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Lately, there’s been some talk about an Xbox Live Marketplace/Steam/etc. like “game marketplace” for Game Maker games - there have been a few attempts, including the now dead PCGamesNow.

One of the currently active projects is Game Maker Money System run by GMC troll Caniac.

This project already shows huge promise - as seen from their website. A huge white gap on the top, Times New Roman as the font…

Let’s make our very own account. A basic registration form… so I click the username field, and I accidentally hit the enter button. Expecting to see some kind of validation error (”your username is missing”, “your password is missing”…), I wait for the form to submit… but what do I see?

Warning: mail() [function.mail]: SMTP server response: 503 Bad sequence of commands. You must specify the recipients of a message before you can send it in C:\AppServ\www\gmms\register2.php on line 60
Your user account has been created!
Please check you mail for a e-mail’s.

I’m not sure about you, but I don’t know if I’d trust my money in a service that has a horrible web site, a registration form that lacks any kind of basic form validation and tells the user to check “you mail for a e-mail’s”.

So let’s log in to our newly created account with no username, password, or e-mail, or any user information at all! We hit the login page, see two blank fields for the username and password and hit “log in”.

Sorry, this account has not been e-mail verifyed.

Aww, our account with no e-mail has not been e-mail “verifyed”. But what if we make a real account with real info?

So I enter an username of my choice with a one-letter password. The result?

Your user account has been created!
Please check you mail for a e-mail’s.

I’m glad a service that handles real-life money worries for the security of their users. Anyways, time to check my mail for a e-mail’s!

Your e-mail as recently used to register a account at GM-MS.com,
If you did register please copy and paste this link into you browser this link: http://gapto.co.uk/gmms/verify.php?id=(removed)
If you didn’t ignore this e-mail
Thanks,
Gm-ms Staff.

Ok…

404 - Page not found

Sorry, the page you were looking for was not found.

Well, I guess that’s where our trip with the fantastic Game Maker Money System ends. It was a fun ride!

At the time of publishing this post, their website has been having technical difficulties for many days now: for example, the registration form results in the following error:

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user ‘root’@'localhost’ (using password: YES) in /home/gapto/public_html/gmms/register2.php on line 6
Could not connect to mysql because Access denied for user ‘root’@'localhost’ (using password: YES)

Promising, no? In fact, this post was written a week ago - but we decided to wait until today to publish it because GMMS was supposed to “launch” on December 1. I guess it didn’t.

A total of $100 is up for grabs in Zerosoft’s Christmas Game Maker competition.

Writing on the Zerosoft Games forum Jess Horton said “we want your games to be simple, fun, and have a Christmas theme. The genre or style you choose doesn’t matter and graphics will not win the competition so this will be an easy task. I just want a neat little Christmas game that is fun to play”.

The deadline for entries is December 20th after which the winners will be chosen by a judging panel made up of 3 Zerosoft Games members.

GMWeekly have today released their 15th issue (download) which means they have now produced as many issues as MarkUp and more issues than any other Game Maker magazine.

Earlier this week I spoke to the creator of the magazine, Darren Poole, and asked him about the idea behind GMWeekly and got his thoughts on the magazine’s future.

Why did you decide to launch GMWeekly?
Well, I sort of felt that there was a gap in the ‘market’ if you like. I thought about what other GameMaker magazines lacked - consistency (in releasing issues). I thought I’d overcome this problem by releasing a relatively short GameMaker magazine and making sure that I never get a gigantic team working on it. Also, I was failry bored when I started it up and I wanted something that would keep me busy throughout each week.

You decided to focus more on news than the other features included in the already established magazines - is this something you thought was missing from the community?
Well yes, although of course there are a couple of GameMaker news blogs that I’m aware of. I thought it would make a change to the norm by making the magazine not so similar to exisiting ones. Another reason is because I find news easy to report on, in comparison to writing technical articles and tutorials about GameMaker.

Did you really think that you would still be producing at 15 issues, considering the vast majority of Game Maker magazines produce only very few issues?
Well I planned to keep it going for as long as I feasibly could. I thought that if I could get a decent backing from the GMC I would be able to keep going to until the end of the year at least. I wasn’t sure if people would like the publication and I was somewhat surprised at the fact that quite a few praised if after Issue #1 - it was a pretty poor issue and I should have put more effort into it. I didn’t really think about the record of other GameMaker magazines. Just because they may have failed, that didn’t mean I was going to.

Where do you see GMWeekly in 3 months time?
Hopefully the publication should be still around. Maybe people will become bored of it, but we’ll just have to see. I’m becoming increasingly busy now, with GCSE tests looming and A-levels on the horizon. Though I still think that my determination will carry the magazine forward. Crikey - in three months, I would be releasing Issue #27 or there abouts!

StudioEres (Rinkuhero) has sold 385 copies of Immortal Defense in an eighteen month period, receiving revenues of $7,449.69.

The space-themed tower defense game, originally priced at $22.95, now sells at the lower price of $14.95.

From the ‘Going Commercial’ feature I wrote for MarkUp 7:
Immortal Defense was released with a very open approach to sales. Statistics of the number of downloads; site hits and purchases have been posted in a topic on the StudioEres forum to enable other independent game developers to learn from RinkuHero’s experiences.

A month after its release the game had achieved 56 sales out of 4600 demo downloads - a 1.22% conversion rate. This gives is a very transparent insight into the amounts of money which have been involved so far. A retail price of $22.95 multiplied by 56 gives a total of $1,285.20. However this would only be true if every copy was sold at full price which hasn’t been the case as there is a half price offer available for people who feature the game on their blog or website. The Immortal Defense demo is included on the cover DVD of the October 2007 issue of PC Advisor magazine in the UK.

Bear in mind that as Rinkuhero stated in an interview $1,285.20 in a month is below the minimum wage in many states, although of course you can choose how much time you spend promoting your game. In effect you are left with two jobs – first making your game, and second selling it.

The openness with which this game has been released may be useful to people who are interested to see the effect different promotion methods have on downloads and sales.

The game’s current rating at YoYo? 3.4

Play this:

• Mega Block Man [ YYG | GMC ] - 3D puzzle game which has received a very positive response at the GMC , including “out of all the 3D games made in GM [that] I’ve played, this is my favourite“.

Check it out:

• IVGM is a new blog dedicated to featuring reviews with Game Maker community members. So far only 1 review, with Drazzke, is online.

Get involved:

• Vote for a winner in a contest to decide the new Roket-Games logo. (Forum registration required)

Unfortuantely I haven’t had a chance to test out the Mac version of Game Maker that arrived in my inbox this week, however there is word out that other registered testers are having difficulties running the program.

Brian Laclair reports:

So far it seems that the runner is the only thing they released and I haven’t figured out how it works yet. I’ll let you know how well it works if I figure it out.

The belief amongst some people that Instant Play negates the need for a game to be downloaded is an illusion. Files are downloaded when you run a game, even with YoYo Games’ instant play - however gamers do not have to go through the process of choosing where to save a game or extracting or installing any files.

Why instant play?

For YoYo Games the answer is simple - they want people to go back to their website on a regular basis. Whilst an occasional visit and a handful of downloads may be what a gamer wants this will not generate the revenue that YoYo Games’ needs.

Many people like using Instant Play as it makes GameMaker games appear in a way vaguely similar to popular flash arcade games with which many GameMaker games are comparable.

The creator of one such “Instant Play” plugin, James Rhodes, has created a table comparing the features of the different instant play options. The chart has proved rather controversial with both the owners of other Instant Play services and general GMC members disputing the scoring method used.

Sites with features comparable to YoYo Games’ instant play are YAIPP, GMBed, GMArcade, GMX and launched just two days ago Revel Quick Play.

Chart reproduced with permission of James Rhodes

Another new GameMaker ‘magazine’ has been released, just a day after Prodigy Game Magazine hit the GMC. This magazine however takes the much more practical approach of being a PowerPoint slide show distributed as a password protected download.

“GRandER” - (suggestions regarding the origins of the name wanted!) - features a review of Iji a very short ‘review’ of Iji, an interview with 2DCube (top marks for originality there). And that’s it.

ProdigyGM have returned with a new Game Maker Magazine. After their unsuccessful attempt with the unfortunately titled gNAZIne last year which managed just two issues.

“We are not politically correct at all. We give out intense news, previews, and reviews.”

The front page of this new publication is already impressive, containing tiny screenshots, (almost) unreadable text that says “Tutorials, Previews, Reviews, Exclusive Interviews”, and a logo that doesn’t fit at all. Don’t want to download the magazine? Here’s a screenshot:

Next, we have a table of contents:

Letter to the public - p.2
Interview with 2dcube- p.3
Flamewar -p.4
Toonimator Preview - p.4
YoYoGames Update - p.7
GML Coding Errors - p.7
Local News PGM -p. 8
MMO Time - p.9
Wubly Review - p.10
GML Coding Errors Answers- p.12
Mr Noob The Comic - p.12
Adbarlian Castles EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW – p.13
Interview with Desanduin- p.15
East Scripts p. 16
Closing Statement -p.17

What I’m looking forwards to? The “interview”, “Local News PGM”, “Mr. Noob The Comic”, and an exclusive interview with “Adbarlian Castles”. Wait, doesn’t that sound familiar? Oh, yeah, it’s a game by the magazine’s creator!

After this, a small letter to the public:

We are pleased to bring you one of the best Game Maker Magazines out there. I do have a history with making Game maker magazines. My 1st Game Maker Magazine was called the Gnazine. The Gnazine failed because of lack of coordination. I have made all the necessary improvements to this magazine so that the professionalism is shown. I have a real team who is helping in the production of this glorious magazine. With hard work and teamwork this magazine shall not be departed, forsaken, or irrationally created. I ask that if anyone would like to join our magazine team please email me at: hardcoregamer24@yahoo.com. We are accepting new writers, interviewers, artist, jokers, and experts. Anyone is accepted here. This is a community project, so let us all participate!

Maximum professionalism has already been shown, Nate, don’t worry!

Next up? Interview with 2DCube… usual boring interview stuff. But then:

Yes the most cyber war is being unleashed once again!  Today’s victim is going to be “GM Weekly”. GM weekly has gone Bi-Weekly! The writers seem to have become lazy. We have no idea whether or not if the magazine will continue to be known as GM Weekly.

I am just kidding. GM Weekly is a great magazine. It is impressive that it can release an issue so often. I recommend GM Weekly to anyone. Do not despair about unmatched release dates.
Source: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=392597&st=0&start=0
Source Author: DPoole

…Wait, what? Next up, random app, some GML puzzles… Local News PGM:

ProdigyGM is going under construction. The site has acquired new domain names. The webmasters plan to link together all of the websites for a full community. Also Adbarlian Castles is getting a major upgrade. The game will have features never before seen in any indie, commercial, or GM Game. Hardcoregamer/Nateistoraw intends to release THE REAL DEMO of Adbarlian Castles soon. Also the time period for the game is now 2100, but Adbarlian is not on planet earth, so expect to see a crazy world.

I have to admit that Nate has me confused here… The ProdigyGM website is talking about a game called “Adbarlian County”… so what’s Adbarlian Castles?

Next up… article on GM MMO’s. Here’s some interesting highlights:

• The games posted on the GMC are MOs (Multilayer Online).
• The 39dll and Sock dll typically are the dlls used in online game creation.

And then there’s a review of “Wubly” by 2DCube:

…Wubly is not even a chick! According to the game, Wubly is asexual, and pink. Asexual is usually used for plants and fungi…

…The game_end() function is kinda, inappropriate, because when you close the game, you see the game’s size decrease, until it closes, but who asked for that animation? …

…Wubly has a brother, NOT REALLY ACCORDING TO
THE STORY…

…I recommend this game to anyone who wants to have a ball, oooops, Wubly…

Genius. Next up, solutions to their GML puzzles and their comic:

We can’t wait to see what happens (on page 17). But first, exclusive preview: Adbarlian Castles!

Adbarlian Castles (RPG) is one of GM’s Most innovative 3d games. The game allows you to take the role of a wizard/magician. It is well known that the game was supposed to be a mmorpg; however, the People at ProdigyGM had a different style of humor. They allowed NPC to behave as if they were real life PLAYERS!

As you can see, the Prodigy Game Magazine presents unbiased opinions and exclusive insights on game development.

The NPCs respond to many KEYWORDS, including, yes I said it, profane phrases!

Oh dear.

The enemy models and scenery is [sic] simply genius. The camera is also wonderful.

So when do you mention that this is your game?

Well, some random interview, GML script… and closing words:

Thank you for reading the PGM Magazine. We expect to make this a monthly magazine. We can meet our deadlines only with your help. Free Advertising is available! You can become a writer
also! Got content! Send us anything that is valuable via  email at:
hardcoregamer24@yahoo.com. The PGM Magazine releases this magazine ‘As Is”. All products mentioned are the responsibility of the owners/ creators. Once again thank you for your support.

Thank you for your support. No problem!

That sure was an interesting read… but wait, there’s more… let’s not forget “Mr. Noob - The Comic”, and its thrilling conclusion:

Well, that sure made my day.

After earlier discovering an exploit that enabled a Firefox extension to secretly be downloaded whilst a user runs an Instant Play application James Rhodes has discovered several more vulnerabilities in YoYo Games’ Instant Play feature.

One vulnerability can fetch the login hash of Windows XP user’s logged into YoYo Games if they have selected the “Remember Me” feature. This feature uses cookies to store login data and when Instant Play is run from Internet Explorer the cookie, and hence the hash, can be accessed.

The Remember Me feature gives the user one month of automatic logins, and the extracted data could easily be sent back to a server using 39dll which could give a hacker access to your YoYo Games account.

A simple path modification means that the same opperation can easily be performed to users of the Windows Vista OS.

This proves another point I’m going to make about Game Maker/Instant Play security.

Why does Game Maker have access to the user’s cookies? Why does Game Maker have access to the system32 directory?

None of these things should be able to be accessed by Game Maker, and certainly shouldn’t be allowed when it’s running as Instant Play.

This example grabs your login information for YYG (if you are using Internet Explorer), and shows it to you. THE DATA IS NOT SENT ANYWHERE.
- James Rhodes

Another vulnerability supposedly gives games an automatic 5-star rating however at the time of writing I was unable to verify this.

Go back a couple of years and the standard answer to “how to I get my game to work online?” was, “you don’t”. However in the present day you would probably be greeted with a variety of options. Think YoYo Games’ Instant Play, GMBed, GMX, GMArcade and YAIPP.

These are the better known of the many pseudo-Instant Play implementations (so-called because they perform similar actions to the Instant Play feature first seen on the YoYo Games website).

James Rhodes, the creator of the Yet Another Instant Play Plugin, today revealed that a vulnerability exists within YoYo Games Instant Play enabling any game uploaded to the YoYo Games website to secretly install a plugin for the FireFox browser. The exploit can be seen in action in this example James created and uploaded to the website.

Once the plugin is installed and the user navigates to any game page on the YoYo Games website the application is automatically launched.

Over the coming week GameMaker Blog will feature several posts relating to the various “Instant Play” implementations available.

InstantPlay Exploit (image by sk8m8trix)

Today James Rhodes posted a comment on the YYG GLOG stating that he has constructed a GM game which demonstrates a vunerability in the way InstantPlay handles game launching. It allows the GM executable to silently install a Firefox plugin with no confirmation. This apparently should be an easy fix: the InstantPlay plugin need only change the way it handles the game’s launching.

It should be interesting to see how long YoyoGames takes to patch this, considering the seriousness of the vulnerability.

The results of TIA Productions’ limited graphics competition have been released, despite the fact that the main site continues to say that judging is still in progress.

The $100 first prize has been awarded to Spring Loaded [play online | download .zip], a fast-paced platform puzzler, by kbyoyoa.

Explaining the reasons behind the result TIA Productions’ pure-evil020 revealed what it was that made Spring Loaded stand out: “a good menu, good gameplay, well fitted sounds, titles for each level to keep player going, and I think that having a tutorial in your game is very important! a lot of people give up when they just don’t get how to play the game…”

There are now just 5 days to go until the winner of the TIA Limited Graphics gamemaker competition is revealed as the contest ends. So far only 2 votes have been placed and they are both by entrants of the competition voting for their own submissions!

A $100 first prize is up for grabs so more votes should have been attracted by now. Whilst the number of votes each game receives from the public does not directly select the winner, TIA are asking for reasons why you voted for a particular game which will be taken into consideration when deciding who to award first place to.

A total of 10 games have been submitted - the first three of which were reviewed last month on GameMaker Blog. Get voting! (You will need to register at the TIA forums to cast your vote).

• Download all 10 entries in a 34.5MB .zip from GameMaker Blog

After two consecutive missed release dates GMWeekly have published their 13th issue (left click only download).

“First of all, I should apologise for the absence of an issue last week. Both me and Broxter were extremely busy and it became obvious to us that we would just not be able to get an issue out. We’re sorry if we disappointed anybody, but we hope to get right back on track. Because of this, we now have a new release policy: the publication will be released on most Fridays. So, this means that some weeks (probably about one in six or seven) there will be no issue. Hopefully you agree with and understand this.
There wasn’t much news around GM last week anyway, to be honest,…”
- Darren Poole, GMWeekly 13

Changing release schedules is certainly nothing new when it comes to GameMaker magazines, but GMWeekly did manage to stick to their original release dates better than any other magazine has done so previously - something that they should be proud of.

Last Friday Darren Poole’s GMWeekly magazine did not publish an issue and earlier today Darren confirmed that an issue would not be released today either, instead promising that issue 13 will be released tomorrow as well as a reason for the delay.

Whilst it may widely be considered that releasing a second issue is the biggest hurdle when producing a Game Maker magazine, even successful magazines such as GMTech and MarkUp took 2 months to release their second issue, GMWeekly proved many of its critics wrong by realising 12-weekly issues to (or close to) schedule.

The magazine is different from more traditional Game Maker periodicals as its primary focus is on community news with little focus given to game development advice, although game reviews are now included.

Although I am not superstitious you may care to know that the thirteenth issue of MarkUp was the first of that publication to be released late after a string of 11 back-to-back monthly issues following the pilot edition.

Actual figures are higher as files are mirrored at a different host

GMArcade, a website that mimics the instant-play capabilities of YoYo Games, have released for free a script that will enable Game Maker users to make the ability available on their own site.

Hi all, this is an appeal from our dev team,

We’ve had reports of users having difficulty uploading games using the new system. The stats seem to confirm this as we’re seeing more incomplete uploads than we did before the switch.

Obviously we’re keen to get to the bottom of this but we need a bit more information to work out what exactly is going wrong. Could anyone who has experienced difficulties please post below with details of the browser and flash versions you were using (and the nature of the error you encountered).

In other more exciting news, see Sandy’s post yesterday about the GM Mac beta.

Thanks,

Jim

[UPDATE] We have just released the latest build of the site which should address the upload issue, so please do have another go and let us know if the fix worked for you.

Announced today on the YoYo Games glog was the upcoming private beta program for the highly anticipated Mac version of Game Maker.

The testing will start out as a closed private beta that users can signup for by e-mailing applebeta@yoyogames.com with their contact details, GMC and YYG usernames. The beta program is due to begin by the end of next month and it may be some time before a public beta or final version will be out.
The YoYo Games team is currently looking for those who have a Mac running OS X Leopard, Windows only users need not apply. As for hackintoshes and emulators, it couldn’t hurt to try but I doubt there will be any promising results.

Sandy Duncan also commented to say that although the Mac port should run well on UNIX based systems such as those running BSD, there are no current plans to provide support for UNIX or Linux at this time.

If you are interested in applying to be part of the private beta for the beta version of Game Maker for Mac check out Sandy’s latest post on the YoYo Games blog.