One of the main parts of making a game of any form is exporting or compiling the final program into something usable by an audience. In GameMaker, we have multiple options for this, some more complicated than others. Some exports require external programs and software development kits to work (the Windows platform, however, is extremely simple).

The first step of exporting a game is, of course, making a game to export. This may be a prototype, an incomplete demo, or a full feature game ready for release. The only thing necessary to actually export to the Windows platform is at least one room.

To change the export platform that GameMaker will use, simply change the target shown at the top of the GameMaker interface:

Set this to Windows if it's not already done.

At this point, there are two options to export our game. We can click on the File drop-down menu at the top-left corner of the GameMaker interface and select Create Application:

Or, we can also use the export application...