Wow, very nicely put, indeed, thinking ahead for the future and wanting something solid.  Since I am not much into the technical stuff regarding all the jargon / licensing I am limited in capacity to reply or debate on that topic, however I could add this.  The said "good faith" of people should be disregarded when dealing with such an important matter.  It's like 2 parties not putting things on paper (contract) on the basis they are best friends and know each other.   That would be bad business.  Everything should be written and set in stone once and for all to avoid any holes or any problems in the future.

You make a good point about user code linked to the engine, etc.  If I as a user, decide to use this it's not to make open source games and apps    Of course some of the stuff I want to produce is free but some I wish to eventually make commercial and make a few bucks   It was mentioned that the current developers have good will and would not and have not done this and that, but we cannot rely on that, I think things need to be CLEAR and in WRITING, any legal written agreement is binding and protects all parties involved.

As far as the developer worse comes to worse,a developer could have the option to simply remove said games and stop distribution if they refuse to comply. BUT again, that could be problematic for instant viral hits !

As far as your comment on YoYo, well they do have some requirements, mentioning of their "amazing" runner and IP holder. and probably all the rest that is used along with it right since FFMPEG and others are bundled too.  They still use FFMPEG right ?   

Also you made great points about what will happen to ENIGMA 5 to 10 years from now and reaching out to developers to get their agreement.  That is another issue and even better argument of why something needs to be done quick when it's still time and once and for all.   I'd love to think that in 10 years from now ENIGMA will still exist, but one has to question if the personal computer will still exist as we know it, perhaps ENIGMA and all of that will be "legacy", much like the famous VIC-20, Commodore 64, AMIGA, ATARI, etc.   Am I skeptic that ENIGMA will remain a free open source project in 10 years ? well, I am skeptic about lot of things, I think we are headed for a major shift / change so who knows.

As far as YoYoGames, 5-10 years from now, they will probably be covered, as GameMaker will probably cost $4000, and they will have hundreds, maybe thousands of exports, will have dropped support for windows after their 600th function deprecation, etc.

So yeah, that aside, let's assume that ENIGMA will pace with future technology and grow, I think we must have something solid to cover everyone's ass!

I was not aware of all of this before, as I said, not too familiar with all the jargon and open source licensing stuff, and some people reading might also hold back on using ENIGMA for these reasons.   If I decide to spend resources, time to build a UNIQUE original game with 100% made content be it sprites, sound, music, etc, I would certainly not want to have to publish the source code of my game for others to steal!

Yet if I continued to use Game Maker Studio  and buying new revisions I would be a hypocrite, supporting a company that clearly has major disregard towards windows developers, as nicely put by some people in the community!  I mean a company that instead of fixing what needs to be fixed says "fuck it, let's remove said functions instead", sorry but why would a paid customer like myself support this   I think I found a new name for their product.  GameDeprecation Studio (no royalty fees required, use freely ! ), that should be the name of their next revision of game maker.
Sorry, back on topic!

So my faith and confidence is in ENIGMA right now,
and thinking present, everyone needs to be covered and sure there will be a general agreement eventually.

Once the time comes that the devs grow some white (or gray) hairs and cannot continue working on project, then hopefully others will pick up and should that happen, things will be already set in stone.

Oh ok, interesting read towards the end there.

Seems when something gets fixed it breaks something else, I guess, that's life for you  you will have to wait for this issue to get addressed I guess, hopefully soon.... but good news is here, unlike yoyo, they get things fixed rather quickly.  With Yoyo, when they fuck up something, they "deprecate it" 

If not mistaken there was some modification lately that requires you to use the latest enigma.jar
You have to download it there:
http://enigma-dev.org/docs/Wiki/Install:Extra_Packages

You will find the latest jars there to download and
save to the respective folders:
lateralgm.jar goes in .\enigma-dev
and
enigma.jar goes in .\enigma-dev\plugins

Perhaps this has to do with:
http://enigma-dev.org/tracker/index.php?id=661

Vis: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67740160/BlueButItShouldBeRed.jpg

As the filename says - what should be red is in blue. And yes, other projects display this issue (for example, Catch the Clown).

Using Linux, latest LGM and ENIGMA as according to the repos, OpenGL 3.

Yeah I understand. I really love and appreciate what these guys are doing though, so cool that I can use GML which i've been using for years and make/release games for free without paying $300+.

Actually GM has many different versions standard, pro, etc.  They have a good promotion going for upgrade from standard to pro, free to standard, etc.
Also the $299 is optional.  For most people and their "lovely" games the runner will do just fine, the main advantage with the YYC compiler will be for CPU intensive games.  There are also other advantages for a game to be compiled to, smaller file sizes, ability to only include modules you will be using.  For ENIGMA, I've managed to make 300-400k EXEs once you start adding the heavy stuff it gets bigger, but compresses quite well.

You will also notice ENIGMA supports some functions that were deprecated/removed RAPED by YoYoGames, that were useful for windows, such as support for video splash and video playback functions, and more.

I guess I'll have to stick with Windows/Linux compiles then

For a while I guess, they have to do GLES first, but as you may have found out, ENIGMA still needs work in some areas, it is not 100% compatible nor is it complete.  There may be certain issues / bugs to be fixed.  There are CERTAIN things that I like in GM, so I am not getting rid of GM yet.  I kinda like the built-in documentation, when I am looking for something I fire the help and search, it's done faster than going through the wiki, but that is a matter of personal preference.  I also like the built-in tutorials. 

enigma isn't more popular, someone should go to the yoyo forums and promote the heck out of enigma lol. people would appreciate it i think

LOL.  You really do not want to encourage that or even think about that.  That would be an excellent way to get banned for life from their forum and you will get flamed a lot by the fans, mods and developers there.  It is frowned upon when discussing other products, especially those that show potential and are free   Besides they will find ways to degrade ENIGMA (which they already have on some occasions as they claimed it was "garbage" or they said "rubbish" and that they could not get anything to work bla bla bla   Diplomacy is the key. 

ENIGMA is an open source, FREE product developed by people on their spare time, so it's not yet a finished product it is still being improved and fixed, but is functional enough to make great games, and people here respond quickly, most of the times bugs / issues being fixed the same day, look where YoYo Games is at right now ? much less frequent updates now, and I know why too they have another big priority they are working on.  But anyhow,  I found out about ENIGMA through the GMC someone mentioned it, but I had also known about it using google ! But what got me to use enigma was a post by someone in the GMC, and I was shocked, because I thought it would be another crappy wanna be imitation because I tried many they sucked, was actually surprised when I first started using ENIGMA, despite some of the less kind posts made by users on the GMC and here......

There is just one bit of a problem.  In order for ENIGMA to support android export, they will have to add some restrictions / remove some functions to abide by different app store rules (mostly security issues).  This is why YoYo claimed to have removed several functionality from GM.   The problem is that they also removed those functions from windows (registry, folder creating, some file functions, etc.)

I hope ENIGMA won't do the same mistake as YoYo, and will only restrict what needs to be restricted for individual export options, leaving all those functionality for windows intact.

I don't expect to see android support any time soon they probably have other priorities for now like new compiler and fixes.  But definitely if they DO add other export options, they will have to add different sets of rules and restrictions on each individual export and not the windows export otherwise !  It's one thing to offer export to android, but they have to meet some requirements to abide by app stores.  I am not 100% sure on the technicalities but in terms of signature, security, etc. 

I am sure they will do the right thing when the time comes.  They do try as much as possible to do things right in many areas where YoYo has done wrong.
Probably the biggest benefit you will see here, is that things are compiled, and you are not being charged $299 for it.  There are other benefits to using ENIGMA as well,as you can use C++, GML & Enigma's own set of commands in your games.....

Thanks Dark star! Most of the game is pre-rendered, while some of it is just a few acts of laziness, for example, the gun was drawn purely in GMS's sprite editor.

Well those teachers sure look scary to me   I'd hate to think what the FINAL boss would look like

BTW, I think some of those bullies should be harder to kill as you progress levels, meaning they would take more than just one shot or jump.

Nice, I haven't gotten to playing the game yet, but it's a real change from some of the stuff I've seen made

Those "teachers" sure look far more threatening than the regular bullies 

Nice special effects on the text / fade-in/out of the level ID, how do you that ? is it all pre-rendered ?

Hm interesting, perhaps this post would be better in the issues sub forum, I'm sure one of the developers of ENIGMA can look at it and see if they can fix it.  They usually are quick to fix issues unlike another well known company 

Tried it, runs smoothly indeed, but there is a lot of bugs.  Sometimes when you die and are crushed by a pipe or you die and scroll off screen, when the level restart, the player is invisible, you have to exit the game and restart.  Thanks, will take a look at the source later.

lol!

Yep you nailed it once again, they seem to have an acquired skill of butchering and removing, sometimes I wonder, are they removing more stuff than they are adding ? At this rate what's going to be left for cross platform compatibility sake ! 

Actually if you translate to proper english it would have nothing to do with cross platform, they could easily fix this but it would require some minimal work God forbid !

So translated it means:

"We don't want to bother making it cross platform." 

BTW, what about the less talked about MNG (animated PNG), ? Whatever happened to this format ? Did not pick up ? I remember many years ago I was using software for animated GIFs, and it supported MNG as well

Any updates ? news on the issue ?

Well fuck me !  now it's crashing even in the compiled EXE !   
I tried different modules, modes, etc, same.....
tried sprite_add_alpha and it tells me function does not exist. lol.

I tried adding it through the create resource in the IDE,
it worked, no crash, and it displayed properly as it should.

I tried converting the PNG into a BMP, GIF, etc, same thing.

Hope this helps. 

Wow this reminds me I used to get this kind of thing a lot when working with 8.1 and studio importing certain files.
I hope you find a solution to this

Also using the latest portable + latest jars

Ok, running some tests, I could reproduce the crash when game is run from the IDE.

When building / compiling the EXE, the EXE runs fine, no crash.  I hope this bit of info can help.
I just placed a controller object in an empty room and
added the code in the create event.

This is a PNG with alpha transparency, I will run other tests.

It sounds like you are still either misreading what I've been trying to communicate or you are misinterpreting my intentions. You might
....
the past that I advertised here, where the games had a story that was completely religious. =P Those games I canceled.

Don't worry I read and understood you from the start, and no I was not aware of your other games as I joined recently.  I knew you from the GMC, but was not aware of those games. 

The point I was trying to make, was referring to general examples and not your game or yourself, since religion was mentioned, I thought I would add my 2 cents.

Content in games and movies can be subjective.  Some people can find religious elements in places that were not meant to be or that have none.

To me, a game would be just a game, to some the game would be interpreted differently.  To each their own.

If I were to make a game or movie where I would feel it would be of sensitive nature, I would place the respective warnings, and from there, it's up to people to decide.  Having worked such industries, behind the scenes, I know for a FACT that people will always break your film or game to pieces and interpret things their way etc.  Having worked with public before I know that and so be it.  If I were to make a game of a blue square chasing a red square, just an innocent game, and made it available to the masses, I am sure that I would get bashed along the way and that some people would be offended and associate the colors of the squares to gangs or religion or the harming of squares ! LOL.

throne inside a dark cave at a first glance looks like a depiction of a chamber in hell, which hell is religious shit, not at all what this game is after.

Hell is open to several interpretations.  Some think of it as a physical place, some think of it as a state of mind / state of being.
With all the shit happening in today's world, I do think hell does fucking exist and it's on earth   Or hell could be under the crust of earth, we are just at the surface above.   That is an example of individual interpretations. 

Keep in mind religion is man made, and "HELL" is not a religion actually, and not limited to one specific religion. 

BTW, you would be surprised at some of the shit I have seen in my days (horror films) and all the violence / movies / games I played/watched, and I turned out ok.  It's all about the mind and when people can make a difference between fiction and real world.

About your past horror games which I was not aware of, did people complain or were offended ?  Now you almost want me to try those games to see for myself   I am sure if you were to make a game with pink flamingos someone out there would be offended.  That's what happens when you deal with the general public, you will always have negatives no matter what.

=P I already explained in depth this is far from anything to do with a damn religion. If it was too much to read, I can't blame you. =)

Read it fully understood, again.  Can't wait to play your game and give my honest opinion  

demo gameplay duration?
The demo will be very short compared to the full version. 45 minutes to beat it if you suck at the puzzles worst case scenerio.

LOL ! That would be me, but I've gotten so much better. but still, I don't recall an adventure game that I could finish on my own, maybe because back then I was not as patient and got frustrated quite easily with some puzzles and being stuck

full version gameplay duration?
The full vsrsion gameplay should take a bare minimum of 5 hours to complete, due to
difficulty level and the actually duration and

5 hours minimum, that sounds good by today's standard

full version estimated release date?
The full version should take a year starting now to complete if I'm lucky, but it will more likely take nearly 2-3 years,

Wow, that's about par with an actual commercial game dev time, and that is with a whole working team !   For your type of game if you worked full time on it you'd probably manage to get it done much sooner, but realistically if this is done on your spare time as a hobby, could probably take longer.

In any case good luck and hope it works out great.

Well if you check my last post on the previous page, you'll see I did just that. =) i 'm an ex-christian, do you think I actually want to continue making religious games at this point? =P

Well they do still make religious movies and they are hits.... Putting them in games might be tricky but doable although the game has to be done in a way as to not offend other religions or use it as a propaganda tool.  I know some very good games that included religious elements and did well, scenes in church, confession, etc. 

Also I am thinking of making a game eventually hopefully in this lifetime or another   Controversial in nature.  Is hell eternal or is there redemption ? Hell has an escape, it would be up to the player to find it through platform gaming, puzzle elements, dialog, strategy, action and much more.  Of course this is an example of a game, and there would not be ANY reference to any particular religion, it will be up to the player.  along with big twists.

Besides you really don't have to justify yourself to anybody, nobody is forcing people to play a game, people have free will.  I will play games that have religious elements depending on the story and where it's going.  I will NOT play games that mocks, offends,
degrades, or get you to worship another religion / sell you / convert you, etc.Those are not games but propaganda tools There's enough of that shit on fucking TV hosted by charlatants who are filthy rich living in mansions with people's money ! 

So how long do you think it will take you to finish this game of yours ? What do you expect the game play will be in hours ? (short game ? Long game? ) Difficulty level ?