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Situation: This is a problem that I don't know if it is actually a problem yet: I've got initialization of variables like food, stamina and so forth, in an object called obj_Global_Variables, on its Create Event.

Question: How do I stop it from reinitializing said global variable each time the room is opened? (which, I assume, creates the objects in the room again).

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When you declare and initialize a variable in the Create Event of an object, such variable is not a global variable, but an instance one. That means, as it occurred to you, that every time the object is instantiated, its instance variables are set to their default value.

If you don't want such variables to be reinitialized every time the room starts, you can try two different approaches:

  • Global variables: instead of having your food, stamina, and other variables declared in the Create Event of obj_Global_Variables, you can make them variables of the special object global. This way, they will be accessible by any instance of your application, and won't be reinitialized until you close and reopen your game manually, or the function game_restart() is executed. You can declare them in the Game Start Event of the very first instance created in the very first room ran in your game. Otherwise, you can put an instance in charge of declaring them in its Create Event, and make sure such code script is executed only once.
  • Persistent object: you can make your object obj_Global_Variables persistent. A persistent object is not destroyed when moving from a room to another, thus restarting a room won't have such object being destroyed and instantiated once again. And that means its instance variables won't be reinitialized, and will store they current values until the instance is somehow destroyed. The persistent variable can be set both in the Object window and via GML code.

Both strategies are good enough for your goals, although many programmers discourage using global variables (not only in GM:S, but also in C, C++, Java, and many other programming languages) because of them being global. A global variable is accessible by any class or instance, and that means if you are not aware of code execution order among instances toward such variables, you may get unexpected results. On the other hand, if the only reason you are using global variables is not losing its value during execution, if only one instance at time is in charge of reading/writing such variables, then it would be acceptable to use them.

Also, never forget global variables in GM:Studio can't be deallocated, because you can't simply destroy the special instance global. So, make global as few variables as possible, or you'll be wasting memory space.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ lol. Yeah. I meant Global.Food, and so on. But I didn't know about the Global object. I'll be reading on that. Thanks so much. I also didn't know about the Game Start event. That....actually incredibly useful. And yes. Thank you! I kept thinking I needed to make the variables persistent, not the object. Derp. Thanks. And love the warnings. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 12, 2016 at 11:17

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