YoYo Games Hires a CTO and previews a new version of Game Maker.
Firstly for those of you who don’t already know it, CTO stands for Chief Technical Officer. In other words we’ve just hired the guy who will have overall responsibility for ALL future Game Maker development amongst other things !
Our new CTO is Russell Kay. Russell has been involved in the development of some of the world’s best known Video Games titles, beginning in the mid 1980’s with “Lemmings” which is still recognised as one of the world’s most successful games. Russell was the Founder and CEO of Visual Science Ltd. The company was best known for producing the Formula 1 racing titles for Electronic Arts, but also produced the first Grand Theft Auto game, as well as titles in the Medal of Honour series. Most recently Russell has been working as a Senior Software Architect on, as yet unannounced projects for Real Time Worlds.
For those of you who want to see the full press release, you can find it here. Russell Kay press release March 10 2010
Russell is only the first of several key people who will be joining in the next weeks and months. Expect more announcements very soon. Also, don’t worry about Mark Overmars, he won’t be disappearing. Mark is too busy with his University commitments to take up a full time role at YoYo Games, but he has recently strengthened his links with us and he has been fully involved in the process of recruiting Russell at every stage. Mark has already been working closely with Russell and he will continue to have a great influence on Game Maker and our community.
Russell and some other folks have already been working on the first steps of making Game Maker even more amazing and last night we posted this video on YouTube. This is an uncut and honest video showing a well known Game Maker game running completely unchanged on a version of the Game Maker runner that we have been porting to the PSP since last year. There is still a bit of work to be done, but I hope you’ll agree that the results are worth watching. We’re working hard implementing some key features and working on performance issues as well as bugs.
Enjoy the Video, but we really can’t answer any questions at the moment. We have a busy few weeks and months ahead of us and we’ll be making several important announcements here in the coming weeks…so bear with us…we’re excited about what’s happening too !!
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March 10th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
I have just one thing to say.
AWESOME!!!
March 10th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
[...] Games have revealed the identity of their new Chief Technology Officer as former DMA employee and programmer of the [...]
March 10th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
A big name. Shows the ambition that YoYo Games must have. I am excited.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Great news guys! With each new talented person on-board, I’m looking forward to the future of Game Maker even more!
On a side note, I guess I might have to consider finally picking up a PSP soon…
March 10th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Sounds good. New version? Could that be version 9 or maybe 8.1? Good luck Russell!
March 10th, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Russell’s Lemmings experience should prepare him well for the GM community.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
From what I know about Russel, he should be a nice addition to the team.
I remember hearing that Lemmings and GTA 1 were by the same fellows. They’re good titles to have under your name anyway.
Welcome Russel. Maybe you’ll bring some professionalism to this company?
March 10th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Very cool! Russel should be a great addition to the already fabulous team.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Super news and I’m very excited!
March 10th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
I Loved Lemmings! and hes the CTO? Awesome! and that video – EVEN MORE AWESOME. I know you can’t answer any questions about it, but I hope it all goes well and the problems get fixed. I would love to be able to show people my games without lugging around a 17 inch laptop or the 10 inch mini (that plays nearly everything at half speed) and it give me another reason to carry that old PSP I bought for like $20
March 11th, 2010 at 12:06 am
Another person who loved Lemmings here, so this is a very pleasant surprise and very exciting times for YoYo. WIth a Mac version of GM around the corner and the looming ability to port games to handhelds (I don’t think it is to ambitious to assume at this point that the DS or iPhone will be their next target) nothing is going to slow down YoYo’s momentum now.
March 11th, 2010 at 12:14 am
So, if you have an approximately 1:1 performance parity between a 3-ghz modern computer and a 333 mhz PSP… any chance of seeing that optimization come our way? Or will this only work for a subset of Game Maker projects?
March 11th, 2010 at 12:59 am
How to create PSP games.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:20 am
Very nice! Congratulations YoYo for two separate yet equally amazing advancements. One, convincing a man with an amazing background to join this project as CTO, he doesn’t know what he has gotten himself into. Ha, I only kid. On a serious note, this should be great for the whole system. Two, for the developments on the PSP! This is coming along quite nicely and we are extremely interested to see what comes out of it here at Ovindu. Keep up the great work!
-Taylor Marlow
Ovindu Design Studio
http://www.ovindu.com
March 11th, 2010 at 2:48 am
Nice to hear about the new team member. I welcome you wholeheartedly Russell Kay! =)
March 11th, 2010 at 3:58 am
Great. Looks like yoyogames is now starting to really pick up.
March 11th, 2010 at 4:09 am
Good news. Welcome, Russel.
I was a Lemmings fanboy *and* a GTA fanboy back in the day.
Sandy, On an unrelated note, why is there not much promotion on the current yoyo games competition? It’s quite disappointing. I’ve drawn back on making an entry because of this.
March 11th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Wow, I could never, in my whole life expect that you would get a Game Maker game to work on PSP.
Good job! =)
I’m really impressed.
I have some few questions, but I’ll keep them to later because you said you couldn’t answer any yet.
/HighQuality
March 11th, 2010 at 7:51 am
OH….MY…..GOD…..
That’s great! Welcome aboard, that psp feature is impressive, Great work with that!
March 11th, 2010 at 8:40 am
I can see a really hard work behind all this. I can’t wait for the real PSP Gamemaker. I have so many ideas on my mind that needs to go portable
I’m waiting for more updates.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
That… is just AWESOME.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
All I can say is LEMMINGS! Russel is okay in my books
March 11th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Incredible that you got it to work on the PSP, never would have imagined that. Unfortanetly i am a Ds gamer, so this dosent benefit me all that much.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Sounds great! Just please don’t forget about the more serious/skilled developers with all the future changes to Game Maker. GM has always been a tool that eases beginners into game development, while still managing to offer a great development environment for the more experienced as well. Please don’t forget about the latter of those two with all these big changes.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
[...] here is the post that started it all. Share this [...]
March 12th, 2010 at 2:01 am
What about mouse sensitivity? As in, will you be able to change the settings of the mouse sensitivity? Also, can it play 3D game maker games yet?
March 12th, 2010 at 2:23 am
I’m interested in how the development licensing all works out, but I guess questions have to wait for now. (do you like how I asked a question without asking it? Yes, that was very sneaky of me. Now I’m adding this comment at the end so hopefully it’s humorous rather than shrewd and you get a laugh and answer me anyway. Ha!)
March 12th, 2010 at 3:51 am
PSP? Why not DSi? The touch screen interface is way better suited to the platform, and the fact that content can be saved to SD cards with the new DSi makes it perfect. I don’t even care if Game Maker couldn’t run a game I made, but the possibility to create on the go would be awesome, and I don’t want to buy a system I would use for nothing else to do it. (A PSP). I’m not saying don’t make it for the PSP, but if you do, you should make it for the DSi too, which already has a huge install base. Not to mention how well the system has already done with programs that share user created content.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:17 am
@Bluish-Green Productions “the possibility to create on the go would be awesome”. Who said anything about a portable Game Maker IDE? It is entirely impracticable to code on a device without a keyboard.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Is the maker going to bo on the PC, or actually on the PSP?-because that might be a possibility.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Awesome!
March 12th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
@Sonica
Can you imagine trying to write code on a virtual keyboard like you’d have to use on a PSP? I sure can’t. The very idea is ridiculous and I don’t know why it’s being tossed around.
You couldn’t get any good drawing done either, and though possible room-editing would be a beast. Sound editing would be a straight-up nightmare.
The only plus side would be the ability to immediately run the game on the PSP, which I can understand wanting but not even professionals have that.
So yeah…
March 12th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
@GameMaker Blog:
With a DSi (or even an iPhone/iPod touch) there can be a keyboard superimposed on the screen.
I agree that using a joystick to do this would borderline on impossible/purely frustrating, that’s why I was surprised to see them (trying to) port Game Maker to the PSP.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Wow… Game Maker games on a console… Finally… Yeah!!
March 13th, 2010 at 12:18 am
This is just so amazing! I’m very happy to see this kind of progress for the development of GameMaker. Just as I was beginning to think if anything was ever going to happen, you seem to have proven me very wrong.
This is a very exciting time for GameMaker. But, as has been pointed out, I too hope that you in the future will look at the possibilities of porting the runner to even more handhelds. I know the iPhone would be rather difficult due to license problems, but what about the DS? One argument that is especially good for why you should make the runner run on a DS, is that the main audience (majority of the people who plays on a DS) would fit like a hand in a glove for the majority of the type of GameMaker games released.
So, in short, I hope you won’t keep it at running on a PSP. But this is an amazing start! And also, a new version of GameMaker in the works sounds very good too. I just bought GM8 (and I bought GM7 way back when it just came out) but if a GM8.1 or GM9 or whatever came out in the near future, I would have no problem paying an extra 25$.
The more you develop, the further you secure GMs longevity, the better. And I will support you anytime in doing so, as I can ONLY applause this kind of development and progress.
Way to go, YoYoGames. This is actually a very positive and exciting thing, and I salute you for this kind of initiative. Lots of praise from here!
March 13th, 2010 at 1:45 am
I got lemmings on my dad’s tiny computer that is size of a kalkulator with a 3/4 of it’s size big screen and touch monitor and it’s old more than 4 years … Lemmings there are cool but lemmings are dumb xD
March 13th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
All I can say is,
After watching that video, I thought my brain was going to explode, great job!
Builder K,
March 13th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
That’s really cool! I hope all the bugs will be fixed and that the psp will not lag so much anymore with gm games. What will it cost? Is there also a light version and a pro version and is the pro version $20 or more?
March 13th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Late to the party.
*WOW* Very cool addition to YYG & very cool to see the games actually running on PSP.
My only real questions are the same as ever:
1. Licensing/publishing info.
2. When.
Also, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, & this is all cool “happy happy” news… nonetheless, a tiny warning signal has also started at the back of my brain. ie: I really, really, really hope that GM stays low cost & doesn’t suddenly skyrocket & I really, really, really hope that there is some way that PSP dev/publishing can become reality for current individual GM users who don’t have their own company &/or thousands of $.
Next few months should be interesting!
March 14th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Dang , this is good news cause I’m getting a PSP soon!xD
March 14th, 2010 at 12:39 am
Cool! As others have noted, GM for PSP would strictly for playing GM games, because of the painful process of coding with a virtual keyboard via joystick.
Although an Iphone app may have legal issues and what have you, I wonder if it’s been tried or not?Because if it somehow passed, then people could get the app for $25 which would be sweet, or use an activation code if they’ve already bought it. Then people could develop “on the go”
If it doesn’t pass, I wonder if the DS GM would be next? The system is underpowered so 3D games might not work (key word *might*) but the touchscreen would help a lot compared to the PSP.
I was thinking maybe there could be a Wii version or something for the HBC as a last resort. Of course, it could only be booted with an activation code. That, or someone somehow gets Windows to work on it. Either way, it would be nice to have GM on the Wii somehow.
Just some thoughts I’m throwing out there, nonetheless great work!
March 14th, 2010 at 3:41 am
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!.
Just one question, are you making one for the Nintendo DS
March 14th, 2010 at 3:42 am
Seiriously, my freind got Game Maker PSP and loved it (hes a game maker fan)!!!
March 14th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
[...] a titoli come Iji, Spelunky, Runman, Focus o Jumper 3). Ebbene, lo staff di YoYo Games ha rivelato due notizie interessanti che potrebbero interessare l’utenza Game Maker: la prima riguarda l’assunzione di [...]
March 15th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Guys please stop saying stuff about a DS gamemaker. If you don’t know there is already a DS gamemaker out there but from another company.
Please stay focused on the PSP gamemaker that we are talking here. It’s a piece of huge work so give some respect to that.
March 15th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I think by reading the post the correct way, it nowhere states that gamemaker is ported to the PSP. It does however say that the gamemaker *runner* is ported to the PSP.
People will be able to play gamemaker games on the PSP. It is unknown if with the current gamemaker version(8) PSP games can be made, or a different program has to be used to compile current games to PSP playable games. I think all games, with few enhancements(screen resolution, controls(PSP specific)) can be played on the PSP.
So you will probably not be able to create games on the PSP, play them, which is a great accomplishment on itself!
For the DS, who knows what will hapen.
For the iPhone, there is an SDK for the iPhone. If YoYoGames is doing such great work for the PSP, the possibility of them porting games to handhelds such as the iPhone is pretty big, and no problem with the right talents in the company.
March 16th, 2010 at 1:33 am
(I won’t ask questions because you requested we don’t.)
Congratulations to all involved, and welcome to Mr. Russell Kay. (For what it’s worth I love Lemmings! Good job on that title. I still vocally “play” the music like I’d sing any other song.)
And *very* interesting and nice, getting to see the PSP GM runner in action. ~nodnod~
Regards,
Brandon W. Horton
ParodyKnaveBob
March 17th, 2010 at 10:50 am
This is me:
*_*
This is me looking at this page:
^_^
This is me looking at the video:
^.^
This is me after watching the video, my mouth gaping absent-midedly and making fish noises:
^0^
This is me remembering that I don’t have a PSP:
-_-
March 18th, 2010 at 4:38 am
Is there a decent book to use to teach Game Maker 8? We are teaching a gaming camp for high schoolers (3 year in a row) and have given them the Game Maker’s Apprentice. I have heart the 7 is not compatible with 8 so I am just trying to find a good resource to give the attendees. Thanks.
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:29 pm
That’s so freakin’ awesome! If all game maker games can be added to PSP it will be cool!
March 24th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Erm, when is YoYo Games instant play coming? It doesn’t work for GM8 games, you need to fix. And even worse, nothing works now. Its all went wrong. you can’t play anything! Why? Grr!
March 25th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
I’m waiting other news about this psp runner…
March 26th, 2010 at 9:11 am
To keep this comment mature, let’s just say I find this interesting. Not “FRIKKIN AMAZING” or anything like that, just “interesting”.
Game maker enables everyone to make games, but it does not enable everyone to make good games… it’s going to be interesting how this turns out in the end.
March 26th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
AWESOME! I would really like to try out my Battlerooms XD V1.2 Professional on my PSP Emulator . Name? JPCSP .
March 27th, 2010 at 12:29 am
When will the next version of Instant Play come out? GM8 games are not yet compatible, and neither is it compatible with Firefox 3.6.
March 28th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
yeah. plz fix it
March 29th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
IMO, a DS/DSi would be able to use the touch screen for mouse commands, making it a much better system for this project.
March 30th, 2010 at 12:24 am
“IMO, a DS/DSi would be able to use the touch screen for mouse commands, making it a much better system for this project.”
Agreed 100%. DS support would be awesome. A maker on the DS in addition to a runner would be fantastic, especially with the interface options it offers.
March 31st, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Post something about the Comp05 entries!
… hopefully Comp 6 won’t be so many months away…
(Tragically, after all my whinign for the Comp, I couldn’t quite manage to enter.. yet again!
April 1st, 2010 at 10:04 am
I just love lemmings.
I still play it!!
April 1st, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Anyone know why my game maker file ment to change icons is corrupted with a trojan virus? It wont let me play my game.
April 1st, 2010 at 10:34 pm
@BattleBotGames If you have AVG try an update. A number of users reported problems with AVG earlier today at the Game Maker Community.
April 2nd, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Nice port, keep up, guys!x
April 2nd, 2010 at 11:18 pm
thanx about that. i solved it by reinstalling it twice. I can’t wait for the psp game maker player. I might get a psp after that.
April 5th, 2010 at 1:47 am
Hate to be off topic, but any idea when comp05 judging is over? I’m dying over here!
April 5th, 2010 at 2:04 am
ya, me too.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Haha… you’re gonna be dying for a long time then. If the previous Comp is anything to go by, you have at least a 2 month wait
Tho yeah… I agree there should *really* have been a new post by now about the Comp being over & more info.
April 7th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Some news? ^_^
April 7th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Wow. That is a BLOODY game.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Anyone want to play a game that requires agility and speed.
http://www.yoyogames.com/games/122862-bloxed-speed
Good Luck beating it.
April 9th, 2010 at 1:16 am
I am so board I posted this: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=470742
I am entering mine, but will not rate it high just to win, I want a fair competition that will fill in everyones time until comp05 is done being judged.
April 10th, 2010 at 12:15 am
It was removed. I reposted in the right section at this link: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=470846
April 14th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Wow, I was expecting a great ‘COMP 05 IS OFFICIALLY OVER!” type of glog entry. But why aren’t they? Don’t they have enough time? It happened with the last comp. It’s so depressing, a big competition on yoyogames and they can’t even be bothered to update us…
April 23rd, 2010 at 7:23 pm
This is great news.
On a side note, the iPhone OS 4 is just around the corner and the Beta SDK with all it’s API’s have been released.
What’s the chances of iphone app creation ability happening with game maker?