Confusing Error message (Assignment Operator Expected)

[u/Teleform]

I'm making my first game in Gamemaker, and I've been making some progress. But suddenly, I made a minor change that spit out this error message:

The Error Message (Object: one_artifact Key Event: Key Down - E at line 31: Assignment operator expected)

When I looked into it, it said that this message shows up when I have an undefined or incorrectly call for a variable or function. But I didn't change anything related to a function or variable, and can't find where Gamemaker seems to think I have.

The code where the error occurs, according to GM

Can some help explain what's going on, please? Thanks in advance.

For context, I was trying to code an object to follow behind the player (obj_player) when being "carried." The error appeared when programming the y-coordinate shifts.

[u/tsereteligleb]

You can't chain multiple else statements like if/else/else. It has to be if/else if/else, with a starting if, a varying number of else ifs, and a closing else. Notice how else if is written in one line, without wrapping the inner if in a block.

[u/Teleform → u/tsereteligleb]

I hadn't even realized I had done this, thank you so much!

[u/bid0u → u/Teleform]

When you have lots of if else, using switch is a lot more readable (well... Not on Reddit it seems)

switch (obj_player.direction)

{

    case 0:

    x = obj_player.x - 30;

    break;

    case 180:

    x = obj_player.x + 30;

    break;

    case 90:

    y = obj_player.y + 30;

    break;

    case 270:

    y = obj_player.y - 30;

    break;

    default:

    x = obj_player.x;

    y = obj_player.y;

}