Game Maker 8.1

I was eagerly awaiting GM's latest update... and it falls short. I don't mind the new pricetag that will be put into effect in a few months, but there's nothing to this new Game Maker that merits the price raise. It's still the same program we had back in 2005, just with a few extra additions and bug fixes. Yoyogames was a great opportunity for Game Maker to grow, and the community has, but the program itself hasn't much aside from being ported to Mac. The update sounded promising but disappoints. The code editor, for example, is still trashy. Its additions don't make up for the fact that Game Maker 8.1 executables start at 4mb, twice what they did in 8. Worse, Game Maker 8.1 can't compile some of my GM8 games. I don't see any reason for GM development to be restricted because of trying to be reverse-compatible but GM8.1 isn't a major upgrade. YYG focuses on putting games on platforms like the PSP, iPhone, iPad, and Android, which is pretty cool, but what about GM itself? How many years have passed by and the last major update was GM6.

I'll probably get used to GM8.1 and maybe even like it, so no worries. I was reading the Glog and it seems YYG has big plans for its next version but this could just be a rumor. I hope it's not a rumor. GM is such an excellent program, all it needs is a rewrite.

Funny, I didn't even know there was a GM update. Thanks for the heads up!
There seems to be few nice new features on the list, but they're pretty insubstantial. I was really irritated with reverse-compatibility issues between GM7 and GM8; I had to rewrite the drawing code for one game because the number and order of the arguments was needlessly changed... so I'm hesitant to upgrade. Maybe when a major release comes along...