Game Maker Studio 2 Has the Worst Interface and User Experience

Preferences don’t even begin to fix it.

I’ve been a Game Maker veteran since 2004 starting with Game Maker 6. No version of Game Maker has given me grief except for Game Maker Studio 2. Game Maker Studio 1.4 was the last good Game Maker.

Here are some of my frustrations with the thing. It will be ranty and rambly.

Game Maker Studio 2 UI Is Very Inconsistent

Clicking something, especially in the Asset browser, can result in different things entirely. I create and click on an Object the first time. It gives me a window with object information. Good enough.

I put some code in the events by clicking on the Events in the Object window. New windows go up so I can type the GML code.

Still good so far.

I exit out the Object window.

Then after awhile, or immediately, if I exited out accidentally, I will need it again.

To get the Object back, I click on the Object on the Asset browser.

Guess what comes up?

If you said, the “Object window”… WRONG!

What comes up are the Events coding windows where I put the code.

…

Why? Why did the Object window not come up like the first time?

It took me a long time just to get to the Object window. I had to right click on the Object, then click on “Edit”.

This interface makes me break my flow. I don’t get into the flow with GMS2. It takes me out of immersion when something doesn’t work.

Many game engines also have bad UI design. Unity UI is bad. But at least their UI is consistent. At least as far as I have played with it.

This gets really bad when I don’t open GMS2 for a long time. I get lost and have to learn the UI all over again.

This doesn’t happen with other Game Maker versions. I intuitively know where stuff is even after not opening the program for a long time. And a good part of that is because of the next section:

Game Maker Studio 2 UI Hides Things That Should Be Accessible

A lot of stuff are hidden in the UI that should be easily accessible. This is evident in the Sprite Editor. I’m looking for things that change the Sprite. But somehow, the stuff like Image, View, Effect, are on top of the main window and not the Sprite window??? What??

There a lot of stuff are missing that previous Game Makers had. Or if they aren’t missing, I have to dig down different menus that aren’t grouped with any sense whatsoever.

The original Game Makers had everything in the same window that was relevant to that window. In the example of Sprites, all the image manipulation and all the sprite manipulation was in the Sprite Editor window!

Game Maker Studio 2 UI Seems Coder Focused Before Designer Focused or Even Game Making Focused

It is clear there are absolutely no UI/UX designers on the Yoyogames team. If there are, please fire them. Clearly the team is filled with programmers and coders first before they are designers.

Guess what, GameMaker is supposed to be for making games first. Not some fancy code stuff like more OOP through structs and constructors. Who asked for that? It’s useful in a vacuum, but not in the context of the product experience. Objects, while data heavy, already does that. Even tiles could do similar stuff.

Hey, Yoyogames, stop adding coding features and actually fix the product experience. What is it with your obsession with adding coded features we already have solutions for?

Counters

“All you have to do is to get used to it. You’re just used to the previous GameMaker software.”

Saying one should get used to interface is blaming the customer. If you want to lose them, do so. And it doesn’t fix anything, it’s still bad whether or not you’re used to it.

“Just edit the Preferences.”

The Preferences don’t fix everything. This rant was done after editing the Preferences.

“Yoyogames will fix this in the future.”

I get that Yoyogames has a roadmap and one of the items in it is workflow. Well, the thing is, user experience is everything. And I highly doubt they will fix this in a major or significant way. UI and UX need to be foundational very early, or things get entrenched since people get used to the interface.

Conclusion

I refuse to pay for any of your high-end packages until this is rectified, Yoyogames. I don’t cuss, but this bloatware makes me toe the line. I feel like they just did all this to make itself different from previous Game Makers just cause. Don’t break something that doesn’t need fixing. Stop trying to copy Unity or whatever your junk fantasy is. You have no more product differentiating competitive advantage. Your advantage was accessible and fast game creation.