Three great GameMaker games for Raspberry Pi
As I began to type today’s blog post, I received an email from Eben beginning, “Wow – awesome stuff.” I set aside the project I’d been looking at (it’s neat, and we’ll bring it to you a little later this week), because I thought people would enjoy hearing about this right away. YoYo Games, home of GameMaker: Studio, have announced their Raspberry Pi games page: it features three fantastic, full and FREE games that they hope are a taste of what’s to come.
They Need To Be Fed is a monster-feeding, diamond-collecting, danger-dodging platform game with 360° gravity; Super Crate Box is an arcade romp with lovely retro looks, endless hordes of enemies to zap, tons of weapon crates to collect and a great chiptune soundtrack; and Maldita Castilla is an atmospheric action arcade game full of spooky myths from Spain and the rest of Europe. Huge thanks to authors Jesse Venbrux, Vlambeer and Locomalito for making their amazing games available for us to enjoy!
A few notes: these are built for the full Raspbian Jessie image, so that’s what YoYo recommend using. The games require 256MB GPU RAM, more than the default value of 64MB, so you’ll need to change it: this is easily done by going to Menu > Preferences > Raspberry Pi Configuration and then the Performance tab, and changing the value for GPU Memory. YoYo mentioned that it seems you can’t have the new OpenGL driver enabled with these.
Most importantly, if you want to try these games – and we think you will – make sure you go to YoYo’s Raspberry Pi games page to download them and tell other people to get the games from there too, so YoYo can show their developers just how many Raspberry Pi gamers are out there. They’d love to encourage the GameMaker community to make more great games available for the Pi, so they really want to see players represented in the download count.
What are you waiting for? Download, play, enjoy, and tell everyone you know!
48 comments
forrrge
Its great to see game studios giving their games away free to Raspberry Pi.
Another one that is doing something very similar is Webffot games, check out the link below. They have already converted 15 of their 100+ games
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=133603
MalMan35
Yes, These games are awesome!
I have downloaded most of webfoots games to!
SudoPi
It´s awesome that game developers are making games that are playable from the pi. More developers should do so since it is a very great market!
Garrett
It does seem to be an untapped market. Over 5 million Pi’s sold, yet most devs seem to disregard it as a viable platform. Though this may have been due to the driver situation, which is only now being remedied thanks to Eric Anholt’s work.
It appears the only game engines that readily support the Pi are the Godot Engine (Which is rather good), and Urho3D. Adding GameMaker to that list would be quite a boon for the Pi community.
Ben
How do we export gamemaker projects to the Pi?
Mike
There is currently no user export module – this is what we’re trying to work towards.
vanfanel
Wow, awesome stuff! Maldita Castilla is the best new/old game I have played since Cave Story.
However, it doesn’t seem to work with an USB joystick. It seems to want the Ouya pad. Crazy.
No joystick support on an arcade game? Hmmm…
Mike
The gamepad has to be Linux compatible, and you have to BOOT with the gamepad plugged in. Then it should work fine.
(if you don’t Linux doesn’t seem to see the gamepad at all…)
vanfanel
Hi, Mike!
My gamepad is working with everything except Maldita Castilla. From an API point of view, it works with SDL1.x programs, SDL2.x programs, libretro programs… everything.
It’s device node is present in /dev/input/js0, as expected. No doubt it’s Linux-compatible :)
Also, on GNU/Linux we have udev to manage device hotplugging, so booting the OS with it or without it shouldn’t make a difference.
Mike
I’ll take a look, but when I tried to plugin after boot, the OS just didn’t see it…. so I figured it was Linux itself.
Does it work when you boot with it plugined in?
vanfanel
No, it doesn’t make a difference.
How does your API access joysticks?
Mike
Ah…currently I think we only support XBox controllers on Linux. That would explain things….
Vanfanel
@Mike: I really hope you guys add support for “normal” joysticks. I (and I think I am not alone) wouldn’t touch a M$ product with a 10mts pole :P
And normal joystick support would also allow us to use arcade joysticks, etc.
Mike
I’ll look into in when I get some time.
ereldo coil
Try battle for wesnoth too.works well on the pi.also supports multiplayer.easily one of the best turn based games on linux.
Marek
Hi,so no support for model A? Only 256megs od RAM is here…
Mike
I did manage to run Super Crate Box on the A using a 128/128 split… other 2 need more VRAM.
Bob Irving
I’d love to see it possible to develop GameMaker games on the Pi. Any chance?
Garrett
Probably not for a good while yet. However, the superb Godot Engine seems to be very close to being able to develop on the Pi, for the Pi. As discussed in this forum thread:
http://www.godotengine.org/topics/12221
KTWS
Really enjoyable games, thank you!
Matthew Hague
I can not seem to untar them. Any pointers to where I could be going wrong?
Matthew Hague
I’ve managed that now just to get them to run!!
Rpi
Hello what command to use to start the game MalditaCastilla
Matthew Hague
Hi Rpi, I’ve just got them running. Went the ‘file’ then ‘open’ and ‘execute’. Only way I could see to do it (I’m no expert) though I’m sure there might be a better way. Can you have them placed in the games menu?
Rpi
Hi Matthew Hague I succeeded in placing me in the MalditaCastilla folder in a terminal by running ./MalditaCastilla and AC works Thank you for having responded to me and excuse my English because I ‘m french and I use google translator.
Thank you ;)
karan
How do we disable opengl ?
karan
How do we start they need to be fed?
Mike
You can disable the OpenGL in a terminal window, but typing “sudo raspi-config” and going into the advanced menu. (saying you switched it on in the first place…
You need to plug a mouse it to “click” the menu items. After that, use the cursor keys and space to play the game.
karan
Thank you. But I am not able to open the game . When I click on the game,click on execute,nothing happens.Could you help me?
Mike
You have to make sure you have at least 256Mb of GPU RAM (using the raspi-config program), then double click it.
Aside from that… not sure, depends on how much memory etc. is being used, but that works here.
Vanfanel
@Mike: No normal USB Linux joystick support yet? It’s very easy to use an USB joystick instead on ONLY an Xbox one…
Happy Helper
Open a terminal in the folder the file is in. Then run “chmod 755 filename” where filename is the name of the program. Then run it with ./filename
karan
Thank you.I figured out it won’t work through vnc due to a difference in the gpu.
Martin
I also have trouble getting the games to run (I’m only a 1-day old Pi user). Both SuperCrates and To Be Fed will start up and play music, but then just have a blank black screen. Any ideas please?
Micha
Does – of course – not work for me :D
If have an USB-Pad attached and a bluetooth-keyboard – and none of the 3 games work. In SuperCrateBox or example I am not even able to enter my name…..and bein too tired to try around.
Great to see the start at all – but pls make controls work better!!
Micha
them
btw, how to exit them except strg+alt+del?!
(hm, possibly with esc if keyboard would work correct at all….don’t know….however, interesting that strg+alt+del works, but not entering my name :) )
Be it as it is….
Mike
0) These games require the full JESSE image, without the OpenGL beta enabled. If you haven’t enabled it yourself, it’s not on.
1) Make sure you have 256MB of GPU RAM setup. If you don’t do this, you will not see anything, but the game will be playing.
http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/27468/raspberry-pi-2-1024m-increase-gpu-memory-to-512-at-least
2) These games are mainly keyboard based – except for “They Need to be Fed” which needs a mouse to get past the menu. After this, use the cursor keys and space or Z,X for jump.
3) I think all the games exit using escape – or the in-game menu.
Micha
As already said:
0: Ok here
1: Ok here
But controls does not work! I am not even able to enter my name in Super Crate Box. The only thing working is pressing strg+alt+del. In ‘need to be fed’ mouse works – but no cursor-keys.
There must be a problem with bluetooth in my opinion!
Mike
I’ve certainly not tried a Bluetooth keyboard, I’d try a USB one. We’re not doing anything funny for the keyboard code, it’s all OS level stuff.
Micha
Whats strange for me is that ´strg+alt+del´ works….so the keyboard seems not to be completely unfunctional…but as said, I am not able to enter any letter at Super Crate Box for example.
Micha
Tried out some Webfoot-games minutes ago, which are running fine with my keyboard+mouse- config….
Charles
I’ve tried both a Bluetooth keyboard and a USB one, and gone so far as to disable Bluetooth and use only the USB keyboard, and I’m still experiencing the same problem as Micha. I can’t even use Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a login prompt so as to be able to kill the game process; I had to SSH into the Pi in order to do that.
In They Must Be Fed, mouse input is recognized to navigate the game menu interface, but once a game world is loaded the keyboard still does nothing.
If I run the games from the command line, any keypresses that I make in an attempt to play the games is visible in the terminal window after I’ve killed the game process – it’s as if the game doesn’t have focus.
Is there any way to run the games in windowed mode, as a workaround? That way I could at least try to click within the game window to force focus, or would at worst be able to quit out of a game without needing to use a separate computer and ssh.
Martin
Thanks Mike – increasing the GPU RAM worked.
Winkleink
I have run They Need To Be Fed and Maldita Castellia on a Pi Zero with 256MB for GPU.
Super Crate Box exits before it starts.
I double click and it asks if I would like to execute and then it closes immediately.
Tried 128MB RAM for GPU and made no difference.
I thought if Maldita Castellia worked that the others would have worked without a problem.
Mike
I have had it run on a Pi Zero, but I only run it when booting into a command line – not with full “X” running. So it might be a memory thing due to X running.
(see it here: https://vine.co/v/ibiqEDpFBD7 )
I’ve even had it run on a Pi-A using the same method, and a 128/128 split.
https://vine.co/v/ibiEhuODEqD
Scott Bridges
I have used GameMaker for the last several years as a tool to teach programming. The students always enjoy the unit and are proud of their final projects. It would be great to see a free Export to RPi module for use in the classroom (and at home!).
Gonzalo Martin
Hi Mike, do you have any update regarding the gamepad/joystick support in these games? Any workaround will be also welcomed.
George Ramos
Yea, would be great if we get the gamepad support in these games.