What causes GameMaker global variables carrying over after a restart?

Restarting by going back to the menu room does not clear globals, so a new game inherits the previous run's score, lives, and flags that were stored as global variables.

How do I catch this when it only happens for some players?

Capture it automatically from the player's device with the full stack trace, the device and OS, the build, and a breadcrumb trail of what they did. That turns a vague complaint into a specific, reproducible issue you can fix without owning the hardware it happens on.

How to Fix GameMaker Global Variables Carrying Over After a Game Restart

Quick answer: Reset every run-scoped global at the start of a new game (or use game_restart for a hard reset), since changing rooms alone leaves globals untouched.

Global variables in GameMaker live for the whole program run, not per room. Returning to the menu and starting again reuses the same globals unless you reset them deliberately.

How to fix it

1. Reset globals when a new game starts

Create a script that sets every run-scoped global back to its default and call it when the player starts a new game from the menu.

2. Use game_restart for a full reset

If you want a guaranteed clean slate, call game_restart(), which reinitializes the whole game including globals.

3. Separate run globals from settings

Keep persistent settings and unlocks in a saved file and only reset the run-scoped globals, so resetting a run does not wipe player preferences.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every GameMaker error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.

The errors you never hear about are the ones quietly costing you players. Visibility turns them into a worklist.