the Windows store. Along with the release, YoYo Games is hosting the "WIN BIG Competition", which allows users to submit their games to the Windows Store to win part of the $35,000 in prizes. Check out http://www.yoyogames.com/promotions/win_big for more information. Also:
YoYo Games is also offering GameMaker 7, 8, and 8.1 customers to upgrade to GameMaker: Studio PROFESSIONAL for only $50! This is a unique opportunity so upgrade now before it is too late.
by BRIAN FETCHER
GMGAZETTE — YoYo Games announced that Game Maker Studio will be supporting the Tizen platform. You'll be able to export your games as a Tizen Store-ready application at the click of a button! YoYo Games says the launch will be later this year. Tizen beta will be available May 22-24 at a Conference in San Francisco, where YoYo Games will be demonstrating.
You can read the original article by YoYo Games: Click Here
What is Tizen? It's an operating system for mobile devices: Smartphones, Tablets, and even Smart TVs!
“We strongly believe that Tizen will be a significant platform for mobile and other devices and we're keen to show our early commitment to the platform,” said Sandy Duncan, chief executive officer at YoYo Games.
Tizen is open-source and is linux based! It's a solid platform.
by BRIAN FETCHER
Game Maker Community database has been broken into and data stolen. Yes, that means hacked, genius. This means that someone or something (dun dun DUNNNN) may have all kinds of information (passwords, your email, and even *gasp* links to your private porn stash). YoYo Games says that nothing critical was stolen, which means that your credit card numbers are safe as they are on another secure server. Mike Dailly encourages users to change their passwords and apologizes for any inconveniences. He also says "Your data here isn't secure. Feel free to use a secondary email address so your primary one is "protected".
Screenshot:
I'm guessing that's what was showing upon visiting GMC...
And as usual the Game Maker Community is being all mature about it. Well, if you define mature as biting peoples heads off and running around on a wild rampage.
If for any reason you no longer have access to your account, please contact YoYo Games.
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES — YoYo Games has finally hosted their first official competition since May of 2010, with their "Discovery" competition. The new competition has been started in celebration of GameMaker: Studio™'s new Windows 8 Export feature, allowing users to export their games for the Windows Store. We'll do a quick rundown of the major rules here, however, if you'd like to look at the full list of rules, please read the official announcement page. All games must be created with GameMaker: Studio™, using the Windows 8 export. The export is free for all Standard, Professional, and Master Collection Studio™ users. Competition entrants have to register as a Windows Developer, either using the free Student registration or the paid Professional registration. Using this account, you can submit your game to the Windows Store by December 8th, then officially enter the competition by submitting your game to the submittion page. The winner of this competition gets a lovely $500 Visa gift card, along with tons of bragging rights that they've won the 7th official YoYo Games competition!
by MATT CHELEN
YOYO GAMES — Along with the announcement of the Windows 8 export module, YoYo Games announced that through the rest of the 2012 calendar year, they are giving Game Maker 8.1 users a shocking fifty percent discount on Game Maker Studio's Standard and Professional editions, marking them down to $25 and $50, respectively.
by MATT CHELEN
YOYO GAMES — YoYo Games has just recently announced that everyone who currently owns Game Maker Studio Standard or Professional editions has access to a new export module made for Windows 8 Metro applications.
The new export will require users to download and install both Microsoft's .Net Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio to build for it.
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES NEWS — The final product of GameMaker:HTML5 has been announced to be $199. However, during the beta testing, it will be available for $99! The beta is going to happen in September, and for those of you who haven't signed up yet, click here.
Tons of complaints have gone around the GMC talking about how it's "too expensive", "no one's going to buy it", and that "it won't sell". Now, GM:HTML5 isn't expensive. Go take Unity, that's $1,500. Some may argue "but that's a professional program!". Well, this is a professional tool as well. $200 is a small fee considering you could make big money by selling your games via the Chrome App store. You could sell your game for $1. Get 100 people to buy it (not hard to do if you make a good game) and there's $100 in your pocket. This product will sell, and it's definitely a nice addition to any professional's collection of game development tools.
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES — The YoYo Games Tech. Blog was secretly reveiled August 3rd. The only reason we say secretly is because the only way to get to it is a link in the YoYo Games News. The tech. blog will be a great source of news about development on GameMaker, GM HTML5, and GM Studio.
The tech blog can be found here.
The first post contains information about HTML5, which browsers it works in, and HTML5's limitations. The first post can be found here.
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES NEWS — We've been REALLY bad with news over here at indie(News); lately, and we wanted to apologize for that. We're going to catch up with all of it in this post, since most of it has been HTML5 news. That's perfect, though, you can get it all in one source right now.
The latest news is probably the most exciting, so we'll inform you of that first. The GameMaker HTML5 Beta might be released early September. If you'd like to be a part of this beta, you can request an invite at http://yoyogames.com/gamemaker/html5/beta.
YoYo Games released the first preview of what GameMaker HTML5 can do with their animated scroller on the new YoYo Games site. Now, they've released a video showing an actual game made in GM HTML5. Their game, GraveDigger, can be seen in the video below.
YoYo Games announced that we might see a GM HTML5 beta as soon as September! However, Mark Overmars released on Twitter that the IDE will only be available on Windows. That's depressing news for Mac users.
YYG is going to the GDC (Game Developer's Conference)! There, they will be showing off the new GM HTML5.
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES GLOG — The monthly update from YoYo Games just arrived on the glog.
YoYo Games stated that they want GameMaker to be more than an entry tool for game development. They want it to not only be that, but also a strong professional tool that will be used by some of the biggest names out there. They did say that they may loose some users from this decision, but also gain many more.
YoYo Games Says:
Our aim to gain further reach into gaming markets and gain a larger reputation amongst developers.
On the website side of things, they said that they are 80% done with it! Very exciting news for many GameMaker users. YoYo Games stated that the old site will remain linked on the main menu, for existing users to use.
YoYo Games Says:
The uploading of your games will be alive and well on the old site, this hasn’t changed. All the games previously submitted will stay. Nothing is being deleted. We think this is a good compromise for new visitors seeing a much cleaner site while still offering the same functionality for existing members.
It's good that YoYo Games isn't planning on taking down any of the older games. YoYo Games mentioned adding a part on the site where game developers can meet up and chat. The site is aimed towards being up early next week, and a small group will be chosen to test the site, mainly Admins and Mods.
Believe it or not, you can now follow Mark Overmars on twitter. His username is simply @mark_overmars.
by BRET HUDSON
YOYO GAMES GLOG — There are quite a few rumors going around about the new YoYo Games website. Little snipplets of information are being released on Twitter every now and then by the YoYo Games, and we've been waiting a while to put all the information together in one news article. Here is the first preview we've gotten of the new website:
*If you'd like to read an article about all the little details on the site, please read indie(Magazine); Issue 2.
The new website is suppose to look darker, sleaker, and appeal to an "older audience", since YoYo Games believes GameMaker is not just a kid's program. They spelled Game Maker with it's new spelling (GameMaker) and the original (Game Maker) on their new design, so whether or not GameMaker will retain the space or not is not clear.
YoYo Games said this site will take a couple of months on a glog post a week ago, but is aiming for the "first round" to be finished by the end of July.
YoYo Games said that their current website "looks like a kid's play site". YoYo Games claims that their site shouldn't be regarded as that, so the new design will be geared towards a more mature audience. They are really trying to make the site look professional and attractive to programmers/game developers who are giving GameMaker a first look.
The new site will be added in parts, that way nothing gets lost (like your uploaded games!) in the process of upgrading. One of the new features a lot of people are sad about is that you will only be able to upload games made in Game Maker 8.0, GameMaker 8.1, and future releases. So, if you're using Game Maker 6, 7, or possibly even 5.3, you won't be able to upload your games to the site anymore!
YoYo Games is also planning on making the Instant Play plugin open source so people can embed it into their own websites. No longer will you have to download games off your website; you'll be able to play it by running it out of your browser!
YOYO GAMES GLOG — There are quite a few rumors going around about the new YoYo Games website. Little snipplets of information are being released on Twitter every now and then by the YoYo Games, and we've been waiting a while to put all the information together in one news article. Here is the first preview we've gotten of the new website:
The new website is suppose to look darker, sleaker, and appeal to an "older audience", since YoYo Games believes GameMaker is not just a kid's program. They spelled Game Maker with it's new spelling (GameMaker) and the original (Game Maker) on their new design, so whether or not GameMaker will retain the space or not is not clear.
YoYo Games said this site will take a couple of months on a glog post a week ago, but is aiming for the "first round" to be finished by the end of July.
YoYo Games said that their current website "looks like a kid's play site". YoYo Games claims that their site shouldn't be regarded as that, so the new design will be geared towards a more mature audience. They are really trying to make the site look professional and attractive to programmers/game developers who are giving GameMaker a first look.
The new site will be added in parts, that way nothing gets lost (like your uploaded games!) in the process of upgrading. One of the new features a lot of people are sad about is that you will only be able to upload games made in Game Maker 8.0, GameMaker 8.1, and future releases. So, if you're using Game Maker 6, 7, or possibly even 5.3, you won't be able to upload your games to the site anymore!
YoYo Games is also planning on making the Instant Play plugin open source so people can embed it into their own websites. No longer will you have to download games off your website; you'll be able to play it by running it out of your browser!
YOYO GAMES GLOG — Another android and iOS game was just released by YoYo Games, called Super Snake HD. The one who made it is the creator of the Game Maker program, Mark Overmars, with assistance from Jochem Schut. This game is a clone of the popular snake game, where you eat objects and your snake gets longer, and you must keep your snake from running into it's own tail. This version features a full 80 levels, and there seems to be many game modes, including "Simply Snake", "Tasty Revenge", and "Deadly Rivals".
Super Snake HD is available for Android and iOS devices for the low price of $0.99. Updates and new levels will be coming soon, according to the Super Snake HD website.
YOYO GAMES GLOG — The YoYo Games team has hired (another) new staff member, the 4th in the last 30 days. His name is Jack Oatley, and he's worked with the GameMaker software for quite some time now. His account on YoYo Games showcases some of his impressive work, including a game influenced heavily by Minecraft (I'd call it a clone!).
Jack Oatley's description is a "Junior Software Engineer", and YoYo Games claims that he will be working on a work in progress and a new game. Most likely, he will be developing some new iOS games and games to be released to non-Windows platforms. We hope to see you make a positive change in YoYo Games as well, Jack!
YOYO GAMES GLOG — Once again, within the same week, another member has joined the YoYo Games staff.
Darrell Flood, also known as Dadio will be helping Geoff with things related to artwork. Many of YoYo Games' future games will have artwork "polished" by Darrell, as well as gameplay mechanics and level design. Darrell loves Anime, after living in Japan for 9 years, and as YoYo Games said "[he] claims to be a serious games junkie!". Welcome to the team, Darrell!
ALSO, YoYo Games met up with the famed Mark Overmars (the creator of Game Maker, for those of you who don't know). They discussed some of YoYo Games' future projects, and the future of GM.
Darrell Flood, also known as Dadio will be helping Geoff with things related to artwork. Many of YoYo Games' future games will have artwork "polished" by Darrell, as well as gameplay mechanics and level design. Darrell loves Anime, after living in Japan for 9 years, and as YoYo Games said "[he] claims to be a serious games junkie!". Welcome to the team, Darrell!
ALSO, YoYo Games met up with the famed Mark Overmars (the creator of Game Maker, for those of you who don't know). They discussed some of YoYo Games' future projects, and the future of GM.
YOYO GAMES GLOG — Chris Harrison and Paul Cosgrove have joined the YoYo Games growing team.
Chris Harrison is a Senior Programmer, and has had much experience in the Scottish games industry.
Chris has worked with projects including Visual Sciences, Cohort Studios, Realtime Worlds, and eeGeo.
Paul Cosgrove is a web developer, and will be working on web-related projects for YoYo Games. This could include the new HTML5 project with YoYo Games, but only time will tell if that is true. Paul has worked with projects including Realtime Worlds and i-design Multimedia.
Welcome to YoYo Games, both of you, and we hope to see you two help Game Maker become even better!
Chris Harrison is a Senior Programmer, and has had much experience in the Scottish games industry.
Chris has worked with projects including Visual Sciences, Cohort Studios, Realtime Worlds, and eeGeo.
Paul Cosgrove is a web developer, and will be working on web-related projects for YoYo Games. This could include the new HTML5 project with YoYo Games, but only time will tell if that is true. Paul has worked with projects including Realtime Worlds and i-design Multimedia.
Welcome to YoYo Games, both of you, and we hope to see you two help Game Maker become even better!
