GameMaker is by default in English (UK). However, it also supports translating the entire IDE and the manual into a range of other languages, which you can select from at any time:
- Brazilian Portuguese
- French
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
- Polish
- Russian
- Simplified Chinese
- Japanese
- Korean
Additionally, other IDE languages may be download from the community forums.
This guide will show you how to toggle your IDE and manual languages, so you can use whichever is most comfortable for you.
Setting Your Initial Language
GameMaker will ask you to pick the installer language you want to use the first time you run the installer, and then your IDE language will use this also the first time your start GameMaker itself. However, you can always customise your IDE and manual language later on inside GameMaker.
Note that on macOS the installer will default to your system language if that is one we support, and will be English (UK) otherwise.
Changing Your IDE Language
You can find this setting by going to Preferences > General Settings and see the IDE Language value, as shown below:
Select the new language in the dropdown, then click Apply/OK to confirm the change. GameMaker will then immediately apply the change - no restart required.
Changing Your Manual Language
You can find this setting by going to Preferences > General Settings > Help and see the IDE Language value, as shown below:
Select the new language in the dropdown, then click Apply/OK to confirm the change. GameMaker will then immediately apply the change - no restart required.
Note also the checkbox for whether you want to download a copy of the manual (yours will default to being ticked, giving you the online manual). This will always download the manual in the language you selected.
Please note that whilst Beta versions of GameMaker have these same settings and will use your chosen language whenever possible, they will use the English manual in a number of cases (usually for brand-new functions/features in the new Betas), as translations of the manual are usually done later in the month as we prepare for the new release.
Installing Community Translations
You can also add in community-made translations to this menu, and several are available on the GMC forum if you want to explore this further.
This is done by simply adding the *.csv file for the chosen language into GameMaker's custom languages folder path (note that you will likely need to create the "Languages" folder yourself first):
- Windows: C:\ProgramData\GameMakerStudio2\Languages
- macOS: /users/Shared/GameMakerStudio2/Languages
If GameMaker was open at the time you dropped the .csv file into place, you will need to restart GameMaker to see the new language appear in the Preferences dropdown.
Adding any new language .csv file into this custom Languages folder will always install the language for all GameMaker users on that machine, so you don't need to repeat any steps.
Obviously, if you believe the contents of a third-party translation are incorrect, or if you start getting bugs like text being too long for the IDE windows, new features not being translated properly, or anything like that, please contact the author of the skin/translation instead of filing this as a bug ticket, as YoYo Games will not be able to help with these issues.
(We will also not recommend any specific third-party skins or translations, so please don't submit a ticket asking for more info.)
Creating Your Own Translations
For those of you who wish to attempt doing your own translation, you should first ensure you are on the latest version of GameMaker (which may be a Beta!) and then make a copy of its english.csv file and use that copy as a base for the creation of your translation.
Note that the first few lines in this base *.csv file are very important. The first line is a format description for the different columns and should be left alone.
Each of the different column headers are explained below:
- The Name is the label used by the IDE as the look up, so never change this.
- The English column is for the English version of the text as a reference. Again, never change this.
- The Translation column. This is the one you should change to be in the new language.
- The Restrictions column. If there are any limits for the text these will be listed here. i.e. only 6 characters, no numbers, or whatever.
- The Comment column. This is a general description of what the text is used for and is here to simply help you as you are translating.
Beneath the main column headers we have the special _LABEL lines.
- _Language should always be an English version of the language i.e. English, Japanese, Russian etc...
- _LanguageNative allows you to put in the actual Language in its native tongue. So Spanish would have Español here.
Both _Language and _LanguageNative are displayed in the IDE to make it easier to swap to and from other languages, especially if you accidentally pick one you don't understand.
Once you have completed your translation and/or wish to test the file, simply save it to the user languages folder using the name (in English) of the language being used - e.g., Russian would simply be russian.csv, Japanese would be japanese.csv, and so on...