GameMaker Required SDKs

YoYo QA Dept
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This article details the required versions of the various tools and SDKs that GameMaker requires. 

We do not recommend using third-party tools ahead of what is listed below - GameMaker won't know how to support them properly and you may give yourself build errors or even IDE instability.

Be aware also that for everything below we only offer support for physical machines running a single OS natively - we do not support any variant of virtual machines, including Parallels or Bootcamp on a Mac, "Hackintosh" PCs, or Windows emulators on a Linux distro, etc.

 

This FAQ assumes IDE v2022.6.1.26 using Runtimes v2022.6.1.40. If you're not on this version, we'd strongly recommend you update first and then follow this guide.

We will only offer Helpdesk support if your issue is in this version or a newer beta release - for all older releases, you will almost always be asked to update and confirm your issue still exists before we will investigate your ticket. 

 

 

Using the Windows IDE

  • See general system specifications in the popup on the GameMaker info page.
  • For help with any file/folder permissions, network issues, or antivirus clients interfering with your usage of GameMaker , please see this FAQ on the files/URLs GameMaker needs to be able to access.
  • Visual Studio is required when building Windows YYC, Windows x64, and anything to do with UWP or consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • Note VS2015/VS2017/VS2019 requires at least Win 7 with SP1 - it won't install on Windows 7 without at least SP1 (and nothing older than Windows 7 is supported at all).
  • If you are using Spine images in your game, then GameMaker 2.3.7 and above requires your files to be exported with Spine runtime 4.0 specifically. Older versions of GameMaker require specifically 3.7. No other versions are officially supported (your images may work fine, but we cannot guarantee this).
  • A separate physical Mac is still required for creating games for macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and tvOS - see the target's own section below for specifics. When targeting the Mac, we would highly recommend both machines are connected to your network using Ethernet, rather than WiFi, as this can result in issues when building large projects for YYC.

Apple released a change with Catalina 10.15.4 which means 2.2.5 and older cannot connect to a Mac, so if you need to stay on 2.2.5 you must use the Mac IDE to do builds for Apple platforms. (We would of course suggest you simply update to the current GameMaker release instead.)

 

Steamworks Support

  • If you are using a current GameMaker release along with our Steamworks Marketplace asset, then your Steamworks integration comes entirely from the asset plus your SDK install. Currently, Steamworks SDK 1.53a is required by the extension if you're doing Steam builds. If newer versions are supported/required, then in the first instance please check the asset's store page for updates.
  • If you are using a GameMaker version before 2022.2.0, then your Steamworks integration is built-in. Steamworks SDK 1.42 is required if you're doing Steam builds. No newer versions are officially supported (your builds and submissions will usually work fine, although we cannot guarantee this, but newer functionality in the SDK will definitely not be present in GameMaker).

 

Using the Mac IDE

Please don't use macOS/iOS/tvOS/Xcode developer and beta builds as soon as they are released, as Apple's beta builds are often subject to large changes and an issue in one version may not be present in the next update - be aware we will only look at Apple's "GM Candidates" and fix issues present in their release builds.

  • See general system specifications in the popup on the GameMaker info page. (However, also note the requirements for Xcode further down this list, as using old versions of macOS may work perfectly well with GameMaker itself for quite a while, but you would be blocked by Apple from submitting games to the App Store much sooner.)
  • As of v2.3.7, GameMaker has native support for running on M1 architecture Macs - if you did previously enable "Open using Rosetta" inside "Get Info" for the GameMaker executable, please uncheck this OS setting now, as it will cause unwanted results.
  • Note that Rosetta support is currently still required for Mono to work, so please do allow this if asked, otherwise GameMaker will be very limited and unable to build your projects.
  • For help with any file/folder permissions, network issues, or antivirus clients interfering with your usage of GameMaker, please see this FAQ on the files/URLs GameMaker needs to be able to access.
  • Whenever possible, we would recommend you leave case-sensitivity off when setting up your macOS machine (which is the default when installing macOS), as whilst we removed this requirement from GameMaker itself as of v2.3.0, we cannot control what the external build tools SDKs require, so you may find some platforms will still fail to build projects.
  • Mono 6 is required to be installed on your Mac, otherwise you won't be able to build any projects - if for any reason this fails to be installed automatically by GameMaker you can download the installer from https://download.mono-project.com/a...-MDK-6.10.0.104.macos10.xamarin.universal.pkg
  • Xcode is required to be installed separately before you can build any "Apple platform"  packages - see the macOS and iOS/iPadOS/tvOS sections below for specifics.
  • In general, we would always recommend using the latest non-Beta Xcode release, as this is the version Apple want you to be using. If this is not supported on your Mac, then we will try to support you as long as we can, but Apple will eventually stop your machine from being able to build apps and there is nothing we can do about this.
  • An Apple Developer account is required before you can use Xcode, and you will need Xcode to build and codesign the application as per Apple's platform requirements - and this developer account will need to be the paid version if you want to give your app to anyone else (only dev testing on your own machine is free these days). If you are a school/business, you only need one Apple account - you don't need one per student/staff member!
  • If you are using Spine images in your game, then GameMaker 2.3.7 and above requires your files to be exported with Spine runtime 4.0 specifically. Older versions of GameMaker require specifically 3.7. No other versions are officially supported (your images may work fine, but we cannot guarantee this).
  • Steamworks SDK requirements when building games for publishing on Steam are as per Windows IDE a little further up this page.
  • A separate physical Windows PC is still required for creating games for Windows, UWP, and any consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics.

 

Using the Ubuntu IDE beta

Note that this IDE is not suitable for a production environment at this time. Please continue to use a Windows/Mac as your main development machine and give feedback on the Ubuntu IDE if you wish to try it.

  • This early beta IDE is specifically for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS versions and no other distro is offered any support - it may work if you can install the .deb, but we will not answer tickets about other distros or customised kernels, etc., as we are only interested in Ubuntu feedback.
  • You must have Mono 6 installed first (it does come with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, so you should have it already). Beyond that, GameMaker will try to install any required components during the installer process, so ensure you are connected to the internet first.
  • Steamworks SDK requirements when building games for publishing on Steam are as per Windows IDE a little further up this page.
  • A separate physical Windows PC is still required for creating games for Windows, UWP, and any consoles - see the target's own section below for specifics.
  • A separate physical Mac is still required for creating games for macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and tvOS - see the target's own section below for specifics. When targeting the Mac, we would highly recommend both machines are connected to your network using Ethernet, rather than WiFi, as this can result in issues when building large projects for YYC.

 

GameMaker's Supported Export Platforms

 

Windows  (setup guide)

  • For building VM packages you don't need anything extra to be installed, as GameMaker includes everything required.
  • For building YYC packages you will need Visual Studio installed on your PC also (Community Editions are fine) and configured as per the relevant section in the setup guide above.
  • Note that VS2019 is not supported in anything older than GameMaker 2.3.1 and so for older GameMaker versions you will need VS2017

For simply playing GameMaker games: XP is not supported at all. Vista and Windows 7 players will need to ensure they have DirectX 11 installed, otherwise the game will not run.

Certain functionality in the game, like secure websockets support in networking or various elements of security when doing HTTP requests, will prevent the use of Win 7 and Vista (or might at best require your players to install the final Win 7 Service Pack) and we are unable to do anything about this. Similarly, using any third-party extensions may have the ability to restrict this also, so please speak to the asset/extension author if you have any issues with older versions of Windows and your game.

Prior to GMS 2.3.1 all games are 32bit-only, but GameMaker 2.3.1 and newer allows the individual developer to pick 32bit/64bit.

 

macOS  (setup guide)

For simply playing GameMaker games: OS X 10.9 or later is required for AppStore games and OS X 10.7 or later is required for non-AppStore games. All games are 64bit-only.

 

Ubuntu  (setup guide)

  • Betas from 2022.300 / Stable from 2022.3.0 now require the Steam Runtime, linuxdeploy and AppImage tools to be installed as well. See the above linked setup guide for more details.
  • GameMaker 2.3.0 or above: supports Ubuntu 20.04 LTS 64bit and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64bit. Ubuntu 22 is not supported.
  • In GameMaker 2.3.1+, you also have the option of building ARMv7 packages by simply targeting an ARMv7 device when you do your build.
  • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 64bit is the last version supported by 2.2.5 or older, so please update your GameMaker.

For simply playing GameMaker games: Ubuntu 16 or later is required. Other distros can usually run the games GameMaker generates with no issues, but we only state support for Ubuntu, so if you have issues playing games on these other platforms you will need to investigate this yourself. All games are 64bit-only.

ARMv7 architecture support is available for games built with GameMaker 2.3.1 or newer if the developer built the package using an ARMv7 device.

 

OperaGX  (setup guide)

There are no additional tools required to build OperaGX VM projects (there are for YYC development), but be aware you must have the browser installed in order to test your games otherwise you will be shown a website asking you to install Opera GX.

You should always use the latest stable version of Opera GX.

Your games will only work in OperaGX, but you have the ability to publish them to our GX Community (for free) so that anyone else can play them.

Note that this is a high-performance target much closer in functionality to Windows/Mac/etc., than it is to the HTML5 target.

 

HTML5

There are no additional tools required to build HTML5 projects, and the module supports a wide range of current browsers: all Chromium-based browsers (such as Opera/OperaGX, Chrome, Edge, and Vivaldi), plus Safari and Firefox. Mobile variants of all of these are supported also.

Please note that old IE 11 is not fully supported because it does not support WebGL, and some older mobile device browsers may have the same issue. However, you can usually run games in these browsers if WebGL is disabled in Game Options within your project.

 

Android (and the old Amazon Fire target)  (setup guide)

We do not recommend immediately updating your Android Studio or Java setup whenever updates are offered, as Google like to move files around in SDKs - always check here first!

  • Please use Android Studio Chipmunk (2021.2.1 Patch 1) when using GameMaker 2022.5 or newer
  • Inside Android Studio, install "Platform" 33.0.0 and NDK "side-by-side" 24.0.8215888 and then these two are the values to use inside Game Options in GameMaker when building your projects
  • Please be aware that this target no longer supports 32bit x86 devices (either very old phones or some emulators) from August 22 releases onwards - please always use a 64bit device when testing
  • Build Tools version is blank for API 30+ because Google have changed this so you specify the Compile SDK value and the Android SDK works out the correct build tools you need. If you're compiling with API 30+, then any version you type here will be ignored by Google's tools.
  • Minimum SDK version is 16 for API 28+ and anything built for Android YYC. (Be aware Google Play requires you to use API 30 or above when submitting!)
  • Please note some third-party extensions may require you to raise the minimum SDK version to their requirements, as will enabling "Run Lint code analysis". If your project fails to build, review your whole compiler log for the exact versions you require.
  • Only GameMaker 2.3.7+ support Android Studio versions newer than 4.2.
  • GameMaker 2.3.3-2.3.6 supports Android Studio 4.2 specifically.
  • If you are using 2.3.2 or older you need to stick with Android Studio 4.1, otherwise you will have errors running keystore commands.
  • You can always download older versions of Android Studio from Google here.

For simply playing GameMaker games: GameMaker itself supports a wide range of Android OS versions, but Google Play does not (and Amazon requires fairly recent APIs also). You may find that you can build and test using old devices and old API versions, but you would not be able to publish these on some stores, and there is nothing we can do about this.

64/32bit device support depends on what the game developer chose when they built the version you're trying to play - however all recent versions of GameMaker only offer 64bit, to comply with Google Play's store requirements.

 

iOS/iPadOS/tvOS  (iOS/iPadOS setup guide) (tvOS setup guide)

Our docs and the GameMaker IDE do not refer to iPadOS as there currently is no fundamental change compared to regular iOS and GameMaker iOS packages work perfectly fine on iPadOS. We will obviously monitor this going forward and react if Apple make a breaking change, but for now just bear in mind if you have "iOS" you have "iPadOS" also.

  • iOS/tvOS 14+ requires Xcode 12.0 or newer to build all projects, which is supported in GameMaker 2.3.1 or newer (you can "patch" a 2.3.0 runtime by following this guide but any older version of GameMaker needs to be updated now).
  • You will also need macOS Catalina or Big Sur in order to install Xcode 12.
  • Please note that whilst Xcode 11 will still build projects for iOS 13 and all the way down to targeting iOS 9 or older, Apple doesn't support anything older than iOS 10 and super-old devices often can't access the AppStore so there's no real commercial need to do work to support them, and in order to submit to the AppStore you need to support all the newer iOS versions... So please don't test using only old devices!

For simply playing GameMaker games: iOS 10.0 or above, tvOS 12.0 or above, iPadOS 13.0 or above. All games are 64bit-only.

 

UWP  (UWP on PC setup guide) (UWP on Xbox One setup guide)

Please be aware this target has been removed from August 22 releases onwards - please use the GDK extension in combination with a regular Windows build instead.

Whilst GameMaker's Indie Subscription and above include support for Windows 10 Mobile packages, Microsoft themselves don't support this platform as of December 2019 and there is no way to publish your games. Accordingly, we do not offer support for using Win 10 Mobile phones beyond what is written in our setup guide and we cannot say how long Visual Studio will continue allowing you to test on local devices.

  • 2.3.4 and newer require Visual Studio 2019 (Community Editions are fine to use).
  • 2.3.3 and older requires either Visual Studio 2015 or Visual Studio 2017 (Community Editions are fine to use). Additionally, in these old versions, Windows 10 SDK 10.0.14393.0 is the SDK we require rather than the latest version, but note that newer versions may additionally be required by some functionality/extensions in your project.

For simply playing GameMaker games: Windows 10 or the current Xbox One firmware is required. All games are 64bit-only.

 

 

Consoles

Please note you will only have access to the following links if you have been approved for the specific platform. If you wish to unlock access to a console (and can prove you're a licensed console developer!), please follow our Help Article that will explain the Application Process for Console Access.

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