Mark Overmars

I created a little particles demo in GameMaker: HTML5. It is based on the old demo I did years ago. It works nice. Here you can check it out:


http://html5.gamemaker.nl/Particles/



Some remarks though:

You cannot use color blending in particles. It will make them very slow. The reason is that HTML5 does not support blending an image with a color. GameMaker: HTML5 does some neat trick to still make this possible (e.g. for colored fonts) but it is slow when you need many different colors. For the same reason you e.g. cannot draw triangles or texts with color gradients.


Particle deflectors do not (yet?) work.

If you are interested to see some games that I created with GameMaker:HTML5, look here: html5.gamemaker.nl. These are all taken form the Game Maker's Apprentice book, and slightly adapted to work with GameMaker HTML5. You might also want to check out html5.gamemaker.nl/Growth/ for a little speed demo.



Mark Overmars

We would like to ask you to help us get our free games Free Solitaire for iPhone and Simply Solitaire HD for iPad in the top ten of free games on iTunes.

So if you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, please download these free games and rate them (or even write a nice review) on iTunes.

The games are free without any ads and with great graphics. They are a good example of what can be achieved with Game Maker. You can download them here:

Free Solitaire for iPhone/iPod: http://itunes.apple....ire/id406477514
Simply Solitaire HD for iPad: http://itunes.apple....-HD/id404016931

Of course you are also encouraged to rate/review our other iPhone/iPad games. You find them through our store: http://store.yoyogames.com/browse

Thanks in advance.

Mark Overmars

Since today, December 22, Game Maker version 8.0 is available for download from the YoYo Games website at:

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/try

Please be a bit patient as many people might be downloading it at the same moment.

Most important changes in Game Maker 8.0 are:

• Support for translucent sprites using PNG files
• Much improved image editor and code editor
• Splash web pages and html documents
• Possibility to define your own events
• Mechanism for exporting and importing resources
• Considerable speed improvements for code
• Build-in tutorial and news pages
• Large collection of sprite and sound effect to be used for free in your games
• Many bugs corrected and many smaller improvements

Those who bought the Pro Edition of Game Maker 7.0 after Jan 1st 2009 can upgrade to the Pro Edition of Game Maker 8.0 for free. For more information on upgrading see the Help FAQ.

We hope you all enjoy the new version.

The YoYo Games Team

Although it is against the rules I am misusing my special privileges to make this post here.

Utrecht University in the Netherlands is organizing a game creation competition under the name Creative Game Challenge. It is a competition for all students in highschool (VWO, HAVO, VMBO) in the Netherlands and it runs the whole year. The deadline for submitting games is April 7 and the prize ceremony will take place at the end of June. The theme of the competition is Beasts and you must use Game Maker to create your game. The total price money is 10.000 Euro, divided over some 10 prizes, so there is a lot to win.

So if you are living in the Netherlands and going to highschool you are strongly recommended to participate in this competition. For more information, the precise rules and prizes, and to register for the competition, go to the Creative Game Challenge website (in Dutch).

Utrecht University is organizing this competition because from the coming year on it will offer a track on Game Technology with the Computer Science bachelor. If you are interested in studying Game Technology at a University in the Netherlands, you can find more information at www.gametechnologie.nl (in Dutch).

Mark