Muffel - New Game Maker Syntax - Say Goodbye to Alarms

Thanks to our Muffel asset, this is now real Game Maker code:

I'm not kidding, that's not pseudocode. I literally wrote that code into the create event of an object to make it spin. Not in the step event and without alarms*. 

Isn't it beautiful? 

Thanks to new in-line functions in GameMaker 2.3 and macros, we can now start a parallelly** executed code without alarms or events, in a beautiful syntax resembling simple english. We have two features:

• Delayed execution: run code-block after x seconds or frames
• Periodic execution: run code every x seconds or frames forever until you abort it

Let's say when your player is hit, you want him to be invincible for a second, you can do this:

Damn, if this isn't nice, I don't know what is. 

Let's be honest, how would you have done this before? You would have either routinely checked if one second has passed in your Step-event or you would have created an alarm, written your code into the alarm event, disabled the alarm etc., just to set one variable to true. 

Now you can do all of this inline!

Example usage might be everything involving "do this later" or "do this periodically":

• Create a new enemy every three seconds
• Let the screen shake for 50 frames and then stop
• When enemy is attacked, let him be confused for a few seconds
• Tower Defense: let a building fire only every five seconds

Yes, you can do all of this with alarms and step events too, but it's inconvenient and you lose track of which alarm does what and when, your step event becomes unreadable, etc. 

How to install

You need Game Maker 2.3 to use this asset. 
Unzip our asset file somewhere. 
Open Game Maker. Go to "Tools" in the menu bar and select "Import local package". Now select the "com.ribbyte.muffel" file that was unzipped.

Notes

Read the "README.txt" file for more details, troubleshooting, how to abort the execution blocks, etc.

You might know the Coroutine feature in Unity (Invoke, StartCoroutine, WaitForSeconds or yield), with this asset you can basically solve similar problems in Game Maker.

*  Internally, it still uses alarms, but you don't have to deal with alarms, set anything up and create the events etc. You don't even notice it's using alarms inside.

** It's not really parallel (as in multithreading) but it's the simplest description I have to describe the result. Look at this:

What does it print? That's right: "aaa" then "ccc" then "bbb". 
Why? Because the "bbb" code is only executed two seconds later, while the main script continues. So it first prints "aaa" then "ccc" and then, two seconds later, it prints "bbb".
Basically, the code in a "execute after" or "execute every" block is executed after your script is finished. So it feels like it runs in parallel (or asynchronously).

var inst = instance_create_depth(0,0,-9999,oWarp); //create Warp object, which will change room with fade-in and fade-out animation
    inst.target_x = oPlayer.x; //
    inst.target_y = oPlayer.y; //
    inst.target_room = RoomTV; //change room and teleport player when screen is covered (it takes ~~1.5 sec)
execute after 3 seconds // I think the timer stays in the last room, which caused the error because it can't run from previous room
var inst = instance_create_depth(0,0,-9999,oWarp);
    inst.target_x = oPlayer.x; //
    inst.target_y = oPlayer.y; //
    inst.target_room = Room1; //this code returns the player to the previous room in 3 seconds
done