GM is a very powerful tool with great features. I used to work with it a lot, back in the GM3/4 days when software 3D renders were really cool (I used to have a project in the GM forums that could load and render simple solid 3D models with lighting and per-face colors all using GML; the goal was a Starfox like game without the use of plugins or GM extension functions).

I don't know where your concerns with speed come from. GM has great performance considering all of the abstraction it provides. I've only ever run into speed issues on older systems running projects that either contained a lot of large graphics or thousands of objects (objects are often very overused and abused in GM, IMHO). Often, this could be fixed by more carefully designing the project.

I haven't looked into GM since version 7 was released and hosted by YoYo Games. Are you sure it will be multiplatform? GM was built using Delphi and the runtime uses DirectX, neither of which are cross platform technologies. Unless they're making some utterly massive overhaul, I can't see how it'll ever become portable (and such an overhaul will likely introduce all sorts of new problems/bugs and other things users don't want to see). Still, that would be very awesome, as I don't use Windows on my home computers and working in a VM is annoying. (btw, I can attest to GM running fine in a VM, another example of good performance).

One thing I never tried to do was create a 3D game using the built-in Direct3D access or plugins (DLLs). I just don't think GM is suited to this. In fact, I felt it was easier to create math/rendering GML scripts and work in software-based 3D than to use the built-in functions or extensions. In any case, GM is built for 2D... and it is very good at it. :-)

I still play with GM occasionally and have found it to be a great drafting and prototyping tool for projects that eventually are implemented from the ground up.

I'd give it a try. I don't think you have any reason to abandon the GM platform.

Wow, this blog entry confirms that YoYo Games does plan to make Game Maker 8 cross platform (even for consoles and smart phones)! Hopefully this'll also lead to a version that'll run in alternative operating systems like Linux.

One thing about the "runner" being rewritten in C++: I've discovered numerous threads both inside and outside the GM community about this. It's basically the same old flame war about, "Language X is faster than language Y!" In short, we're comparing Delphi and C++ (both of which are compiled languages. Delphi is a higher level language, sure, but as has been discussed over and over again in this forum, that doesn't necessarily mean that C++ is any faster. In short, the only reason Sandy Duncan and company chose C++ is that it is better supported on other platforms.

Since Mac support is officially planned, I have to imagine that OpenGL will be used for graphics (and SDL will probably power everything else, I'm sure). This should open the door up for Linux support as well. w00t!

There will not be any noticeable speed difference with respect to GM8 and GM7. GM8 will remain uncompiled. So the only differences will be compatibility with Mac. Dephi is just as fast as C++, which is what GM7 was compiled with. Also, Ultimate 3D is greatly hampered by GM. It can run much faster in C++, which is what the DLL was natively compiled with. GM is just about the slowest language you can find on the Internet.

GM is an excellent tool for creating simple games. If you want to make 3d games, I wouldn't recommend it. The developers have made it very clear that for some reason they do not want to make GM more powerful; they are focusing on making it simpler, which in turn makes it somewhat less powerful. The GM community has tried to make DLLs for just about everything you can think of, so you can basically do anything in GM. The biggest problem is that you end up using DLLs for almost everything and pretty soon you realize that you may as well be programming in C++.

If you want to make 2d platform games, I don't think there is anything better than GM. If you want to make anything relatively complex, you start to find better options. When you start talking about 3d games, honestly, you're wasting your time.