GameMaker Sandbox

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GameMaker Sandbox
GameMaker Sandbox logo
Gamemaker sandbox yoyogames homepage.png
URL http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/
Status Offline
Archiving status Saved!
Archiving type Unknown
Project source gamemaker-sandbox-grab
Project tracker gamemakersandbox
IRC channel #archiveteam-bs (on hackint)
Data[how to use] archiveteam_gamemaker

GameMaker Sandbox was launched by YoYo Games in 2007 to host and share user-created video games made by their GameMaker software, including games from Games Showcase (now defunct) uploaded as early as 2005. As well as uploading games, developers could upload images to showcase their game. Users could use commenting, rating and reviewing features on the game's profiles. A forum was also available for developers to ask for help and talk about games.

Shutdown

In October 2014, James Foreman of YoYo Games (then Community Coordinator) announced the GameMaker: Player. The Player would be akin to Steam, allowing users to easily download and play games.[1] This was the first indication of YoYo's new direction for hosting their user's gamers, confirming that they were not interested in Sandbox anymore after a recent lack of updates.

In a FAQ for the Player from 2015[2], the question "Is the sandbox being removed?" was answered:

GameMaker: Player will replace the Sandbox and as such uploading to the Sandbox will be disabled when the Player is released. Sandbox content will remain available for a period of time until the GameMaker: Player is fully live.

In March 2016, ShaunS (Community Manager) gave a date for the removal of the Sandbox from their site- the 8th of April.[3]

Archives

There are two choices, both of which can be browsed in the Internet Archive:

  • Web pages and downloads saved as various WARC files at the archiveteam_gamemaker collection.
  • Downloads saved as various ZIP files, organized by certain letters or other characters, at the YoYo Games Sandbox Collection at [1]. Unlike the other collection, these files can be browsed online.

A very small number of games were missed. The remaining games can be found here, with the actual archive folders here (look for the filenames with "3kxjz" in it).

Using the Wayback Machine

  1. To find a game, use this list. For example, find Crimelife 2 and get the game ID "14296-crimelife-2".
  2. Then construct the URL to get http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/14296-crimelife-2.
  3. Enter that URL with /* at Wayback Machine to list all URLs for that game. For example, https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/14296-crimelife-2/*
  4. Find the download URL on that list. It will have "send_download" as part of it.

References