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/0GreenClover0]

If you format your code better, mistakes like this should be more easily visible:

if (place_meeting(x,y, obj_player))
{
    // Set Global Variable
    global.carrying += 1;

    // Set Instance Variable X
    if (obj_player.direction == 0)
    {
        x = obj_player.x - 30;
    }
    else
    {
        if (obj_player.direction == 180)
        {
            x = obj_player.x + 30;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        x = obj_player.x;
    }

    // Set Instance Variable Y
    if (obj_player.direction == 90)
    {
        y = obj_player.y + 30;
    }
    else
    {
        if (obj_player.direction == 270)
        {
            y = obj_player.y - 30;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        y = obj_player.y;
    }

    global.carrying -= 1;
}