How to Fix a GameMaker .yyp Project File Merge Conflict in Git

After merging, GameMaker says the project is corrupt or a resource is missing. The .yyp is JSON, and a line-based merge can duplicate or drop entries in the resources array.

How to fix it

1. Merge the JSON arrays by hand

Open the conflicted .yyp in a text editor and combine the resources array so each resource from both branches appears once. Remove conflict markers and validate the JSON.

2. Check folder and order entries

GMS2 also tracks folders and the resource order. Reconcile the Folders and order sections too, or the resource tree will look empty or scrambled on open.

3. Reduce future conflicts

Have each developer work in separate scripts and objects, commit the .yyp whenever resources are added, and pull frequently so two people rarely edit the resource list at once.

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.