These instructions are for the installation of GameMaker: Studio 1.4 and this installation method is not available for GameMaker Studio 2.
Due to Covid-19, it is no longer possible for our Support Team to provide a download of your purchase, this guide can only be followed if you already have the .zip for GameMaker: Studio 1.4.999. All staff are working remotely with no access to the legacy build machine needed to generate the file.
If you wish to discuss this further, please contact the Helpdesk.
This page will help inform you how to download, install and use the Education version of GameMaker: Studio. The latest Education version is designed to be installable anywhere, and not have separate installations for each student. So by installing to a single location, all students can now use it easily.
Downloading the Education version of GameMaker: Studio
When you buy an education license, you get access to this special version. With each purchase you will receive a unique URL that you can use to download the latest version of GameMaker: Studio, one that has been pre-prepared making it simple to install over a restricted network environment.
If you have already purchased an Education version of GameMaker: Studio, you can request a URL for your purchase via the Helpdesk.
Using this URL you will always get the latest version of GameMaker:Studio 1.X. GameMaker is an evolving platform with new features going in constantly, and as such, changes will be made in both GUI components and programming interfaces (APIs), and these may impact pre-prepared courses. Because of this, you should be aware that we will not provide OLD versions, so you should ALWAYS keep, and archive previous versions you have downloaded in case something changes which your course depends on. Failure to do so may require you to update your course.
Installation of GameMaker: Studio
The education version of GameMaker: Studio is a simple ZIP file, so all that's required is to unzip it into a location that all users have read access to.
If you have previously installed, or tried to install GameMaker: Studio before, then you will need to delete some registry keys, namely:
\\HKEY_USERS\..\Software\GMStudio.
This version will setup the registry itself, meaning to correct installation locations (if you wanted to move the folder it's in), all that is needed is to delete the above registry folder and re-run the program.
If the students do not have access to %appdata%\GameMaker-Studio and %localappdata%\GameMaker-Studio you will need to redirect this to a suitable location where they will have write access, otherwise files required for licensing and operating GameMaker: Studio cannot be created or read.
Using GameMaker: Studio
GameMaker still requires a place to write to, so it currently use the windows standard ProgramData (normally found in c:\ProgramData). All users must have read/write access to c:\ProgramData\GameMaker-Studio. Inside here, logs will be stored in a per-user folders. If you ever run into difficulty, then you should delete the contents of this folder, run GameMaker: Studio again, and then zip up the log files and get in touch via the Helpdesk
GameMaker will also use the windows temp folder (via the TEMP environment variable).
Disabling Internet
In order to disable the internet we have made this guide available. This is useful for users who are getting error messages concerning RSS feeds etc and this is due have very strict networks. Listed in this article is how to get the Tutorials/Demos after disabling the internet also.
Special Requirements
If you have any special requirements, then please get in touch via the Helpdesk and we'll see how we can help.
- All other versions of GameMaker: Studio require internet access, and being installed PER-USER.
- Due to the varying nature of education infrastructure, we can not provide extensive support, but we will help where we can via the Helpdesk.
- While we do not currently provide 24 hour support, please let us know if this is a service you would be interested in.
- For general help in using Gamemaker, please use the GameMaker Community Forums.