A downloadable engine for Windows

Buy Now$14.79 USD or more

A general-purpose platform engine (Game Maker Studio 1.4 and 2.x source file) that can be used to quickly get a platform game project up and running. Available for both GMS1 and GMS2! Pick the file of your fancy, or both!

  • Custom collision checking system that is faster than Game Maker's built-in pixel-by-pixel collisions.
  • Uses no platform-specific functions: can be used with any export module with only minor changes!
  • Power-up system: pick up power-ups from item blocks and lose them on damage; each power-up can be assigned its own code, letting you fire projectiles, fly, and more or less anything you can imagine.
  • Jump-through platforms; the custom collision checking system allows ANY object that uses them to treat jumpthrough platforms properly.
  • Moving platforms; can be jump-through or solid, moves both player, liftables, power-ups and enemies around, can crush all of them if they get trapped between a moving platform and a solid object, including another moving platform.
  • Moving platforms can be set to constantly patrol a path, with an arbitrary shift along the path in order to synchronize platforms with each other, or to wait at the start of a path, follow it once the player lands on it, and then drop off into the abyss.
  • Simple event system with NPCs that can be assigned arbitrary code to execute in each of their actions; comes prepackaged with simple message boxes.
  • Checkpoints that lets you restart where you died, even if it was in a different room.
  • Doors to transport the player between different locations, either in the same game room or between different rooms.
  • Extra lives, Game Over, and gaining 1UPs by comboing enemies or collecting 100 coins.
  • Liftable objects; very general and easy to customize. Lets you make portable platforms the player can carry around, shells to send sliding along the ground to knock out enemies, and other types of objects that can be carried.
  • Enemy system for walker enemies that can be easily customized.
    • Enemies can wander aimlessly or chase you.
    • Enemies can walk off edges, jump off edges, or turn around at edges.
    • Enemies can randomly jump while walking.
    • Enemies can jump and walk at different speeds, including being horizontally still during either and move during the other.
    • Enemies can be assigned an arbitrary shooting script with one line of code to set up, enabling simple or complex attack patterns. (They don't even technically need to spawn a projectile as part of their attack)
  • Surface-based light-and-darkness system with an arbitrary level of darkness ranging from pitch black to barely noticeable; can be set to glow around the player, items, and light sources independently of each other.
  • Item blocks that can be filled with arbitrary objects and do arbitrary things when the player hits them, including creating empty blocks or bursting into debris.
  • Ladders you can climb, including grabbing them mid-jump.
  • Water that can be swum in.
  • Support for multiple playable characters; just set up data and change the current character variable.
  • All scripts and objects has thorough comments that explains their functionality.
  • Easy to edit and extend to suit your needs.
  • 4 example levels to learn from!
  • 9 example enemies.
  • 3 example power-ups.
  • Includes custom-made, previously unreleased tilesets, backgrounds, sprites, sound effects and music that can be used in commercial games!
  • Credit appreciated but not mandatory.
  • Can be used in commercial games, but do NOT resell the source code itself, even if modified.
  • GMS2 source code is in fact a direct port of the GMS1 source code, converted using the GMS2 legacy import tools. While it has been checked for problems, there might be stuff I missed. Please report any problems you find with it.
StatusReleased
CategoryAssets
Rating
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars
(6 total ratings)
AuthorYal
Made withGameMaker
Tags16-bit, engine, platform, Retro
Asset licenseCreative Commons Attribution v4.0 International
Average sessionA few minutes
InputsKeyboard
AccessibilitySubtitles, Configurable controls

Purchase

Buy Now$14.79 USD or more

In order to download this engine you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $14.79 USD. You will get access to the following files:

Source Code (GMS 2.3) (v1.2) 5 MB
Source Code (GMS2.2) (v1.2) 5 MB
Source Code (GMS1) (v1.1) 4 MB

Download demo

Download
Engine demo (.EXE) (GMS1) 4 MB
Download
Engine demo (Compressed application ZIP) (GMS1) 5 MB
Download
Engine demo (Compressed application ZIP) (GMS2) 4 MB
Download
License Agreement 22 kB

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

I would like to one day have a megaman x style indiegame made would I need to get a copyright for it and would this change depending wether if its just me or a company

I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I'm aware in all countries that has signed the Berne Convention, you automatically get copyright on everything you create (with some exceptions: companies will own copyright on things their employees create during work hours, generative AIs and animals cannot own copyright to things they create, and violating copyright and trademarks when creating something will void copyright on your custom additions)

So TL;DR: "No, you get the copyright automatically."

(+1)

ok, thank you, and thank you for your time

Hi Yal.  I write to you every now and then, asking you to explain why you can't open the door when you're at the end of the desert.  I sent you a screenshot of this part of the desert, but you haven't responded for over two weeks.  Is something wrong or are you angry with my inquiries.  If so I'm sorry

Hi Yal

 I'm currently playing GP gun_10.  Could you tell me how many teleports there are because so far I found 6 (1,2,3,4,8,9).  I was in the Deep Cave and when I came back I lost a bat.  Is it possible to recover it?  Once I'm in the ruins of Bathville and I've found the key to the Sigma station, I can't go any further because when I fall down between two bats, I'm thrown into a room where all the doors are closed.  I was also looking for Waterfall, where there is supposedly some secret, but I don't know where it is

 I'm asking for help because I'm starting to go crazy

 Regards

Hi Yal

 I'm currently playing GP gun_10.  Could you tell me how many teleports there are because so far I found 6 (1,2,3,4,8,9).  I was in the Deep Cave and when I came back I lost a bat.  Is it possible to recover it?  Once I'm in the ruins of Bathville and I've found the key to the Sigma station, I can't go any further because when I fall down between two bats, I'm thrown into a room where all the doors are closed.  I was also looking for Waterfall, where there is supposedly some secret, but I don't know where it is

 I'm asking for help because I'm starting to go crazy

 Regards

https://yaru.itch.io/gun-princess

Hi Yal

I'm currently playing GP gun_10.  Could you tell me how many teleports there are because so far I found 6 (1,2,3,4,8,9).  I was in the Deep Cave and when I came back I lost a bat.  Is it possible to recover it?  Once I'm in the ruins of Bathville and I've found the key to the Sigma station, I can't go any further because when I fall down between two bats, I'm thrown into a room where all the doors are closed.  I was also looking for Waterfall, where there is supposedly some secret, but I don't know where it is

I'm asking for help because I'm starting to go crazy

Regard

s

Question! Is there also a world map with this engine? Like the world map from Super mario World. I try to make a world map like this, but i can't find a good tutorial for this, any tips?

There's no world map in this engine, no.

One thing you could try doing is making a Super Mario Bros. 3 world map instead, in that game you always move a set distance instead of following a level-specific path, so it's much easier (just check if there's no obstacles in the way and then start moving).

Would probably be easiest with a state machine, "stationary" and "moving" (so you can't interrupt a movement in the middle because you only check if you got a movement command while stationary, and the moving state has a counter so you always move the same distance)

(+2)(-1)

i've always been a big fan of mario games and this is a dream come true!

Hi, could you pls explain the Step event(Player) I don't get it from where does it call the State machine? script_execute(state)? Where is the variable state?

(+1)

It's set up in script player_locals_init, it is always set to one of these "playerstate_" scripts:


(You can quickly find assets by using Ctrl+T for the "go to anything" searcher or middle-clicking the script/asset name in the code editor)

Thank you for the fast reply and sorry that I answer so late. Yea I know that there is a search system. What I meant is the variable state in step event where does it start how does it know what is the first state to call. This is what I was searching for in player_locals_init() there is the beginning of the variable state  state = playerstate_normal. Another question: how could I change the obj_companionblock so it's affected by gravity even it's in the idle state?  i know he creates obj_solidterrain_liftable if that and this happens but is there an easy way to make him be affected with gravity? It looks funny (for me) if one obj_companionblock is standing on another one and you pick the first one out and the other one stands there in the air.  (I'm new to programming so sorry for the silly questions)

(1 edit)

There's a variable state_idle which lets you change the idle behavior (what the object does when nobody is lifting it). Copy liftablestate_idle into a new script "liftablestate_idle_with_gravity", and then add some code for the gravity here (and then don't forget to update the liftables you want to have gravity when idle so they use this script for their idle state instead).

For the gravity code, the easiest would be to just check liftable_free(x,y+4) and if free, move down 4 pixels (constant speed instead of using actual gravity). If you want actual gravity, it's probably easiest to copy player_inertia_y's yspeed code and removing the "shockwave when hitting blocks" bit.

I did as you said and added constant speed if liftable_free(x,y+4) but nothing happens if I go !place_meeting(x,y-1,obj_solid_terrain) it moves and collides with the object but only with that object (as expected) so my question did I call it wrong or does the liftable_free(x,y) need something more? 

liftable_free just checks if the position is free of collisions, you also need to move the object:

if(liftable_free(x,y + 4)){
  y += 4
}

I hope you don't mind answering this odd question but, should I buy this engine if the final product is going to deviate substantially from Mario-style platforming? I've been trying to build a Klonoa-like game but am rather new to programming, so I'd like to buy something to reverse engineer and add to what I've already developed.

(+1)

As long as you're planning to make SOME sort of platformer, you'd probably get some use out of this project, it's easier to remove / hide things you don't need than to make something new from scratch. The system to carry things like shells and companion cubes around seems like a nice fit for a Klonoa-style game, for instance - all you'd need to add in is a grab attack that turns enemies into "liftables" on contact, and some code that lets you jump again in mid-air if you're holding something.

Harvesting individual systems could get a bit harder, since there's a lot of dependencies between things (like the jumpthrough-platform and moving platform code being an essential part for both player, enemies and throwables since they all are affected by those platforms) so you might end up having to frankensteining a lot of unexpected code into your existing physics; it might be easier to do it in reverse (add your unique quirks into MariaEngine) depending on the scope of the projects.

(+1)

Thank you so much for the response! Considering how basic my physics are as is, I don't think it should be too hard to append my systems onto the Maria engine or vice versa, so long as it's easy to tell what's dependent on what. I do worry about the matter of scope, as you mentioned, however; I'm hoping to add on a lot of unique setpieces that would be hard for any pre made engine to account for, so I'm going to try messing around with what I've already got some more before making any purchases. Again, though, thank you!

It occured to me to ask another question - you already explained how to adapt the collision system to a larger set of sprites elsewhere, but would the engine have any issues regarding processing speeds and such with, say, a 64 X 64 sized character + 32 X 32 tiles?

(+1)

Game Maker's collisions default to rectangles that are pretty simple maths checks, and they're completely unaffected by sprite size, so this shouldn't have any noticeable effect on performance.

Alright, just one more question and then I'm done: could the system be modified to allow for slopes?

Updated the project to 2.3. It seems to work without changes.

Hey Yal, would it be straightforward enough to get the player shooting? I see there's provision for enemies to shoot.

It should be pretty easy to get it working, you should be able to just copy the code in esm_zombie (at lines 176-184) into a keyboard event (or new key check in a new player State Behavior Package script "psbp_shoot", which you can add to psm_ordinary before the psbp_animation_ordinary call) and just spawn a new player bullet object instead of the enemy bullets.

(+1)

Thanks Yal, that sounds good. Will grab this tonight after work!

(2 edits)

Hi,
I have bought this engine years ago and I'm so far ok. But I wonder if I can use larger sprites and rooms to give a more 16-bit feeling instead of 8 bit by keeping every other gameplay aspect intact. Is there a simple way to achieve larger sprites, rooms, etc?

All you should need to do is make the sprites bigger and edit player_free (Gameplay --> Player --> Collision Checking) to use the new sizes. The enemy counterpart uses a variable hitbox size so it should adapt automatically (if you make sure the hitbox variables are set based on the sprite size in their create event, like with all the existing enemies).

You might need to tweak movement speeds and such (defined in init_character_maria) to make the objects move at a speed that feels right for the bigger sprites too, but that's more of a "feel" thing than something absolutely necessary for it to function.

Another alternative approach that messes with gameplay even less is to edit the draw code for every object and make them draw larger sprites as x*2, y*2, but still use the 16x16 grid for collisions in reality. (Autotiled objects would create larger tiles at x2'd coordinates as well). Could get a bit messy to set up, but would let you use larger sprites without having to compensate for larger sprites gameplaywise.

I'm a bit confused as to why I can't get the GUI to be orange color. So far the extension has been going pretty well, but that has lost me. I have the correct hex code set in the init_character script and in the draw GUI event for the obj_control. Instead of orange it is blue. I can't figure out where else to edit.

Nevermind. I guess it was because GMS2 uses a different color code. I just used make rgb instead.

Yes, 1.4.9999 and 2.x both have rrggbb instead of bbggrr color codes. 1.4.9999 is extra fun to deal with, because the color CONSTANTS weren't updated to match the new format, so c_red is actually blue and so on. I'm sticking with 1.4.1773 for stability reasons :P

Well I'm so used to 2.0 and like it so it's fine. But sorry to bother you. I have 2 weird issues that are happening. First, is the player can't finish climbing the ladder and gets stuck at the top in climbing state. I noticed I can make it happen when the player is on the left or right and not in the middle of the ladder. Second, is sometimes for a reason I don't get the player gets stuck in falling state on jump thru platforms and can't jump since they are stuck. No idea why.

I did some digging into why climbing occasionally doesn't work, and I think I found the cause. Change player_controls_ud so its contents look like this:

/// @description player_controls_ud()
//Crouch
if(onground){
    if(k_d){
        crouching = true
    }
    else{
        crouching = false
    }
} //Climb
if(k_u){
    if(place_meeting(x,y,parent_climbable)){
        state = playerstate_climb
        yspeed = 0
    }
}

The cause is that vertical speed isn't reset to zero when you start climbing (which is a bug), so jumpthrough platforms will act solid if you were falling down when you grabbed the ladder, which is why you get stuck.


I don't have any ideas for what causes the jumpthrough-platform bug, though. Are you using different sprites / collision masks than the demo version? player_free has the collision mask for the player-character more or less hardcoded, so you need to keep it updated to match. Coordinates in the function are rounded, so I don't think it's different subpixel precision causing it.

My recommendation would be to run the game in debug mode, and when the player gets stuck, pause the game and investigate local variables.

I'm also thinking the failsafe in player_inertia_x might be a potential cause, try putting a breakpoint inside that and see if it gets triggered.

Another potential cause is how player_step_start rounds player coordinates when checking if you're on the ground or not, while player_free also rounds coordinates - maybe rounding twice leads to some cases of these coordinates being inconsistent with the ones used for other collision checking. Try removing the rounds() in player_step_start so the variable is set like this instead:

onground = !player_free(round(x),round(y) + 1)

One final potential cause is that the player is stuck in an infinite loop of stopping and being moved back, but new input builds up speed. Try switching the two "inertia" and the two "control" in playerstate_normal like this and see if it stops it:

player_inertia_x()
player_inertia_y() player_controls_x()
player_controls_y()
(+1)

Thank you very much for your reply. The ladder fix worked great. After lots of testing the Jump thru platform seems good now too. For the Jump thru platform it was putting inertia before the controls that did it. The variable jump when done small at a specific amount would make the player stuck a little in the bottom of it. And switching these two seems to prevent that. I appreciate your reply and time more than you know. #BestExtensionEVER! 

Sorry to bother you again. The ladder thing is good. But now for the jumping when I am on a Jump Thru platform I can jump low and high, but on other ground it only jumps high. There is no variable jump and I can't figure out why. So the fix is kinda not good as I really want the variable jump. If you have any time or ideas I would appreciate it. There is no other issues and I am using the same sprite sizes and everything. I changed the art, but same sizes and origins.

Before I purchase this fantastic engine, I would like to make some basic questions

- Can the demo / games run on Android

- Is possible to switch the charater sprite

- Have weapon system / slots and how it works

I would pay you for such features, add  me to further discussion


Thanks

It's a GameMaker:Studio source file, so you can change ALL the sprites. (Note that you need GMS1.4 or GMS2 to be able to use the source files)

If you have the Android port you should be able to run it on Android devices (I haven't tested this, but the engine mostly uses  very basic functionality - the thing I'm the most worried about is the darkness effect in the underground levels, mobile devices usually have very low VRAM so surface effects like that don't always work properly).

There's no built-in functionality for weapon slots, a quick way you could implement this would be to have more "powerup states" that fires different projectiles (the example ones has hammers and fireballs) and add two new buttons that changes your powerup between all the weapons you have unlocked, and then change the health system to use a healthbar instead of the Mario powerup system.

(+1)

Thanks for the fast and good reply


1 more customer

Do you give lessons/take commissions?

Not really, I'm kinda busy and my schedule for doing indie programming stuff is very erratic. And I'm not a particularly good teacher either, for that matter :P I'd recommend just going to the GameMaker Community forum, there's plenty of tutorials and the programming questions board is still very active. (You can find me there as well, even if I'm not exactly active every day)

I'm new to GameMaker. What forums/boards would you recommend ?

The regular Game Maker Community basically has everything you need: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php

(It's sort of official - it's not run by Yoyo directly but several of the staff members visit regularly and it's commonly accepted as the main place to exchange information)

There's also a game maker discord, I don't have the link to it but it's probably not super hard to find? (Left it years ago after some drama)

Do you have any plans to do a full conversion to GMS2, rather than just the autoport?

Not really. I'm not using GMS2 a lot and I don't really see the point in having two separate codebases to support and doing all development/bugfixing twice.

Hello, I just purchased this and tried to run it on GMS2 and am getting an error "index was outside the bounds of the array." Please help!

I'll check it out and see if I can narrow it down. Did you use the GMS2 source file or import the GMS1 source? I've seen a similar case for another project where import changes made the GMS2 source break but importing the GMS1 source solved the problem.

(1 edit)

I used the GMS2 source file, will try GMS1. (edit) Just tried this but I'm using a Mac and can only open GMS2 source file :/

Aw :/

Could you post the entire error message? Maybe there's some other clues in it (like WHICH array is out of bounds)

Also, did you try updating the player_score script? When investigating I found an error where it uses the wrong variables in two places, it worked in previous versions. You could try updating that and see if it solves the problem (it's a really small change)

Instead of this:

effect_spawn_textpopup(x,y,        ....

It should be this:

effect_spawn_textpopup(argument0,argument1,   ...

The error message only says "Index was outside the bounds of the array." I checked the player_score script and it was already like this:

effect_spawn_textpopup(argument0,argument1,   ...

I did some more investigations and found a thing in the GMS2 release notes: (this post). Seems to be broken in runtime 2.1.4.218, worked in runtime 2.1.5.246, and it works for me in runtime 2.2.0.258... what's your GMS2 runtime version?

From what I gather there's an issue where valid GML becomes invalid C++/JavaScript code sometimes when a single GML statement becomes multiple instructions when parsed, which sounds like a nightmare to track down :/

(Since 2.0.3.56 there's also an option to carry on and collect all errors that's possible before ending a compilation, it might be helpful in finding the resource that causes this to happen... perhaps?)

The issue mentioned in the GMC topic refers to an issue with for loops whose first statement isn't a variable assignment causing this error, I went through all for loops in the engine and none of them has it... only suspect thing is compatibility script __global_object_depths() having a "var i = 0" assignment, not sure if that would be a candidate with vars behaving different from ordinary variables? (The solution if this is the case would be moving the "var i" part outside the loop and then do a normal "i = 0" inside the for loop).

Geez, GMS2 still kinda feels like it's in beta sometimes :/

Tried importing the GMS2 version in GMS2.2.0.343 and it had one error, there's a mistake in player_score (Scripts-->Gameplay-->Player-->Score Lives Etc) where it uses the calling instance's x/y instead of argument0/argument1. The body of the script should look like this, then it compiled fine for me:

if(argument3 && argument2 > 8000){
    global.playerlives++
    effect_spawn_textpopup(argument0,argument1,"1UP",c_lime,c_teal,font_retro)
}
else{
    global.playerscore += argument2
    effect_spawn_textpopup(argument0,argument1,string(argument2),c_white,c_black,font_narrow)
}
(Alternatively you could use argument[2] instead of argument2 and so on for the other arguments, this might be why you get an array index error)


If this doesn't solve the problem for you, could you please copypaste the entire error message? Usually it hints at where the error occurs.

the player_score already looks identical to the one you just sent. the error message only says "GameMaker: Studio AssetCompiler encountered a problem. Index was outside of bounds of the array." Then, at the bottom of the Output log it says:

/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/mono exited with non-zero status (82)

elapsed time 00:01:25.4687960s for command "/Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/mono" /Users/Shared/GameMakerStudio2/Cache/runtimes/runtime-2.2.0.258/bin/Igor.exe -options="/var/folders/w4/215d0gjj3b7f5sql711p01jr0000gn/GameMakerStudio2/GMS2TEMP/build.bff"  -- Mac Run started at 11/03/2018 19:35:20
FAILED: Run Program Complete



p.s. let me know if you'd rather communicate via e-mail or whatever's easier

(1 edit)

"Support for multiple playable characters; just set up data and change the current character variable"

How, please? which object/script contains these? I would like to switch between two players at the start of a level, with the exact same data, just different sprites

Thanks so much in advance and great job creating all these fine assets. Keep up the good work :)


(1 edit)

Scripts-->Initialization-->init_characters, it's a tabbed script with init_character_maria as the only alternate tab at the moment. At the bottom you'll see the lines of code that initializes sprites. To fully add a new character, I guess what you should do is...

  • Make a new constant for the character's ID (must have a different value from char_MARIA)... you could use the existing constants char_LOUISE, char_PRINCE, char_FROG and char_SUNSHINE if you'd like to, of course.
  • Make a copy of init_character_maria (create a new tab and copypaste init_character_maria's code text into it) and use the search-replace feature to replace "char_MARIA" with the new character constant
  • Change the sprite assignments to the new character's sprites (they're at the bottom of the script).
  • Don't forget to call the script from init_characters, just how it calls init_character_maria.
  • To change the active character, just assign the character ID to the variable global.playerchar based on what the player selects - it's always assigned char_MARIA by default since the demo only has 1 character. You can make the menu any way you want~

I think that's all you need to do, hopefully I didn't forget anything :) Just hit me up with more comments if there's any problems~

(+1)

Thanks so much for the swift and indepth reply. Awesome! Will try all of it soon, thanks again!

I got the following error msg in GMS2.  Any resolution for this?

Script: player_score at line 1 : no references to arguments 0,1 but references arguments 2,3

Good catch, I can't believe I've let this slip through. Replace x and y with argument0 and argument1 respectively (in the script) and it should work as intended. I'll get an updated version with this fixed uploaded.

Uploaded a "v1.1" version of both source files with this fix applied. Let me know if there's any more problems.

(+1)

It worked properly after replacing it.  Thanks.  and love your work!

Added a new GMS2 version of the source code - the original version imported and ran just fine in GMS2 for me, but this should save you a bit of work. If you've bought MariaEngine previously, this new version should be downloadable at no additional cost.

It's still a bit experimental since GMS2 got released just a few days ago, so please report any problems with the new version here.

So from what I can tell, this is an addon / editor gui addition to GameMakerStudio?

If you manage to integrate an easy way to add busts for dialogue, it's probable I'll use this for PFC.

http://perseverancefullclearance.blogspot.com.au/

It's a GMS source file, so anything you see in the demo can be tweaked just by editing the code. The dialogue system basically just uses an array for text, shouldn't be too much work to add in another array for mugshots/busts to go with it.

(+1)

Thanks for the info! Once I consider working seriously on PFC again I'll definitely grab this up.

Your ladders need a bit of work. Also standing on a one way block and an enemy jumps up through will damage you. I assume to hop on enemies you need to be in the air rather than just above them. There doesn't seem to be a pause or an exit out of game when you're in full screen (I guess alt + enter worked to get me into full screen, it can work to get me out.) What about controller support?

Hello,

The sprite provided is dark. Do you have a brighter version of that sprite ? Thanks !

Jay,

(+1)

Blazes, this is better stuff than the best of what's on the GM market. o _O Genius work.

Thanks! ^__^

And yeah, the GM Marketplace is kinda clunky at the moment, so I can see why a lot of content creators don't use it... (especially the GM integration that makes just adding something to a project take ages). It's much nicer to just distribute/load a GMZ file IMO.