I only tried out modern versions of game maker because game maker 8 unfortunately does not support HTML exporting. There's a fair few improvements to the game maker language that I like and improve the quality of life. However the modern version also comes with a lot of downsides, mainly the UI, and the speed. Opening up Game Maker 8 takes only a few moments, and you can get game-making, while Studio 2 takes like half a minute, because it updates, does a bunch of networking stuff, and occasionally you even have to log in because your session expires. After that, when I got into the actual IDE, I wasn't very impressed either. Sure, it looks nice, however I noticed myself just scrolling a lot, and resizing windows. It's not very efficient with space, yet still feels overcrowded. Then I noticed that the default folders the IDE creates are practically useless, since the IDE doesn't categorize your assets, so you'll have to do it manually. You can put any asset in any of the folders, which isn't bad in itself, but the fact that these folders don't really work as one would excpect them just makes it a bit awfull, because either you sort them yourself, or waste a whole lot of time looking at the cluttered mess. There's absolutely no reason for those folders to exist if they do not work as expected. Things like the grid in the room editor are also hidden behind another button, whereas in game maker 8, you could just set it easiley. The room editor is also slow, and inefficient, having to drag each object into the room individually is really time consuming. You can press right alt to paint objects like in game maker 8, however it's laggy. It misses spots, it places multiple objects in a single place. There's also Feather, which is a strange feature that I disabled immidieately, since it slowed down my coding process, and kept warning me about code that is otherwise valid, but it didn't like. There's also just random lagging and slowdowns. When you write code fast, or sometimes just open a window or something, it stutters for a few moments. I admit, I may not have the most powerful hardware, but I do think that if I can run way more demanding software, or games then game maker stuttering isn't because of my hardware.

to sum up:
> lots of tutorials for many things
> wide range of export options for platforms
> better syntax than gml 8
> lots of features

> unfriendly, infefficient, often confusing UI design compared to game maker 8
> slow, clumsy level editor
> bootup time & updates, ocasionally having to log in
> weak performance in the IDE (games made with it run good)

I only tried out modern versions of game maker because game maker 8 unfortunately does not support HTML exporting. There's a fair few improvements to the game maker language that I like and improve the quality of life. However the modern version also comes with a lot of downsides, mainly the UI, and the speed. Opening up Game Maker 8 takes only a few moments, and you can get game-making, while Studio 2 takes like half a minute, because it updates, does a bunch of networking stuff, and occasionally you even have to log in because your session expires. After that, when I got into the actual IDE, I wasn't very impressed either. Sure, it looks nice, however I noticed myself just scrolling a lot, and resizing windows. It's not very efficient with space, yet still feels overcrowded. Then I noticed that the default folders the IDE creates are practically useless, since the IDE doesn't categorize your assets, so you'll have to do it manually. You can put any asset in any of the folders, which isn't bad in itself, but the fact that these folders don't really work as one would excpect them just makes it a bit awfull, because either you sort them yourself, or waste a whole lot of time looking at the cluttered mess. There's absolutely no reason for those folders to exist if they do not work as expected. Things like the grid in the room editor are also hidden behind another button, whereas in game maker 8, you could just set it easiley. The room editor is also slow, and inefficient, having to drag each object into the room individually is really time consuming. You can press right alt to paint objects like in game maker 8, however it's laggy. It misses spots, it places multiple objects in a single place. There's also Feather, which is a strange feature that I disabled immidieately, since it slowed down my coding process, and kept warning me about code that is otherwise valid, but it didn't like. There's also just random lagging and slowdowns. When you write code fast, or sometimes just open a window or something, it stutters for a few moments. I admit, I may not have the most powerful hardware, but I do think that if I can run way more demanding software, or games then game maker stuttering isn't because of my hardware. to sum up: [h2] Pros [/h2] > lots of tutorials for many things > wide range of export options for platforms > better syntax than gml 8 > lots of features [h2] Cons [/h2] > unfriendly, infefficient, often confusing UI design compared to game maker 8 > slow, clumsy level editor > bootup time & updates, ocasionally having to log in > weak performance in the IDE (games made with it run good)