Very interesting to see Free Pascal and Lazarus used that way, meaning explicitly for generating fun and not just for databases and the like.

Can you tell us a little bit about the architecture of GameMaker and Runner (if you're permitted to, that is)? It almost sounds as though you're generating code for and compiling each new game, or have I missed something?

I saw a mention about selecting a language for the next version. I hope you (they?) consider staying with Free Pascal and Lazarus.

Thanks.

-Phil

Hum so they did stick with lazarus eh? I read their official post on their website (yoyogames.com) and it was very vague if you weren't a private beta tester. But, I do have the PC version and here's what it seems to me:
1. The runner is a generic precompiled EXE with all functions etc for dealing with any possible aspect of the game. It is NOT slim, and it is NOT smart. Not using 99% of Game Maker's features will not make the size smaller
2. The 'compiler' probably only puts in your resources into a pre-built runner.

So, they're not generating new CORE code for each new game; but the user can code using GML (a weirdo coding language), and that gives some extensive expansion capabilities.

Also, considering that GM was made with Delphi, they probaby did a lot of research and found Lazarus/FPC to be a good combo ;)

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GameMaker is essentially an IDE that allows you to create the logic for your game.
You use it to tell the Runner ( essentially the game engine ) what to do when objects collide,
how they move, when to play sounds etc. The Runner is essentially a self contained executable and takes the
instructions created via the GameMaker IDE and executes them.

There was already work being done to create a C++ version of the Runner, which was already in beta. So they may be referring to that version. What I hope they will see is that by using Lazarus/FreePascal, they now have the ability to target any environments that FPC and Lazarus support with little to no code changes. I'm confident that with a little tweaking the Runner could even execute on Nintendo DS or GameBoy Advanced devices as well because FreePascal already works on them.

Dominique.