GameSalad's issues seem so stem from poor QA. Some bugs slipping through the net are understandable, but +5mb memory every time a level is reloaded? Checking for memory leaks and GS behavior on reload should surely be on the QA dept's check list?
What amazes me even further is when someone has an opinion about something, someone else tries to squash it with stupid replies like, if you don't like it learn another program or extra features don't make your game any better,the fundamental issue here is with every release comes a new set of problems,now if you can't handle that fact then go learn,no sorry haha.but seriously why do people keep saying game salad are working really hard to give you what you want stop badgering them,come on guys,if I don't perform consistently at work I'll get the sack simple,I'm paying for a product,which in turn pays people's wages,so I have a right to speak out about a product that seems to lack a lot of features,and what's clearly stated on the roadmap is not being adhered to.just because gamesalad is easy to use is not an excuse to let them off,you need to work harder,you need to pay more attention to your paying members,because without them,well you wouldn't have a business.i cannot believe that you would release this update knowing that ram usage is a massive issue in the first place,to actually increase it even more.gamesalad said that ram usage and loading times are going to be addressed well you failed and you talk about one step forward toward coming out of beta,well I say you've taken 2steps back.
akstudiodevelopment said: What I cannot understand is why many people (in general) keep complaining about GameSalad every time an update comes out, expecting everything to be released at their demand. There are a lot of features to come, but so far I believe they have made an amazing piece of software that allows everyone to avoid actual coding! As others have stated, to create software that allows users to drag and drop SO EASILY requires a lot of time and effort.
Simple - If your not happy, learn Cocos2d or Lua... or try and make something better that GameSalad!
I love it when an update comes out. Whether the update is big or small, all good things take time!
So I was like "wow!...a debugger... this could really be a great update for once!"
Then I had a play with it... and honestly, major disappointment. For what it does, and how it works, its no better than adding our own text debuggers. All it does is sends a text to an external window... and even then the window doesnt keep up and update so the latest action is displayed... we have to constantly keep hitting the scroll down button to see whats going on. Implementing it, is no different than adding our own text debuggers, but at least text debuggers are constatly updated visibly on screen.
I dont know what other users think.... but for me, in its current state, its a big waste of time.
I do wish GameSalad would get more input on how it implements new features....
Im starting to get the impression that maybe theres an issue over at GS Towers where the core of the tool/editor was written by a coder that no longer works there, and that new coders dont seem to be able to figure out his/her code.
Its the only explanation I can think of as to why we keep getting such lacklustre updates, and why the meatier updates to the core editor that we've been crying out for for so long never seem to materialize....
So I was like "wow!...a debugger... this could really be a great update for once!"
Then I had a play with it... and honestly, major disappointment. For what it does, and how it works, its no better than adding our own text debuggers. All it does is sends a text to an external window... and even then the window doesnt keep up and update so the latest action is displayed... we have to constantly keep hitting the scroll down button to see whats going on. Implementing it, is no different than adding our own text debuggers, but at least text debuggers are constatly updated visibly on screen.
I dont know what other users think.... but for me, in its current state, its a big waste of time.
I do wish GameSalad would get more input on how it implements new features....
Im starting to get the impression that maybe theres an issue over at GS Towers where the core of the tool/editor was written by a coder that no longer works there, and that new coders dont seem to be able to figure out his/her code.
Its the only explanation I can think of as to why we keep getting such lacklustre updates, and why the meatier updates to the core editor that we've been crying out for for so long never seem to materialize....
Disappointing..... very disappointing....
Exactly .. Don't get this the wrong way , but this debugger is no different than a simple display text , Farther more , display text show you constant change in the attribute , with the debugger behavior we need to use a timer ... are you for real?! and it scrolls down so you dont see the new results coming, you need to scroll down all the time . i was hoping to see a debugger where i can choose which attribute to track in RUN TIME , and not use a behavior to activate it , i have 750 instances , im not gonna put a debugger behavior in every one of them. I NEVER complained about updates , but this update has crossed the line , a lazy debugger , keyboard input ?! , in the surveys there were far more urgent things! and memory leak again?! Does GS really have QA or is it an excuse to delay an update for another day or two? Very disappointed , i wish they just fix the 0.96 bugs and leave it as it was .
What i dont understand is why we have to wait so long for such simple feature implementations... and ones that often dont even work properly, or worse, simply break things.
When Ive worked inhouse with coders, at studios developing and using their own inhouse editors, you'll put in a request for the editor to snap to grid, multiple select/copy paste, or display floating co-ordinate windows, and in most cases, the tools coders would have them implemented and working by the following day....
Im not saying its all straightforward, and simple.... but it does make me question whats going on in the development department over at GS HQ....
P-O-M said: The update is nice , however the new memory issue is a big party popper , i don't understand how this build went trough QA , i mean.. don't they see it?!
I wouldn't blame QA so quickly. I've done that job and I can tell you, the best QA in the world is useless if no one is listening.
There's no way for users to know why new showstopping issues are introduced in new releases, but I'd suggest we start requesting stability before features. As a Pro user, it means a great deal more.
ok, usually i'm the one speaking against the crowd... (well i guess i still am this time) i think even though there are bugs and imperfection at least they tried to pick up items left off the roadmap and added another feature that a lot of us wanted... which I also think has a lot of potential. I do agree with everyone that the memory leak is somewhat unacceptable, but at least as a platform in general it's stepping in the right direction.... for me personally i think during the development of a beta version it's quite unacceptable to be going in the wrong direction even if the platform is flawless. but if the platform is going in the right direction (which it seems like it is) i can live with some bugs and inconvenience during the development...
it's like going down a water fall in a cruise ship vs going into the ocean with a small sail boat... i prefer the sail boat... for the long run...
so now that GS team has seen how many of their "royal" ace is raging about them being unprofessional... i think it's time for them to pick up the pace or pack up and go home.... i say.. learn from your mistake ... keep going... and never look back... go GS team... at least we are still here complaining instead of leaving..
oh and one more thing... If i was to consult for GS.. i'd hire tshirtbooth to record all official video... nothing against the person who's doing the release video... but mr.booth seems to be a natural when it comes to vocal presentation in warm and friendly way.. (perhaps from his t-shirt business? i mean gee if you can sell t-shirt you can sell anything)...
that doesn't mean i'm happy with this release... i'm not... i'm just happy that even the most royal defenders of GS seems to have stepped out of the depth to voice out their concern. and GS team is somewhat starting to understand that it's their users who make or break their business and not the other way around.
HTML 5 publishing was a pretty big feature guys and im sure that ate a lot of the dev time. I do agree though, we need to see more features from the list of people's request and a bit sooner than its currently taking you ... I havent tested yet but this increase in RAM is a major cock up ... Get that sorted asap, people cant make good games if the RAM usage is constantly going up leading to crashes!
Apparently, there's just one line of code to grab the unix timestamp.
initWithTimeIntervalSince1970
That will get the time stamp, allowing developers to easily create games like CityVille / FarmVille. The problem is this... can GameSalad handle numbers over six digits?
I just posted about the matter on my website... http://photics.com/gamesalad-updated-to-0-9-7 ...with my GameSalad games, I limit the score to six digits. That's because I've had problems with larger numbers.
So, why wasn't the timestamp included? I think there are three possible explanations...
1 - It wasn't implemented to protect developers from scary unix timestamps. If so, that's silly. Don't coddle GameSalad developers. By not including the timestamp, a lot of additional work is needed to use this feature.
3 - GameSalad didn't know. I find this possibility troubling. With 6.1 million dollars, something like this shouldn't be a problem.
I think a yellow post should address this question. Why wasn't the timestamp included? Was GameSalad trying to coddle us or was it a technical issue (Why can't GameSalad count to 100,000,000,000?)
hich4m said: i just realized that my game was working at 60 fps in 0.9.6 and now it's 51 fps , is it happening to anybody else ?
I'm not seeing performance issues. I think specifics might help GameSalad track down this issue... like what types of games are having performance issues?
I''m working on a game that's got a 14444 pixels wide scene. 1024x1024 images, lots of particles, parallax scrolling... but no issues... not yet anyway. Maybe it's because I haven't added music yet. Before and After memory usage stats might help too... is it an issue with images, audio or the game itself?!
You are joking right?! have you even tested ? did you made an ad-hoc build? did you see the data in the viewer? every change scene adds like 5mb of ram and every 30 seconds 0.5mb is added with no reason , and it never goes back down ! , play Annoyed Tomatoes for 10 minutes on 2nd gen and see how it crashes !
i'm talking about issues in the gs viewer in iPhone , of course in the mac it is unnoticeable , the game i'm working on is a platformer game , and it was 60 fps , now after the update 50 fps???????
I hate this ram increase I was working so hard to keep the ram at efficient levels and this update made me go over the limit .. The worst thing about it is that GS doesn't believe in patches no sir, we have to wait like 5-6 weeks for the next release. I understand that it can happen and it is normal to for a bug here and there to elude the QA team but what is not normal is having to wait a month or maybe more to get a fix that can maybe take days. The main reason why we use GS its because we can make amazing games in a quarter of the time that it normally would take with another SDK. But if we have to wait a month for a bug fix that is stopping us from release our game. Whats the point of paying you 500 dollars again GS?
Photics said: I'm not seeing performance issues. I think specifics might help GameSalad track down this issue... like what types of games are having performance issues?
i think anything more than a point and click game and you'll see performance issues.
P-O-M said: You are joking right?! have you even tested ? did you made an ad-hoc build? did you see the data in the viewer? every change scene adds like 5mb of ram and every 30 seconds 0.5mb is added with no reason , and it never goes back down ! , play Annoyed Tomatoes for 10 minutes on 2nd gen and see how it crashes !
Roy.
I'm serious, I didn't notice any issues. But, I decided to check things out...
I loaded up Annoyed Tomatoes, but that's not exactly an intensive game. It seemed normal. I loaded up the BOT #1 comic... it made it to the last page without any trouble. The RAM usage seemed normal. So, I decided to give it a really good test... second generation iPod Touch running BOT.
I don't have exact numbers to compare it to, so I couldn't tell if it was running right. I didn't notice any major issues at first. Sometimes it was 50-60 FPS, combat areas are 30-45, with drops down into the teens. I think it might have done that before. BOT was just playable on an iPod Touch Second Generation. It was never blazing fast.
...but then I saw something interesting. I left TANK standing around the main base. This is a highly optimized area, so the FPS is around 60 FPS. I was on the phone, chatting for a while, and then I went back to the game.
The RAM usage shot up from 20's to 50's. That's a big memory leak. I don't know if it's a new bug for version 0.9.7 though. The RAM usage more than doubled and I didn't do anything. I just left TANK standing still in an area without any major activity.
Basseman said: Surprise !!!!!!!!! Still no yellow post.... Scary.. I signed up for istencyl beta and got an answer within 4 hours.. Just à couple of days after that i got an email where the founder/creator was wondering how i was doing and there was something they could help me with... THAT'S how it should be...
That was Jon right? He's another legendary communicator, like Carlos over at Ansca Mobile. That's why my responses to the GameSalad updates have been negative. It's because I know that the competition is like. I know what they're working on. When I compare it to what's going on over here, it's really disappointing for GameSalad.
But to be fair, if I contacted GameSalad today, I would probably get a response today or tomorrow. I think the communication should be out in the open though. These are public issues, so they should have public responses.
Photics said: That was Jon right? He's another legendary communicator, like Carlos over at Ansca Mobile. That's why my responses to the GameSalad updates have been negative. It's because I know that the competition is like. I know what they're working on. When I compare it to what's going on over here, it's really disappointing for GameSalad.
But to be fair, if I contacted GameSalad today, I would probably get a response today or tomorrow. I think the communication should be out in the open though. These are public issues, so they should have public responses.
Agree with you there photics,i payed for a years subscription at corona and carlos emailed me the same day just to say welcome and point me in the right direction,its just nice and polite people like that who make you feel welcome.and that they care about the product they they are selling to you,Here, they make you feel like they are doing you a favour by letting you pay the membership for the year,then when anyone has a negative comment,you get pounced on by the sous chefs.i suppose its like the government and police,the government tell you that taxes are going up then when people show they disapprove the police come along and knock you down.talking of which I'm surprised we haven't had one pop his little head in,in disapproval of the negative comments,were as i would call them constructive criticism but hay!
Seriously, Yodapollo or Lauren, GS need to post a sticky on the memory issues discussed above stating what is being done to correct those issues and, if not a specific date when they will be fixed an estimate of when they will be. Then if the estimate is not going to be met an explanation of why and a new estimated date as soon as GS realizes it's not going to be met. Many of us (including me) are paying customers. And while we bought in knowing it wAs beta software and, therefor, have a little less reason to complain about lack of features, we certainly have the right to and should be pissed about the significant memory issues that with the latest update has move GS creator back to being useless for all but the simplest of games. We did not pay for software to get worse. Also, how do you expect to get additional users, especially paying ones, when the first thing a potential new user likely reads on the forums is about those issues and GS backward movement.
I can unfderstand a little the lag in new features and in updating the roadmap but not the memory issues, especiAlly when they are just getting worse with very update. It seems to me that ever since you got the 6m in seed money, GS qualityassurance has been worse, updates are taking longer and/or have more bugs. This can only make me think that those currently controlling GS simply do not care about their current users and are concentrating on a different method of monitizing GS (e.g. Cutting costs for a potential buyout or IPO). If that is the case you are leaving loyal and paying customers in the dirt. I am in the professional services business and if I operAted with the minimal communication you all provide I would be in the poorhouse. Get it together and at least let us know what's going on.
Thank you for all your feedback on the 0.9.7 release. We were really excited to bring new features like iOS keyboard, device time, and the de-bugger to our community of users.
However, we are aware that with the 0.9.7 release we unfortunately introduced a serious issue in regard to Game Engine Memory within the GameSalad Viewer.
Here is how we defined this issue internally:
GS Viewer: Game Engine memory constantly increases with each scene change
Basically, projects will have a memory increase every time a scene change happens (size of increase depends on how massive the project is). This means that eventually the project could crash on the device due to lack of memory.
This is a critical bug and we have been working hard to resolve this issue immediately. We apologize and completely understand your frustration.
We are happy to announce that we will be releasing a fix for the bug TODAY with a 0.9.71 release.
Along with this release, we will also be integrating new templates (iOS keyboard and device clock) into Creator for your use.
However, we are aware that with the 0.9.7 release we unfortunately introduced a serious issue in regard to Game Engine Memory within the GameSalad Viewer.
Here is how we defined this issue internally:
GS Viewer: Game Engine memory constantly increases with each scene change
Basically, projects will have a memory increase every time a scene change happens (size of increase depends on how massive the project is). This means that eventually the project could crash on the device due to lack of memory.
This is a critical bug and we have been working hard to resolve this issue immediately. We apologize and completely understand your frustration.
We are happy to announce that we will be releasing a fix for the bug TODAY with a 0.9.71 release. ... Thank you again for your feedback and patience.
However, we are aware that with the 0.9.7 release we unfortunately introduced a serious issue in regard to Game Engine Memory within the GameSalad Viewer.
Here is how we defined this issue internally:
GS Viewer: Game Engine memory constantly increases with each scene change
Basically, projects will have a memory increase every time a scene change happens (size of increase depends on how massive the project is). This means that eventually the project could crash on the device due to lack of memory.
This is a critical bug and we have been working hard to resolve this issue immediately. We apologize and completely understand your frustration.
We are happy to announce that we will be releasing a fix for the bug TODAY with a 0.9.71 release.
Along with this release, we will also be integrating new templates (iOS keyboard and device clock) into Creator for your use.
Thank you again for your feedback and patience.
hang on a second this bug has been there for god knows how long,and its only now you have decided to address it,i won't be so understanding,you and when i say you i don't mean you personally,have chosen to release little updates like image flipping when you could of been dealing with the major issue months ago,but when more than 1 person decides to shout then it becomes an issue worth investigating,this is what I'm talking about,a lack of respect for people paying to use your software.why would anyone release updates with bugs,when i know many people including sous chefs have been telling you for months and months that this bug needs dealing with.Im gob smacked really.
Thank you for all your feedback on the 0.9.7 release. We were really excited to bring new features like iOS keyboard, device time, and the de-bugger to our community of users.
However, we are aware that with the 0.9.7 release we unfortunately introduced a serious issue in regard to Game Engine Memory within the GameSalad Viewer.
Here is how we defined this issue internally:
GS Viewer: Game Engine memory constantly increases with each scene change
Basically, projects will have a memory increase every time a scene change happens (size of increase depends on how massive the project is). This means that eventually the project could crash on the device due to lack of memory.
This is a critical bug and we have been working hard to resolve this issue immediately. We apologize and completely understand your frustration.
We are happy to announce that we will be releasing a fix for the bug TODAY with a 0.9.71 release.
Along with this release, we will also be integrating new templates (iOS keyboard and device clock) into Creator for your use.
Thank you again for your feedback and patience.
Ok, that's good to hear that the issue is being fixed so fast
Will that fix include the frame rate drop? With 0.97 the frame rate in Honey Tribe (in the viewer) has dropped by about 10fps. And the 'other' part of the RAM has gone up from around 8mb to 15mb.
Comments
The keyboard and system time....couldn't really care less about though.
I'd much rather have had more features added to the scene editor
Another long wait, for seemingly not much. (A few bug fixes and 3 new features....2 of which I have so far not had a need for)
So I was like "wow!...a debugger... this could really be a great update for once!"
Then I had a play with it... and honestly, major disappointment. For what it does, and how it works, its no better than adding our own text debuggers. All it does is sends a text to an external window... and even then the window doesnt keep up and update so the latest action is displayed... we have to constantly keep hitting the scroll down button to see whats going on. Implementing it, is no different than adding our own text debuggers, but at least text debuggers are constatly updated visibly on screen.
I dont know what other users think.... but for me, in its current state, its a big waste of time.
I do wish GameSalad would get more input on how it implements new features....
Im starting to get the impression that maybe theres an issue over at GS Towers where the core of the tool/editor was written by a coder that no longer works there, and that new coders dont seem to be able to figure out his/her code.
Its the only explanation I can think of as to why we keep getting such lacklustre updates, and why the meatier updates to the core editor that we've been crying out for for so long never seem to materialize....
Disappointing..... very disappointing....
Don't get this the wrong way , but this debugger is no different than a simple display text ,
Farther more , display text show you constant change in the attribute , with the debugger behavior we need to use a timer ... are you for real?! and it scrolls down so you dont see the new results coming, you need to scroll down all the time .
i was hoping to see a debugger where i can choose which attribute to track in RUN TIME , and not use a behavior to activate it , i have 750 instances , im not gonna put a debugger behavior in every one of them.
I NEVER complained about updates , but this update has crossed the line , a lazy debugger , keyboard input ?! , in the surveys there were far more urgent things! and memory leak again?!
Does GS really have QA or is it an excuse to delay an update for another day or two?
Very disappointed , i wish they just fix the 0.96 bugs and leave it as it was .
Roy.
When Ive worked inhouse with coders, at studios developing and using their own inhouse editors, you'll put in a request for the editor to snap to grid, multiple select/copy paste, or display floating co-ordinate windows, and in most cases, the tools coders would have them implemented and working by the following day....
Im not saying its all straightforward, and simple.... but it does make me question whats going on in the development department over at GS HQ....
There's no way for users to know why new showstopping issues are introduced in new releases, but I'd suggest we start requesting stability before features. As a Pro user, it means a great deal more.
it's like going down a water fall in a cruise ship vs going into the ocean with a small sail boat... i prefer the sail boat... for the long run...
so now that GS team has seen how many of their "royal" ace is raging about them being unprofessional... i think it's time for them to pick up the pace or pack up and go home.... i say.. learn from your mistake ... keep going... and never look back... go GS team... at least we are still here complaining instead of leaving..
oh and one more thing... If i was to consult for GS.. i'd hire tshirtbooth to record all official video... nothing against the person who's doing the release video... but mr.booth seems to be a natural when it comes to vocal presentation in warm and friendly way.. (perhaps from his t-shirt business? i mean gee if you can sell t-shirt you can sell anything)...
It's documented here...
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSDate_Class/Reference/Reference.html
Apparently, there's just one line of code to grab the unix timestamp.
initWithTimeIntervalSince1970
That will get the time stamp, allowing developers to easily create games like CityVille / FarmVille. The problem is this... can GameSalad handle numbers over six digits?
I just posted about the matter on my website... http://photics.com/gamesalad-updated-to-0-9-7 ...with my GameSalad games, I limit the score to six digits. That's because I've had problems with larger numbers.
So, why wasn't the timestamp included? I think there are three possible explanations...
1 - It wasn't implemented to protect developers from scary unix timestamps. If so, that's silly. Don't coddle GameSalad developers. By not including the timestamp, a lot of additional work is needed to use this feature.
2 - Maybe GameSalad is bugged... but even at 32-BIT, GameSalad should be able to support Unix Timestamps until 2038... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem
3 - GameSalad didn't know. I find this possibility troubling. With 6.1 million dollars, something like this shouldn't be a problem.
I think a yellow post should address this question. Why wasn't the timestamp included? Was GameSalad trying to coddle us or was it a technical issue (Why can't GameSalad count to 100,000,000,000?)
I''m working on a game that's got a 14444 pixels wide scene. 1024x1024 images, lots of particles, parallax scrolling... but no issues... not yet anyway. Maybe it's because I haven't added music yet. Before and After memory usage stats might help too... is it an issue with images, audio or the game itself?!
Roy.
I know why they don't do patches - 0.9.8 .... 0.9.9 ..... dude we've run out of beta
I loaded up Annoyed Tomatoes, but that's not exactly an intensive game. It seemed normal. I loaded up the BOT #1 comic... it made it to the last page without any trouble. The RAM usage seemed normal. So, I decided to give it a really good test... second generation iPod Touch running BOT.
I don't have exact numbers to compare it to, so I couldn't tell if it was running right. I didn't notice any major issues at first. Sometimes it was 50-60 FPS, combat areas are 30-45, with drops down into the teens. I think it might have done that before. BOT was just playable on an iPod Touch Second Generation. It was never blazing fast.
...but then I saw something interesting. I left TANK standing around the main base. This is a highly optimized area, so the FPS is around 60 FPS. I was on the phone, chatting for a while, and then I went back to the game.
The RAM usage shot up from 20's to 50's. That's a big memory leak. I don't know if it's a new bug for version 0.9.7 though. The RAM usage more than doubled and I didn't do anything. I just left TANK standing still in an area without any major activity. That was Jon right? He's another legendary communicator, like Carlos over at Ansca Mobile. That's why my responses to the GameSalad updates have been negative. It's because I know that the competition is like. I know what they're working on. When I compare it to what's going on over here, it's really disappointing for GameSalad.
But to be fair, if I contacted GameSalad today, I would probably get a response today or tomorrow. I think the communication should be out in the open though. These are public issues, so they should have public responses.
Ram you Gamesalad
excuse the pun
I can unfderstand a little the lag in new features and in updating the roadmap but not the memory issues, especiAlly when they are just getting worse with very update. It seems to me that ever since you got the 6m in seed money, GS qualityassurance has been worse, updates are taking longer and/or have more bugs. This can only make me think that those currently controlling GS simply do not care about their current users and are concentrating on a different method of monitizing GS (e.g. Cutting costs for a potential buyout or IPO). If that is the case you are leaving loyal and paying customers in the dirt. I am in the professional services business and if I operAted with the minimal communication you all provide I would be in the poorhouse. Get it together and at least let us know what's going on.
Thank you for all your feedback on the 0.9.7 release. We were really excited to bring new features like iOS keyboard, device time, and the de-bugger to our community of users.
However, we are aware that with the 0.9.7 release we unfortunately introduced a serious issue in regard to Game Engine Memory within the GameSalad Viewer.
Here is how we defined this issue internally:
GS Viewer: Game Engine memory constantly increases with each scene change
Basically, projects will have a memory increase every time a scene change happens (size of increase depends on how massive the project is). This means that eventually the project could crash on the device due to lack of memory.
This is a critical bug and we have been working hard to resolve this issue immediately. We apologize and completely understand your frustration.
We are happy to announce that we will be releasing a fix for the bug TODAY with a 0.9.71 release.
Along with this release, we will also be integrating new templates (iOS keyboard and device clock) into Creator for your use.
Thank you again for your feedback and patience.
Will that fix include the frame rate drop? With 0.97 the frame rate in Honey Tribe (in the viewer) has dropped by about 10fps. And the 'other' part of the RAM has gone up from around 8mb to 15mb.