GMTunes is a GameMaker project that aims to eventually serve as a replacement engine for SimTunes. A SimTunes installation is required to use the program effectively (and for legal reasons is not provided here), but will fallback to placeholder graphics where possible.
SimTunes is the product of Maxis and was primarily designed by Toshio Iwai. It is based on "Music Insects", an interactive audio-visual exhibit which was designed and created by Toshio Iwai and featured at the Exploratorium in San Franciso, 1992.
Simply extract the compiled project ZIP somewhere. Current builds assume you have attempted to run SimTunes at least once and have at least successfully generated a valid config file at %LOCALAPPDATA%/VirtualStore/Windows/SimTunes.ini. The program will then write it's GMTunes.ini config file at %LOCALAPPDATA%/GMTunes and extract assets to that directory where needed.
Most button combos from SimTunes (not all) are reimplemented here, but there's a few exceptions.
- F1: set interpolation on/off
- F2: restart game
- F4: fullscreen toggle
- ALT-F4/ESC: close program
- SPACE: toggle pause/resume of Bugz
- ARROWS/WSAD: move view
- CTRL-B: Bugz selection menu
- +/-: zoom in/out
GMTunes has been in the works on and off for some years but still needs work. A list of supported and unsupported features lies below.
- Intro movie support (utilises gmlibsmacker extension)
- 60 FPS gameplay (game originally ran at 30, configurable via INI)
- Reconstruction of the original SimTunes GUI, and an optional fallback GUI (WIP)
- 'empty' no-Bugz playfield state, can load SimTunes
.bugfiles and pick from WIP selection menu - Level loading of JSON-based
.gmtunformat, SimTunes.gal"Gallery" files and.tunsave files - Saving games in JSON-based
.gmtunformat and experimental support for SimTunes.tunformat - Stamp features (except stamp tiling mode)
- enhanced 'Watch' mode that actually tracks Bugz movement
- Background loading (.BAC files)
- Bugz loading (.BUG files)
- Undo button
- Help dialog
- Music view of notes (TBA)
- Switching off of control note views (TBA)
- 'Explore' (AKA 'Field') tab features
- Tutorial room not implemented, instead leads to a debug room for testing/research
- Some menus and buttons in UI aren't yet hooked up, most file explorer features using Windows
get_open_filename_ext - MIDI support (GM has no native support: requires an extension to be written, MIDI data needs further understanding)
- Configuration menu (planned, but a lot of original INI config options SimTunes had are obsolete)
This project would likely never have gotten off the ground without the help of the SimTunes Community Discord server, and particularly the efforts of users 'Yellow' and 'lucasvb'.