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This is a tutorial series isn't it? Then WHY are the only things I see posted online Mars Lander Level Packs? Believe me, I am asking the same questions. The trouble is, while I'd love to be doing all this for free, that doesn't pay the bills, so I'm trying to negotiate a contract by which I'd be paid for making these tutorials. The only issue is, as long as that contract isn't finalized, I don't know what I would or would not be allowed to distribute. The last thing I want to do is post something and then have to take it down later because it violates the terms of my contract. That's why I haven't released Mars Lander Builder, or any of the other things I'm working on besides the updated Game Builder library:

What follows is the fifth segment of the Mars Lander Builder Behind the Scenes write-up. Click titles below to read other segments:

Working with a Theme
Creating the Level Code
Child-Proofing

Ranking Difficulty

Runner Editions:

When I made the Mars Lander Builder, the reason I needed the file system to be alphabetical was so that it could be loaded into different versions of the program. From one code I intended the level to be loadable into both Mars Lander Builder and several different iterations of Mars Lander Runner Edition. With the alphabetical file system, this became possible. While 300 characters isn’t short by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a lot shorter than the jargon that people would be copying if I used any kind of special encoding on the files. I still intend to use GameMaker Studio to develop Mars Lander Runner Editions for as many platforms as possible, and I know that with the alphabetical code this will be possible.
And now, for a very special level pack. With the addition of these 5 levels, there are officially 50 levels available for Mars Lander Runner! To that end, I’ve replaced the Runner download file with the “50 Level Edition”. This contains all 9 level packs and the Mars Lander Runner.

Click the image below to download Mars Lander Runner 50 Level Edition:

I hope you’ll find this worth the wait, I present to you; Version 3 of the BGP GameMaker Extensions. Both Extensions have new Help files, both the HTML Help files and the PDFs have been updated. The largest update in this version is the addition of Callouts to the Game Builder tab. What are Callouts you ask? Read on below to find out!

BGP Library Update

At first glance, the BGP Library doesn’t seem to have received much of an update, and that’s mostly true. There are still 23 Actions, but the “Set Variable in Instance” Action has received a slight update. It can now set arrays as well as normal Variables. This is especially important for modifying Callouts beyond their basic functionality.