Game Maker 7.0

Game Maker 7.0 is a major version of Game Maker, released after version 6.1a. It has been originally thought to be version 6.2, but Mark Overmars finally revealed the true version number in a forum post.

Though many complained about the lack of new major features (in comparison to the Game Maker 6.0 jump) for a major version, Game Maker 7 marks a departure from the many aspects of Game Maker. It witnessed the extension mechanism, the controversial .gmk encryption, a revamped file inclusion mechanism, Windows Vista comptability, a new registration mechanism, among other things.

More importantly, however, Game Maker 7.0 was the first version of Game Maker to be released after Mark partnered with YoYo Games.

Pre-beta Phase
Before Mark had released any beta version for Game Maker 7.0, lots of speculations and expectations were filling the forums. Mark then made a few forum posts that clarified almost everything.

Beta Phase
The beta phase of Game Maker 7.0 was first expected to begin at the end of October/beginning of November. However, in a forum post, Mark said that there has been a delay, and that the first beta version of Game Maker was available at the beginning of December.

First Beta
With the release of the Beta to the public, there were two initial reactions: The majority of the testing was focused on new features, such as extensions and their creation, compatibility with Windows Vista, etc.
 * Excitement, due to new features such as Extensions
 * Disappointment, due to insufficient amount of changes compared to the fact that this is called a "major release"

Second Beta
The second beta of Game Maker was released on the first of January 2007 and included many changes. Reactions were positive overall, but towards the end of January, complaints about the .gmk encryption began. Mark Overmars later confirmed the fact that the Game Maker changes were targeted to stop projects like g-java.

Post Second Beta
No more public releases were made to Game Maker after the second beta. It was internally tested at YoYo Games. Major changes include a complete new registration system.

Extension mechanism
The ability to create extensions for Game Maker is probably one of the most important newly-introduced features. It is capable of adding complete new sections to Game Maker, integrated with help, and the script editor directly. These new sections could be DLLs, Scripts, and Libraries.

Windows Vista compatibility
Though it is not always considered a "feature", compatibility with the latest version of Microsoft Windows, Windows Vista is an extremely important fix that fixed the previous compatibility between Game Maker and Windows Vista. This fix has added approximately 1 MB to the size of the executable.

PNG Support (32-bit support)
PNG files could be directly loaded from the sprite properties pane, which is thought to be an important step in making games more high quality.

GMK encryption
.gmk files are now encrypted, this new "feature" has became a highly controversial feature in the Game Maker Community.

Publish button
A "Publish"-button has been added to the toolbar, that will allow an user to send their games to the YoYo Games server (This service has not been launched yet).

Splash screens
The splash screen mechanism has been considerably enhanced. Splash screens, like videos and images are now shown by default in the main game window. There are also many new options, e.g. to change the scaling.

Game Information
The Game Information is now shown by default in the game window and can be closed with the close button.

Room transitions
The room transition mechanism has been changed and extended, giving the user more control over the transitions and adding many new transitions, like fade-ins, pushing the images, blending room images, rotations, etc. An extension package with additional room transitions is provided.

Data structures
A number of additional functions have been provided to deal with data structures. For example, data structures can now be copied, there are functions to write data structures to a string and read them back. This string can then used to e.g. save the data structure to a file.

Including files
The mechanism to include files in the executables has been considerably extended. For each file it can now be indicated under what filename it must be stored and where it must be stored. There is a choice now whether or not to include the files in the editable version of the game. Also there are functions to export the files at a different moment than the start of the game.

Alpha Channel support
Adding sprites and backgrounds with alpha channels. There are now functions (such as sprite_add_alpha sprite_replace_alpha) to add or replace a sprite from a file that has alpha channels (such as .png files) to get neater transparency effects. Similar functions exist for backgrounds.

File format
Version 7.0 uses an adapted file format. As a result file names now have the extension .gmk. The new version can though still read .gm6 files created with the previous version and it is fully compatible with such files.

New registration mechanism
Game Maker 7 uses a new registration mechanism. The free and registered version are now called the Lite Edition and the Pro Edition. There is an improved online purchase process that immediately upgrades the program after the payment is made.

Compatibility
Game Maker 7 is largely compatible with Game Maker 6.x. Only few and minor incompatibilities exist, which are the following:
 * Room Transitions can only be used between rooms.