Table of contents
- Overview
- System Requirements
- Downloading the Software
- Advice for BYOD Schools
- Logging out users at the end of the session
- Troubleshooting
Overview
Once an Education Licence management account has been given, we would suggest that you or your IT technician read the following technical information, to ensure that GameMaker will work within your specific network setup.
This article does contain technical information and should mainly be used if an issue is encountered.
Prior to any purchasing we would suggest that you use your teachers licence on a seat to follow this article and ensure that the software functions correctly within your network setup.
System Requirements
Information on the hardware requirements for GameMaker does not differ between Education licensing and non-Education licensing.
The System Requirements page contains the below information:
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
All GameMaker installs require at least 3GB free disk space and an internet connection at least once a month (we would recommend always-on broadband). GameMaker also requires a 64-bit OS to install and run.
Minimum Spec
- Windows 7 with SP1* or macOS Mojave
- Dual Core CPU
- 2GB RAM
- OpenGL 4-compliant onboard graphics
- HDD
Recommended Spec
- Windows 10 or macOS Catalina
- Quad Core CPU
- 8GB RAM
- Dedicated graphics card
- SSD
For detailed information on the tools you will require to build your projects, please see our Required SDKs FAQ (where you will also find links to our platform setup guides).
* Please note that making games for some platforms will require newer than this.
Downloading the software
There are download buttons available for the Windows IDE and MacOS IDE on our Education page as well as the Download page (if you are logged into your Education account).
Your Teacher licence permits you to install GameMaker, giving you the ability to fully test and evaluate the product and compile for the desktop targets: Windows, MacOS and Ubuntu (Linux). When you install GameMaker, you will be prompted for log in details, and you should give the login details for the Seat that you will need to create as a teacher (see our Creating and Managing Seats Help Article for more information).
For information on the installation of the software for Windows & Mac and setup guides for all export targets, please read our Help Article Setting up for Education Use.
Please note: we do not have any install method other than manually installing the software onto each machine.
We recommend simply downloading the installer on one machine from the Education page or Downloads page and copying the installer to a shared directory that each machine has access to. You will then need to use that installer to install GameMaker onto each machine that will be using the software.
Advice for BYOD Schools
The educational use of GameMaker is designed for use in a traditional classroom environment. The option to use the software in a BYOD model is at the school's discretion however is not something the educational use of GameMaker was designed for. While the students, in theory, would be able to continue working at home they would only be able to do so as long as another class was not happening at the same time.
In the traditional classroom environment you only need to purchase the amount of licences for the number of concurrent users of the software. If you have 40 machines that would be using the software at the same time you will need to purchase 40 licences. However, if you have two separate classes of 20 students, with the classes happening at different times, you would only need to purchase 20 licences.
In a BYOD model, if each student has their own laptop you will need to purchase licences for each student. The Education account holder then creates seat IDs to assign these licences to. The students then log in to GameMaker with these seats to access the software.
Logging out users at the end of the session
If a single seat's login information will be used across multiple machines, each time the software is closed, the user would need to log out of the software so that the seat/licence can be used on another machine.
As this can be forgotten by users, we would suggest reading our Help Article Automatically Log Users Out Each Time GameMaker Is Closed as it contains information on how to automate this process on machines so that users will not need to be relied upon to remember.
If this preference is used, students will need to log into the software each session, this will avoid encountering errors with the maximum logins being exceeded.
Troubleshooting
If during the setup process, it becomes apparent that GameMaker is encountering issues in installing or running, we would suggest that you read and follow our Help Articles GameMaker Required SDKs and User Permissions and Internet Access Required by GameMaker as this may provide you with information on changes you need to make or exceptions that need to add within your network to allow the software to work as intended.
If you encounter any issues during the setup process that are not answered in this set of articles, please send our Support Team a message through our Contact Us Page.