Version 2022.0.2.51

Downloads: Windows - macOS

Welcome to the second GameMaker LTS update - 2022.0.2

There are another substantial collection of bug-fixes included in this new LTS update and also a few select features which have already been included in the Monthly releases - such as console SDK updates and those features required to support using our extensions, tutorials, Templates, etc. The LTS manual has been updated (and if you use the manual offline, the ability to download this LTS manual), you should also find that IDE performance is better, and in many cases build times will be a bit faster than before as well.

As mentioned already, there are quite a lot of bugs fixed, so please do review all of these notes carefully, as you may need to make changes to your projects, code, or tools setups in accordance with these changes.

Note that this release does not introduce the new-in-2023.8 in-IDE bug reporter which links to the new public-facing GitHub repository for bugs, but you may wish to monitor that site to be aware of bugs we’re already aware of and are not included in the changelists below (as you do not need to re-report these to us). Please continue to always check the current monthly release before submitting any bug reports about issues in the LTS - at which point, if the issue still happens in the monthly, please do use the new tools to report the bug to us.

Also check your SDKs and other external tools are the correct versions before doing any builds, as you can see from the release notes below that several platforms have been updated for this release - you can see our Required SDKs For LTS FAQ and the various platform setup guides that page links to in order to get all of this information at any time.

As always, if a fix/feature you need is not listed in these notes, then please continue using the regular monthly release, as LTS releases deliberately do not contain everything in newer GameMaker versions.

See below for IDE changes/fixes since 2022.0.1 and then check The Runtime Release Notes for some very important changes you need to be aware of.

Release Notes

LTS Manuals

• In the last couple of LTS releases the IDEs always pointed at a fixed copy of the 2022.9 manual website when using the “online” manual Preference and downloaded the currently Monthly release’s manual when using the “offline” manual Preference
• Now, you will find the offline and online manual both point at LTS-specific content (and that content has been updated for this release), so you won’t be told about things only available in newer Monthly releases, etc.
• It’s important that if you’re using the LTS version, then you do ensure you’re looking at the LTS manual and also any LTS-specific versions of our Helpdesk setup guides which you require, as there are now significant differences compared with the Monthly releases

Game Options Additions

• [Android] Permission for LEANBACK_LAUNCHER is now optional, as Google Play no longer allows .apk submissions when this is enabled, and so there is a new Game Option for controlling whether you want this permission added or not
• [Android] Also added a checkbox for setting the “android:allowBackup” application tag on/off
• [GX.games] Previously, once a project had been uploaded to the store you could not change Game Options to have a different ID - you can now do this
• [Switch] Added new checkboxes for whether your game will use NEX or NPLN [see the runtime notes for more info on the new NPLN support]
• [Xbox GDK] Added more “Support 4K on …” options to cover Xbox One X/S and Series X/S devices

”Move And Collide” Styling Changes

• Updated to the newer icon for this node (as used in monthlies for a little while), so now LTS is consistent and tutorials, etc., will be easier to follow
• Also fixed the spacing between the fields in the layout and that the Tab indexes were wrong for some of the fields

Performance Boosts

• Added a new Preference in the Text Editor section for “Disable Right-To-Left Text Ordering” - this functionality has always been supported and was previously enabled for everyone, but was determined (after LTSr1) to be quite performance-heavy and so is now off by default, which means those who want right-to-left text anywhere in the IDE will need to toggle this setting to ON again
• Improved the speed of the Asset Compiler phase of building your projects, so you will find your builds now take a little less time than before (exact results will vary per-project)

Misc Changes To Be Aware Of

• Building Projects: Cocoapods has a new, clean and universal (Silicon/Intel) implementation to better handle any setup issues [see the runtime notes for more]
• Building Projects: Extension code injection now uses the correct content for all configurations in the project, rather than only even using the content from the Default config [if your extensions are giving different results now and you’re using configs, ensure you are using the injection values you expected]
• Project Save: Fixed that when duplicating a room the newly-created room still linked to the old room’s creation code file until whenever you next opened the new room’s code window [note that this will not automatically retroactively fix any projects already in this state]

Other Bugs Fixed

• Building Projects: [Android YYC] NDK tools cannot handle the Temp directory name containing spaces, so added a warning dialog into Preferences for this if you supply a path which has an invalid space
• Building Projects: [HTML5] Clicking the ‘Stop’ button to end a running project no longer displays ‘FAILED: Run Program Complete’ in the Output window
• Building Projects: [HTML5] The output file no longer has to be named “index.html” in Game Options, otherwise the build fails - now it’s back to being customisable again
• Building Projects: [PS4 and PS5] Builds no longer always use the debug runner path, regardless of its Preferences checkbox status
• Building Projects: [Switch] Builds no longer always check the NEX installation path set in Preferences and cause a fail if a valid installation is not found - this check has been removed now because this is a valid setup, as you might only be supporting NLPN
• Image Editor: Keyboard shortcuts no longer stop working after a Ctrl+Z operation [fixes “No valid action matches the id provided” errors in the ui.log that you may have seen in earlier releases if you ever had this issue]
• Included Files: GM no longer freezes when adding 7k files at once into the datafiles folder
• Localisation: [IT] Italian translation for “Clean” button now correct
• Search and Replace: “Replace All” no longer ignores the “Ignore Comments” option
• Preferences: [Xbox GDK] Visual Studio location in Platform Settings file-picker needs to allow “VSDevCmd.bat” as a filter also
• UI/UX: Game Options button for “Xbox GDK Service Manifest for Event-Based Stats” no longer gives a broken error message or opens the wrong Preferences section when it asks you to fix your settings
• For those of you who have already been using the new features mentioned higher up this page in the Monthly releases, then be aware that in most cases any subsequent bug fixes for those features which have been documented in later release notes have been added to this release also, but are not listed above as they did not apply to LTS 2022.0.1