As we predicted several months ago when YoYoGames was acquired by Opera, a free version of GameMaker Studio has been released. We did a Closer Look at GameMaker several years ago, it is a long running 2D game engine that has been used to make dozens if not hundreds of successful commercial games and countless indie titles. The new free release is essentially the full version, with a few caveats:
- It does not permit you to create shareable executable copies of your game
- It does not permit you to test using the higher-performance YoYo Compiler (“YYC”).
- You must always be on the current/newest public version of GMS2 in order to use your licence, so you may be required to periodically update your install in order to continue using GMS2.
- You cannot create a Marketplace Publisher account and sell your own assets – however, you can use the Marketplace to obtain any assets, tutorials and demo projects offered by other people.
You can read more about the new release on the GameMaker blog. If you are new to GameMaker Studio and are looking to get started, they recently released a massive tutorial series Little Town, which includes all the assets you need, 300+ page PDF, 24 videos and more.
If you are interested in checking out the new free edition of GameMaker Studio it is available here for Windows and Mac. You can learn more about the free version of GameMaker Studio in the video below.