Game Maker Development Console

Introduction

You're coding your new feature, everything seems good, until a bug arises ! You don't panic, you stop the game, relaunch it in Debug mode to check step by step, but soon realize that the bug occurs at random times, making debugging it unreliable.

That's why this console is here.

Features

Watch, track and set variables from any object
Execute custom commands of your liking
Do not interfere with the render (all changes are restored upon finishing the render)
Force certain or all instances to be visible
Display an overlay on all debugged instances
Log system
See the last recorded state of an object

Getting started

To implement the console into your codebase, import the whole extension (sprite included) and place the following piece of code at the start of your game.

console_init();

This will create the console and it will sit on the background until you need it.

How to use the console

If you want to make the console (dis)appear, press F4.

To create a tracker for a specific instance, middle click with the mouse on the specific instance.

When the console is visible and the game focused, you can type any command already available.

Commands

All console commands are actually scripts starting with "console_" under the resource tree.

Here's a list of all default commands

Settings

overlay_drawing [bool]

Set the visibility state of the overlay drawn of top of debugged object sprites.

followers_persistence [bool]

Set whether or not the tracker stays after the object death, allowing to check its last state.

debug_instance_visible [bool]

Set whether or not debugged instances should be forced visible.

all_instance_visible [bool]

Set whether or not all instances should be forced visible. Overrides debug_instance_visible.

Others

count [all/object_name]

Return the number of active instances from a specified object_name The keyword all will return how many instances are active. Instances related to debugging are filtered out.

create [X] [Y] [object_name] <Number>

Create an instance of object_name at the specified position. The optional argument Number allows to create many instances at once.

kill [object_name]

Kill all instances of the specified object_name.

watch <all> [object_name] [variable_name]

Start watching the specified variable_name of all debugged instances of object_name. If the optional all keyword is used, a tracker watching the variable_name is created for each instance of object_name that wasn't debugged so far.

track <all> [object_name]

Start tracking all debugged instance of object_name If the optional all keyword is used, a tracker tracking the object_name is created for each instance of object_name that wasn't debugged so far.

Note: Tracking != watching. Tracking is equivalent to watch ALL variables of the instance. While it allows to see new variables being added, it is WAY MORE EXPENSIVE than simply watching a pre-defined set of variables.

set <all> [object_name] [variable_name] [variable_value]

Set the specified variable_name of all debugged instances of object_name to the specified variable_value. Can be a real, boolean or a string. The optional keyword all can be used set the value to all instances of object_name.

Creating custom commands !

That's right, to better fit the custom workflow of your game, you can add custom commands of your own !

First, create a script under Scripts>SPSE_console>User>commands and name it console_<command_name>

Then you can start by using this template:

///console_<command_name>();
/*
  A description of what this custom command does.
  Make it simple, this shouldn't be the whole documentation
  
*/


/*
  All args are passed as string, so you need to convert them into the type you need.
*/


/*
  Check if the command is from the console,
  and if the number of args matches what you want.
  Shall the failsafe fail, the custom command will exit
*/
if(!__spse_failsafe(argument_count, 0 /*min_args*/, 0 /*max_args*/)) exit;


//Check if the optional keyword 'all/any' is present.
if (__spse_is_scope_global("any" /*argument[X]*/)){
    
    //Console logs to give feedback.
    console_show_debug("The scope is global");
    console_show_warning("The scope is global");
    console_show_error("The scope is global");
    
    }
    
/*
  Your code logic goes here.
  Remember this code is executed from the console.
*/

After adapting the template to your need, you can execute the command through the console with your command_name.

Mathias-Boulay/GameMakerDevConsole