This is presumably a limited time offer, but you can currently upgrade from the free version of game maker to the standard version at no cost, or to the professional edition for US$50.

The process is a little tricky, and not helped by slightly clunky UI:

- Download and install the free version of Game Maker.

- Select the beta updates channel, and upgrade to the latest version.

- Run the software, and a dialog will display the offer.

- You'll need to enter your email address (I had to do so twice) and register an account to be sent a licence key.

- Enter the licence key and you're good to go!

The terms and conditions say you have to agree to receive emails from YoYo Games; I'm not sure how frequent these are or what the content might be, but I'm sure you could un-subscribe or filter them if it's a problem.

Just thought I'd share for anyone who might be interested but doesn't want to outlay the normal cost -- the standard version is still reasonably minimal but much more capable than the resource-limited free version. :)

Just did so, after some confusion. Here's how, in more detail:

- Download and install the free version of Game Maker.
This is the Windows desktop version of Game Maker. Game Maker doesn't exist for Mac or Linux yet, afaik.
You download it here. Install it. It'll say, "This version of Game Maker isn't licensed", and there is a button that says, "Use Free version" or something similar, which will enable it as Game Maker: Lite.

- Select the beta updates channel, and upgrade to the latest version.

This is what confused me. There is no visible way to use the beta update channel from the main GUI.

You have to run Game Maker, and while Game Maker is running, right-click on the Game Maker taskbar icon (not the application icon), and select "Beta Update Channel".

Then, after opting in for the beta updates, you first have to close Game Maker, and then right-click the taskbar icon and select "Check for Updates", or it'll think you're already up to date.

It'll detect an eligible upgrade, but prompt you whether you want to update using the beta update path or the stable update path. Select the beta one.

- Run the software, and a dialog will display the offer.

After the update, which will take some time (two or three minutes), run Game Maker and the splash screen will appear with upgrade ads.

The first one will say, "Upgrade to Master Collection now! Only $400". Ignore it. Use the arrow keys to view the other offers.

- You'll need to enter your email address (I had to do so twice) and register an account to be sent a licence key.
I entered my yahoo email address. I never received the code... I checked my spam folder, I made sure Yahoo! refreshed the email list... nothing.

If this occurs to you, try reentering your email address in the form above. If it says something like, "This email has already been used to generate a license", that's good!

That means you can enter your email address here, to force Game Maker to re-send the license key (scroll to the bottom of the page and use the 'License Recovery' form).

- Enter the licence key and you're good to go!

I got it running easily, got no problems with the beta channel/updates/email (except i had to wait for the email for multiple seconds, seriously...)

Then it offended me by not allowing intuitively creating a game in 5 minutes without bothering to see the tutorials.

I tried getting into Game Maker. Can you use raw code? I don't like this drag & drop stuff where I got no idea what I am doing

I tried getting into Game Maker. Can you use raw code? I don't like this drag & drop stuff where I got no idea what I am doing

I'm pretty sure everything you can drag and drop you can convert or modify via their scripting language. At least that's what I remember from watching a couple youtube videos about it.

Thanks for posting that, jbadams!

Fire up on of the demo projects and go thru all the objects inspecting their properties.

Basically, when it comes to objects:

-An object is a class

-A fancy drag and drop box is a method, which will be listening to some event and called when appropriate

-An object can have a creation method (constructor), which you can use to create variables (member variables), which you can directly access from other scripts like you can from methods in other languages.

-You have a pile of global functions you can instance objects with. You also have some predefined methods and variables for the objects i believe.

So, drag and drop a constructor to initialize some member variables, then drag and drop a step method to run the thing, then some onCollision method, draw method, timer method event thingy etc.

I tried getting into Game Maker. Can you use raw code? I don't like this drag & drop stuff where I got no idea what I am doing

I'm pretty sure everything you can drag and drop you can convert or modify via their scripting language. At least that's what I remember from watching a couple youtube videos about it.

Thanks for posting that, jbadams!

Correct.

In fact, drag & drop is a small subset of the scripting language, GML, thus many important things (such as AI and visual effects) are either significantly easier or only possible to do with code.

Drag & drop is primarily a learning tool, though more advanced users who understand how drag & drop actions are converted to code will sometimes use them for convenience.

Got it!

Servant of the Lord's Instructions are good, but they take a while to email you the full license code. I'm so used to automated systems emailing you within the minute, this took like 30-60 mins.

Actually, instead of going through the trouble of signing up for the beta, just visit this URL, where EMAIL_ADDRESS is your email, and a serial key will be emailed in standard time. I picked up the request URL with Wireshark.

http://store.yoyogames.com/licences/standard/register?email=EMAIL_ADDRESS

Nice!