GameMaker

[mikes]

Have been told that GameMaker Studio is now required for the Welsh IT qualification, anyone heard about this? I am trying to get it to work under student accounts but it must compile and run EXE's, it makes several SUBST drive maps, I must poke holes in AppLocker to get the thing to run... Anyone heard about having to get this thing installed?

[paulkerton]

I'd be absolutely shocked if there is a requirement for one particular application as prescribed by the exam board. Worth checking that.

[Ditto]

The current GCSE specification for Digital Technology does say this for one of the Non-examined assessments (NEA).

So not quite a must, but a bit naughty in my view. It appears the Welsh Qualification Authorities have done a deal with the software company on discounted licenses. Also seems to be the case with some Adobe stuff too under their programme ‘Adobe × Hwb’ programme.

 

I'm not a fan of the approach persoanlly.

[jimmy_2k]

I'm trying to deploy this software in school. Does anyone have a script or MSI for Gamemaker?

[PotNoodleTech]

Highlighted the software to the relevant teachers but seemed like it was not needed.

 

Would be interested to know more if it was "required"

[PotNoodleTech]

Looking at this again - anyone signed up to gamemaker recently? They seem to be forcing you to sign up to an opera browser account which I do not like the look of?

[SayLHP]

We've gone with Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Animate for the Digital Technology NEA.

 

However, Animate was a complete b*tch to get working.

[3s-gtech]

We've gone with Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Animate for the Digital Technology NEA.

 

However, Animate was a complete b*tch to get working.

 

What did you struggle with for Animate? I have ‘21 working nicely, but it needed modern machines, profiles done a certain way and some FSRM rule changes.

[SayLHP]

What did you struggle with for Animate? I have ‘21 working nicely, but it needed modern machines, profiles done a certain way and some FSRM rule changes.

 

First I had no notice from the LA that our Adobe order was being fulfilled, found out at the start of September it was ready (I’m a first time NM and just discovering how schools and LA work together) ended up on a man hunt trying to find someone able to grant access to the admin portal.

 

Making select packages wasn’t working as XD caused the whole package to uninstall itself. Managed to sort it out by downloading precreated packages built by Adobe for each program separately and building a custom package for deployment with PDQ.

 

Animate would crash when loading the workspace. Thought it was a software restriction, ended up treating a machine in an OU with no GPO’s and it was still having issues. It was working for admin profiles.

 

Turned out it wasn’t the profiles that were the issue, I had assumed it was something to do with Appdata and relocated folders as it was having troubles with writing files to the documents folder.

 

It was permissions on the file server. Finally coming out the other-side in one piece.

 

I don’t mean for it to sound like a complaint but it’s been a baptism of hellfire. The last couple of weeks have been long days and late evenings rebuilding everything, whilst trying to firefight ongoing issues left by a predecessor who left only 50% of the passwords and zero documentation, whilst trying to figure out how this network is set up. Not forgetting they’re currently recruiting for a technician for the primaries, so I’ve been covering them too.

 

I need to flatten it and do my own setup but that’s for the future at some point.

 

There’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel!

[3s-gtech]

That does sound pretty rough!

 

One of the main issues we had was that we went from lovely CS6, which still works but is old hat, to CC which wouldn’t install on 90% of our PCs due to their age (we are dominated by Core 2s still [emoji4]).

 

Thankfully we have a suite of 10th gen Core machines now and another on the way, so Animate works fine there.

 

Deciphering a predecessor’s work can be tough - I was lucky as I started as the junior tech and moved up, with 18 months of crossover. Still took a long time to be really familiar with everything.

[PotNoodleTech]

Well I've been asked to look at gamemaker here so signed up for a free account and trying to get it working on the head of It's PC but so far no bueno, managed to install it ok but when you run it it errors when trying to download libraries.

 

Anyone seen that?

[superfletch]

Our Computer Science / IT Teachers decided to use it this year.

 

Our environment is Azure AD cloud (not hybrid) managed 1:1 devices enrolled in MS InTune with an AppLocker Device Configuration Profile.

 

It needed loads of whitelisting in AppLocker - all the things it runs when kids compile their games from it's folder in C:\AppData.

It has a really regular update cycle that (although usually non-essential) has the end user download and run requiring admin elevation - they don't provide a managed update method as far as I know.

When I added YoYo games as a trusted publisher AppLocker allows the Gamemaker Studio to run, but still blocks the update installer (signed by the same publisher) so there seems to be something squiffy about their publisher details.

 

Sorry this isn't much help to the OP but so far I've found it to be nothing but a massive PITA, does anyone have it working nicely?

[mikes]

Sorry I can't remember 100% but I think I end up updating it manually using a batch file and Impero to run the installer silently across all machines. It's a massive kludge but it's what I've been doing for now. Been a while since I updated it as I remember last time it needed something to do with the Opera browser?

[Turgatron]

Our Computer Science / IT Teachers decided to use it this year.

 

Our environment is Azure AD cloud (not hybrid) managed 1:1 devices enrolled in MS InTune with an AppLocker Device Configuration Profile.

 

It needed loads of whitelisting in AppLocker - all the things it runs when kids compile their games from it's folder in C:\AppData.

It has a really regular update cycle that (although usually non-essential) has the end user download and run requiring admin elevation - they don't provide a managed update method as far as I know.

When I added YoYo games as a trusted publisher AppLocker allows the Gamemaker Studio to run, but still blocks the update installer (signed by the same publisher) so there seems to be something squiffy about their publisher details.

 

Sorry this isn't much help to the OP but so far I've found it to be nothing but a massive PITA, does anyone have it working nicely?

 

We have a similar situation at my workplace as well now. would you be able to share your OMA-URI on how you allowed YoYo Games Ltd and C:\AppData?

I have also started reading up on using Microsoft's WDAC as an alternative option and move away from AppLocker - but this doesn't seem to make it easier - but just more complicated. There is an option now to set up trusted installers - but more reading needs to be done before we can even explore this option.