Scorptek -> GMNews

An interesting topic is picking up some interest on the GMC, about a new version of WINE (for linux) which claims to be able to run GM7 games without too much trouble. For a while now GM5 games have been working with WINE without much difficulty, but this is one of the first reports of GM6 or GM7 games running successfully.

According to topic poster, the latest version of WINE (0.9.49) allows both the Game Maker software and game executables produced by GM7 to run well with the Linux Operating System. Some of this is attributed to general bug fixes which now provide more support for software wrappers / copy protection systems such as Softwrap. However, it is also worthy to note that there are some reports of graphical issues during game play for some games.

The poster also recommends using the command wine explorer /desktop=foo,800×600 to run GM7 games to ensure best compatibility (replacing 800X600 with the game resolution, if known).

This discovery could bring the unfortunate end to a well respected project called LGM. LGM (Lateral Game Maker) is an effort to bring an IDE/Graphical User Interface for Game Maker to a wide range of Operating Systems (including Linux) that would normally not be able to use Game Maker. If the native GM7 interface now works with Linux, it could make the project obsolete.

I’m sure most of you are aware of the Obfuscator floating around the GMC. It is an effort to help protect game executables from decompilation by making the source code so difficult to interpret that it wouldn’t be worth the effort for someone to try and steal and use the code. We forgot to feature an article on this program when it came out, but better late than never.

The Obfuscator works with both GM6 and GM7 and provides protection by:
- Deleting comments left by the programmer
- Giving variables & resources a computer generated name (providing no indication of what purpose they serve in the code)
- Inserting ‘crap’ (Read as random gibberish to confuse the person reading the source)

While it’s not ‘fool proof’, it certainly acts as a strong deterrent against game source thieves.

Check out the GMC topic here.

Update: It looks like the server error might be related to a problem with the website’s MySQL server or database. According to the WordPress error which has taken over the official YoYo Games Glog, there is an “error establishing a database connection.”

It’s hard to miss our previous posts about YoYo Games’ new unreliable web-server, but we just can’t miss an opportunity to point out that the YoYo Games website has been down all afternoon, again.

When visiting YoYoGames.com, users are presented with this error:

Upon closer inspection, the server is spewing out a 500 code error. 500 series errors are very general, and essentially mean something has gone very wrong (on the server end), but the web server can’t specifically pin-point what the cause of the problem is.

This is different to earlier site outages which seemed to be the result of temporary power loss and completely unresponsive server software.

So is this the result of the new host being unreliable, a defected lemon server, or just an unlikely coincidence? That question remains to be unanswered, but if this continues to happen, I think it’s safe to say we can rule out the coincidence part.

This May Microsoft released their own free game creator, Popfly Game Creator, as part of their Popfly social networking effort. The current version is limited to two-dimensional, online games only and requires Microsoft Silverlight and a Microsoft Passport account.

At first try, it appears that the kit is very, very easy to use, with the result (as usual) being that the games all tend seem like the kits they came from. In fact, you can select a game type (I tried Fire Cars) and it will play right then with no more modifications. The only reason this has a chance of success is that Microsoft, with all its manpower, has created an extensive assortment of drop-in characters, scenes, games, sounds, you name it.

Games created with this appears to require Silverlight and are locked to applications that can run Javascript, namely browers and Vista’s Sidebar. What impact this new entry to the easy game creation market will have is currently anyone’s guess.

The second issue of Russell’s Quarterly was released earlier today. This particular magazine differs from its competition by providing articles on a broader range of topics that may not necessarily have anything to do with Game Maker specifically, but pertain to game makers in general.

In terms of visual design, the magazine reads more like a newspaper (not that there is anything wrong with that). Just a word of caution to prospective readers: it is a bit heavy on the text side with about 80 pages worth of content. An odd graphic insert can be found here and there, but not on every page.

It is also worthy to note that the writing in this particular magazine sets a high quality of standard for the competition, and in that sense, reads more professionally.

Click here to download Issue 2