Let me update you on why you have not seen any of the low hanging creator fixes this year. Currently I am the one slated of update creator. As many of you know I am also the one currently doing Android fixes and a lot of the bugs fixes that are going into the nightly builds. I am also responsible for creating all the builds including the nightly builds. Once i can get out build system shore up and fix a good amount of the bugs you guys have reported I plan on working on Mac Creator. I am sorry it is taking so long to get to them but we have been prioritizing stabilizing the engine over woking on creator.
As for the lack of nightly builds. I am currently fixing and improving how we create builds so i can spend more time working on fixing bugs instead of making builds. We should return to having more nightly builds some time next week.
I don't believe it is negativity. More like a lot of love for a game engine from a lot of long time users that have the best interest for GS and its users in mind.
In regards to the @CodeWizard numbered list, I'm looking forward to number 6 more than the others. I haven't been able to release a couple of apps on Android due to problems with animations, and a major sound volume issue. The volume on my finished Apple apps are fine, but it usually sounds weak on the Kindle Fire HD. The volume is lower on other Android devices as well, but I expected it to be great on the Kindle Fire HD, HTC One and other newer devices because of the better speakers. I've actually had to work with another engine to release certain apps, but I'd rather primarily use GameSalad since I've used it for years, and it fits my style of games more.
Anyways, looking forward to engine optimizations, Stretch mode or something similar, custom fonts, and an Android ad service that pays.
Overall GameSalad is great, but it has potential to be GREAT.
Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated @BlackCloakGS Whether you prioritised engine stability or the creator there would always be people who disagree with the decision. Either way things are all moving in the right general direction so it's all good from where I'm sitting.
I wouldn't say people are being negative, just being honest, open and frank, constructive criticism should be welcomed.
I write music for a living (TV/film), and do you know what I would do if someone took the time to write out a few hundred words on what they feel are shortcomings in my music ?
I'd encourage them to expand on their views, to apply their critical eye to other areas, technical, artistic and so on, I'd probably even pay them to do it.
What I wouldn't do is label them 'negative' and stick my fingers in my ears, an evolving environment needs as much feedback and input as it can get from those working in that environment . . . and that feedback needs to be honest and accurate. Kind and encouraging is nice, honest is valuable.
The only bug ive ran into so far . . .
I know you've only joined GameSalad less than a week ago (the forum at least) and made less than 10 posts, but people who've been here for two or three years really aren't making this stuff up, there are a number of issues that really need to be looked at and they just remain release after release, month after month, year after year, I don't think it's unreasonable for even the most loyal GameSalad user to get frustrated from time to time.
Not sure if this has been discussed before but, alongwith with async mutliplayer, it would be extremely useful to have facebook login integration added for Android and iOS. Not only will it be useful for multiplayer games, but can be extremely useful in driving advertising on social media. :-*
I am trying to stay positive, and I'm looking forward to the custom fonts feature above all else really. Though that's not mentioned here.
The Tizen stuff I googled quickly and I'm not interested in that at all really, so from a personal point of view I don't see the value in allocating resources to it.
Sure, more platforms would be nice but I think the community would prefer exporting to standard windows (XP/7) so that we can at least make stuff for consideration on Steam, which is where a lot of Indie stuff gets noticed these days...
Better HTML5 would also help, especially after having read this:
What seem like small features or 'low hanging fruit' (such as my suggestion to add something to indicate the 'otherwise' section of a rule was in use) are being put on the back burner it seems.
But overall, across many years, I've noticed that features appear to happen in a half-hearted manner.
We got GameCenter leaderboards, but had to wait months for achievements.
We got Android publishing, but no news (other than the Amazon stuff) for leaderboards and achievement systems.
We got iPad publishing, but universal apps took forever to come.
We got Twitter integration, but still no sign of adding Facebook.
You know, I could go on. I love using this software, and I know that resources are tight. I can do pretty much all I want to with it, but I recognise that it could be so much more as well.
In short, I kinda look forward to these updates every week (thanks GS team!) but I tend to leave them a little disappointed too.
Not sure if this has been discussed before but, alongwith with async mutliplayer, it would be extremely useful to have facebook login integration added for Android and iOS. Not only will it be useful for multiplayer games, but can be extremely useful in driving advertising on social media. :-*
I am trying to stay positive, and I'm looking forward to the custom fonts feature above all else really. Though that's not mentioned here.
The Tizen stuff I googled quickly and I'm not interested in that at all really, so from a personal point of view I don't see the value in allocating resources to it.
Sure, more platforms would be nice but I think the community would prefer exporting to standard windows (XP/7) so that we can at least make stuff for consideration on Steam, which is where a lot of Indie stuff gets noticed these days...
Better HTML5 would also help, especially after having read this:
What seem like small features or 'low hanging fruit' (such as my suggestion to add something to indicate the 'otherwise' section of a rule was in use) are being put on the back burner it seems.
But overall, across many years, I've noticed that features appear to happen in a half-hearted manner.
We got GameCenter leaderboards, but had to wait months for achievements.
We got Android publishing, but no news (other than the Amazon stuff) for leaderboards and achievement systems.
We got iPad publishing, but universal apps took forever to come.
We got Twitter integration, but still no sign of adding Facebook.
You know, I could go on. I love using this software, and I know that resources are tight. I can do pretty much all I want to with it, but I recognise that it could be so much more as well.
In short, I kinda look forward to these updates every week (thanks GS team!) but I tend to leave them a little disappointed too.
Let's see what the future brings
QS
If we had plugins we could solve all of this ourselves.
Make them for free? Why is it people think everyone wants to work hard making things for free? People deserve to be paid for their efforts, this is how we show appreciation and respect in a civilized society. Too many moochers.
Any movement on improvements to GameSalad Creator, I honestly think that's really what people are waiting for.
What are these improvements you speak of that I'm waiting for?
Apologies if you thought I was speaking for you (I did stick the 'think' caveat in there).
The things I'm referring to are improvements to the actual Creator itself, layout tools, guides, rulers, snap to grid when laying out a scene, duplicate / step and repeat, windows that retain their settings if you move focus, 'live' access to attributes, resolution to long standing bugs like broken frame rates, multiple decimal point positions when dropping actors into a scene, interpolation glitch, image importing errors, image deletion errors, image sequence order loss, organisational features like a folder hierarchy for assets, the ability to grab a large scene and move around it (like the hand tool in Photoshop), the ability to constrain an option+drag, the ability to zoom in and out of a scene . . . etc etc . . . basically modern tools and workflow you'd expect from an application in 2013, I'm sure you know the list, I'm certainly not the first to list any of these things, and there are many more.
And all of this is without venturing into the exotic world of things like custom fonts, joints or layer control (etc) which I am happy to - personally - relegate to the ranks of the improbable, I am just talking about very basic tools / fixes that people have been requesting for years but they never seem to get any nearer.
I agree with @Socks. I really think the GameSalad team is not smart by working on things like this Tizen support. Look at the above list. At least 50% is arguably direly needed editor fixing and imrpoving, the next 50% something you'd expect from software sold for a few hundred.
The GameSalad team seems to be trying to do too many things at the same time. Sorry, I have made software and it's just ridiculous that many of those fixes have been waited on for years. They're trying to support too many platforms *and* are working on their own games. No wonder fixes that are fairly trivial to implement but vast workflow improvements take ages.
Please don't announce Ouya support or some other console/system. Trying to run while you're still crawling, it feels like. Also seems like some management is set on making cash short-term (let's add windows support, we get X amount of users and pro licenses!), but no one is really set on making it quality software. It's been "beta" for years, and indeed still feels like beta. But it shouldn't.
Sorry, I think things are improving, but I still think GameSalad needs to get real. @Hoodloc posted what I posted earlier too. A medium sized/bigger game makes those trivially fixable workflow problems more than just a hassle.
As far as I'm concerned, what Socks and Hoodloc mention needs to be TOP PRIORITY.
Gamesalad inc needs reorganization at the top level corporate management positions. Corporate vision, focus and organization flows from the top down. Although, there have been great changes at the mid level of management we still see the same trend of a return to dysfunction. This can only lead a reasonable mind that understands corporate structure and leadership that the common denominator is that there have been no changes at the top level. I know GS got their first round of funding and never went for round 2 as is common to most all start ups. To take it to the next level they need more funding. Round 2 funding and proper allocations of those funds, as in hiring a full compliment of engineers to push the software over the hump. Look at the list one man is working on, that should never be. One man working on Creator, android, nightly et... There should be a team of people working on creator full time. A team of people working on windows. A team of people working on Android. A team of people working on iOS. What I feared the most was @codewizard being swallowed by the existing corporate dysfunction and it seems I see that happening.
. . . why you have not seen any of the low hanging creator fixes this year.
The fact that these things are discussed in terms of years, rather than weeks or months, speaks volumes, and this is just for the 'low hanging fruit' ! it doesn't bode well for more advanced features like custom fonts, joints or layer control.
Currently I am the one slated of update creator. As many of you know I am also the one currently doing Android fixes and a lot of the bugs fixes that are going into the nightly builds. I am also responsible for creating all the builds including the nightly builds. Once i can get out build system shore up and fix a good amount of the bugs you guys have reported I plan on working on Mac Creator. I am sorry it is taking so long to get to them but we have been prioritizing stabilizing the engine over woking on creator.
This suggests what I suspect many of us think, that this stuff is simply not a priority for GameSalad, the job of much needed improvements and fixes to Creator has been handed over to a team of 1 ! And it's not even your first or only priority, it's right at the bottom of the list, coming after Android fixes and various bug fixes and the nightly builds.
I know you say GameSalad have been prioritizing the stabilisation of the engine, but in the years people have been asking for these issues to be addressed you've managed to work on IceCap Games and designing, making and selling templates and GameCircle integration and the HTML5 engine and Amazon IAP and Async and Tencent and PlayHaven and Homeschool Buyers Co-op and Twitter integration and creating the Market place and Tizen support and Kiip . . . and the list goes on . . . so I'm not entirely sure how you can put Creator's neglect down to prioritizing the stabilisation of the engine, it seems more like a case of it simply not being a priority ?
Isn't Creator the Golden Goose? The mother of all inventions? Don't engineers at GameSalad use it themselves? Is it not annoying to them too? I have been getting used to Creator for about 4 months now and I thought I must be using it wrong. Even copy and paste doesn't work. I know enough about programming that I can understand how Creator got to this point and I am grateful for all the work done. But I can't understand how it can just sit there as a work in progress but with no real improvements to the problems that everyone sees after using Creator for just a few days.
Finally, even if I am forgiving, the next generation of programmers won't. They never had to look under the hood and have no intention of doing so. If Creator is not intuitive they will walk away.
I am a teacher and if one of my students realizes that he has just lost 2-3 hours of work completely because of a crash and no auto save, he might just quit my class. (High School, 9 and 10)
If you want more love and appreciation from the developers (and I know you do) you will put Creator on the front burner and leave it there permanently. Then we will shower you with so much affection you will never want for more!
I would like to see some sort of simple alignment tool, Top align center, left right equal spacing etc, things that are on any decent vector graphic package. (I know this is raster) Also, the one thing that lets this product down is ability to make a custom shape or path.
Rectangles or circles is a bit limiting if your trying to plan ahead for a game in 1-2 years. Is there going to be any inclusion of a custom shape or path? ever? please respond GS overlords?
Im glad to see others are getting annoyed with the lack of creator/editor updates and its seemingly bottom priority compared to all the other projects that the heads at Gamesalad always deem to be more important.
Its been an issue raised and argued for over 3 years now... and still, the GS management dont seem to realise that the creator is the pivotal part of the development system, and as such, it should always be top priority... and should always be seeing constant improvements instead of being left to rot.
We're forever being told that theres some new big update on the horizon... that always seem to take forever, and seems to eat up the whole of the GS engineering capacity... and then, when, or even if those projects actually see fruition, theyre often broken, incomplete or just simply implemented in such a way that handicaps developers if they try to use them. Half of the big hyped projects either get terminated before completion, or terminated after being live a while and then shown to just not work or be too much hassle to continue support for.
Its time GS management stopped chasing every new fad that appears... and just concentrate on fixing and improving the core toolset. The only way Gamesalad as a company is really going to survive in the long term, is if it gets more serious developers/studios onboard.. as theyre the ones willing to pay for a product... but unless the core tools see improvements, and contain at least basic commonly accepted features seen in most editors these days, its never going to be taken seriously, and will just remain a tool widely derised as being just for hobbyists...
We're arguing the same argument for 3 years now... and still the creator hasnt been given basic functionality like copy and paste, layer tools, or folders to name the lowest of the low hanging fruits...
It shouldnt matter how many engineers GS has... the creator should always be given top priority... and theres no excuse whatsoever why priority is always given to half baked ideas that more often than not only benefit a fraction of the user base, if they actually work at all.
Ive watched the recent video of the CEO at the games conference... and although some of what he says makes sense.. I just came away from it wishing he'd actually stop and look at what his product actually does, compared to what he thinks, or wishes it does. Stop with the bullshit and hype, and just build a solid product that gains a bigger following by being reliable and solid to use.
Get the core of the product right first.. and then, and only then start adding all the additional projects.
I keep saying it.. a month of concentrated engineer time solely spent on improving the creator, without distraction, and adding all the "low hanging" improvements will bring the software forward in such a massive leap for every single user, that it shouldnt even be up for debate.
@Socks if someone can do that in three days, why the hell hasn't GS been able to do 50x that.
I think you are being generous with 50x, it's more like 300x or 400x that amount of time (seriously) !
)
EDIT: Whoops, I've just noticed that I've misread your post, you weren't referring to the amount of time taken with your '50x' . . . !
Yes, agreed, why couldn't GS have done any of this, they've had polls and surveys and endless user's requests and an inordinate amount of time, and they have the talent and staff and resources . . . etc.
GameSalad really does need to focus. I mean some extra features are great, but they need to organize themselves. If I were the CEO of GameSalad, here is what my plan would be.
50% of resources dedicated full time to creator improvements. These engineers would address the "low hanging fruit" of the creator. Things like layers, folders, etc. would be prioritized here. This would make the tool much more functional to use.
20% of resources focused on new features. Things like multiplayer, joints, custom fonts, etc. would be engineered by this group of people.
20% of resources focused on engine improvements. Memory improvements, sound, load times, FPS, etc. would be worked on by this team.
10% Platform support - Tizen, Ouya, Wii, etc. support would be engineered by this one or two person team.
Comments
Currently I am the one slated of update creator. As many of you know I am also the one currently doing Android fixes and a lot of the bugs fixes that are going into the nightly builds. I am also responsible for creating all the builds including the nightly builds. Once i can get out build system shore up and fix a good amount of the bugs you guys have reported I plan on working on Mac Creator. I am sorry it is taking so long to get to them but we have been prioritizing stabilizing the engine over woking on creator.
As for the lack of nightly builds. I am currently fixing and improving how we create builds so i can spend more time working on fixing bugs instead of making builds. We should return to having more nightly builds some time next week.
Anyways, looking forward to engine optimizations, Stretch mode or something similar, custom fonts, and an Android ad service that pays.
Overall GameSalad is great, but it has potential to be GREAT.
Website ∞ Twitter ∞ My apps are available on: Apple iOS App Store ∞ Google Play App Store ∞ Amazon App Store
I write music for a living (TV/film), and do you know what I would do if someone took the time to write out a few hundred words on what they feel are shortcomings in my music ?
I'd encourage them to expand on their views, to apply their critical eye to other areas, technical, artistic and so on, I'd probably even pay them to do it.
What I wouldn't do is label them 'negative' and stick my fingers in my ears, an evolving environment needs as much feedback and input as it can get from those working in that environment . . . and that feedback needs to be honest and accurate. Kind and encouraging is nice, honest is valuable. I know you've only joined GameSalad less than a week ago (the forum at least) and made less than 10 posts, but people who've been here for two or three years really aren't making this stuff up, there are a number of issues that really need to be looked at and they just remain release after release, month after month, year after year, I don't think it's unreasonable for even the most loyal GameSalad user to get frustrated from time to time.
- Thomas
The Tizen stuff I googled quickly and I'm not interested in that at all really, so from a personal point of view I don't see the value in allocating resources to it.
Sure, more platforms would be nice but I think the community would prefer exporting to standard windows (XP/7) so that we can at least make stuff for consideration on Steam, which is where a lot of Indie stuff gets noticed these days...
Better HTML5 would also help, especially after having read this:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/43682/GDC-13-Nintendo-supports-HTML5-with-web-framework-for-Wii-U
What seem like small features or 'low hanging fruit' (such as my suggestion to add something to indicate the 'otherwise' section of a rule was in use) are being put on the back burner it seems.
But overall, across many years, I've noticed that features appear to happen in a half-hearted manner.
We got GameCenter leaderboards, but had to wait months for achievements.
We got Android publishing, but no news (other than the Amazon stuff) for leaderboards and achievement systems.
We got iPad publishing, but universal apps took forever to come.
We got universal apps, but it's not as simple as we'd like (though stretch might help, and Jon's suggestion here is a nice idea: http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/59473/enhancement-to-the-letterbox-function#latest)
We got Twitter integration, but still no sign of adding Facebook.
You know, I could go on. I love using this software, and I know that resources are tight. I can do pretty much all I want to with it, but I recognise that it could be so much more as well.
In short, I kinda look forward to these updates every week (thanks GS team!) but I tend to leave them a little disappointed too.
Let's see what the future brings
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
however I agree that it would be better for them to be built in
:-)
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
The GameSalad team seems to be trying to do too many things at the same time. Sorry, I have made software and it's just ridiculous that many of those fixes have been waited on for years. They're trying to support too many platforms *and* are working on their own games. No wonder fixes that are fairly trivial to implement but vast workflow improvements take ages.
Please don't announce Ouya support or some other console/system. Trying to run while you're still crawling, it feels like. Also seems like some management is set on making cash short-term (let's add windows support, we get X amount of users and pro licenses!), but no one is really set on making it quality software. It's been "beta" for years, and indeed still feels like beta. But it shouldn't.
Sorry, I think things are improving, but I still think GameSalad needs to get real. @Hoodloc posted what I posted earlier too. A medium sized/bigger game makes those trivially fixable workflow problems more than just a hassle.
As far as I'm concerned, what Socks and Hoodloc mention needs to be TOP PRIORITY.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
I know you say GameSalad have been prioritizing the stabilisation of the engine, but in the years people have been asking for these issues to be addressed you've managed to work on IceCap Games and designing, making and selling templates and GameCircle integration and the HTML5 engine and Amazon IAP and Async and Tencent and PlayHaven and Homeschool Buyers Co-op and Twitter integration and creating the Market place and Tizen support and Kiip . . . and the list goes on . . . so I'm not entirely sure how you can put Creator's neglect down to prioritizing the stabilisation of the engine, it seems more like a case of it simply not being a priority ?
Finally, even if I am forgiving, the next generation of programmers won't. They never had to look under the hood and have no intention of doing so. If Creator is not intuitive they will walk away.
I am a teacher and if one of my students realizes that he has just lost 2-3 hours of work completely because of a crash and no auto save, he might just quit my class. (High School, 9 and 10)
If you want more love and appreciation from the developers (and I know you do) you will put Creator on the front burner and leave it there permanently. Then we will shower you with so much affection you will never want for more!
BTW This is my first post ever!
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/GameSalad-Reviews-E470163.htm
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Also, the one thing that lets this product down is ability to make a custom shape or path.
Rectangles or circles is a bit limiting if your trying to plan ahead for a game in 1-2 years.
Is there going to be any inclusion of a custom shape or path? ever? please respond GS overlords?
Its been an issue raised and argued for over 3 years now... and still, the GS management dont seem to realise that the creator is the pivotal part of the development system, and as such, it should always be top priority... and should always be seeing constant improvements instead of being left to rot.
We're forever being told that theres some new big update on the horizon... that always seem to take forever, and seems to eat up the whole of the GS engineering capacity... and then, when, or even if those projects actually see fruition, theyre often broken, incomplete or just simply implemented in such a way that handicaps developers if they try to use them. Half of the big hyped projects either get terminated before completion, or terminated after being live a while and then shown to just not work or be too much hassle to continue support for.
Its time GS management stopped chasing every new fad that appears... and just concentrate on fixing and improving the core toolset. The only way Gamesalad as a company is really going to survive in the long term, is if it gets more serious developers/studios onboard.. as theyre the ones willing to pay for a product... but unless the core tools see improvements, and contain at least basic commonly accepted features seen in most editors these days, its never going to be taken seriously, and will just remain a tool widely derised as being just for hobbyists...
We're arguing the same argument for 3 years now... and still the creator hasnt been given basic functionality like copy and paste, layer tools, or folders to name the lowest of the low hanging fruits...
It shouldnt matter how many engineers GS has... the creator should always be given top priority... and theres no excuse whatsoever why priority is always given to half baked ideas that more often than not only benefit a fraction of the user base, if they actually work at all.
Ive watched the recent video of the CEO at the games conference... and although some of what he says makes sense.. I just came away from it wishing he'd actually stop and look at what his product actually does, compared to what he thinks, or wishes it does. Stop with the bullshit and hype, and just build a solid product that gains a bigger following by being reliable and solid to use.
Get the core of the product right first.. and then, and only then start adding all the additional projects.
I keep saying it.. a month of concentrated engineer time solely spent on improving the creator, without distraction, and adding all the "low hanging" improvements will bring the software forward in such a massive leap for every single user, that it shouldnt even be up for debate.
..and yet... 3 years on... it still is...
Look at what one person has achieved in 3 days, not 3 years, but 72 hours !!
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/59532/custom-scene-editor-wip-grid-snap-to-grid-zoom-multi-select/p1
. . .
EDIT: Whoops, I've just noticed that I've misread your post, you weren't referring to the amount of time taken with your '50x' . . . !
Yes, agreed, why couldn't GS have done any of this, they've had polls and surveys and endless user's requests and an inordinate amount of time, and they have the talent and staff and resources . . . etc.
50% of resources dedicated full time to creator improvements. These engineers would address the "low hanging fruit" of the creator. Things like layers, folders, etc. would be prioritized here. This would make the tool much more functional to use.
20% of resources focused on new features. Things like multiplayer, joints, custom fonts, etc. would be engineered by this group of people.
20% of resources focused on engine improvements. Memory improvements, sound, load times, FPS, etc. would be worked on by this team.
10% Platform support - Tizen, Ouya, Wii, etc. support would be engineered by this one or two person team.