Luckily, I have enough cash to pay for both (actually, not paying anything for Unity as an Indie). Why drop one when I can keep using both (er, all of them)?
I love GameSalad. I love GameSalad, I love Unity, I love GameMaker, I love AIR, Flash, Construct, etc... To be quite honest, GS is definitely on to something with their simplistic approach to creating a game. It's been HUGE in helping me get started realizing my visions of game design I've had for so long, without having to re-learn to code in some complex language.
To be quite Honest, GS is amazing and it has the potential to become so much more. With the addition of @CodeWizard and the increase in pace at which things seem to be getting done by @BlackCloakGS, ala nightly builds, It feels GS is on the right track.
While they could probably infinitely cater the program to beginners in game development, it seems that the natural progression for those serious about game design as a way of life would be to move on to a platform that does not restrict you - an environment that allows you to code.
Basically at the moment with GS, If there's something you want to do that has not been implemented yet, you're sh*t outta luck and praying for the features you desperately need to be mentioned in the latest nightly build thread. And that's the way it is with anything that does not allow you to code.
People can post about Unity this, or GameMaker that, but ultimately, I think It's important that we first imagine our games and how they should be, and then choose the right way to get the job done.
Bottom line, you cannot find an easier way to take a 2d game concept from your mind to your mobile, than to use GS. I think most of us love GS so much, we just desperately want the features we want. With a limited team, they are only going to come so fast.
To the GameSalad team- It's gotta be tough spending your days working on a project that is someone else's dream. Just know this, there are a lot of us out here who appreciate every little update, every new little feature and all of the time you're spending making this program. We are demanding, we complain, we talk about leaving you, but in the end, we will always love you!
I feel fairly similarly. Unity is thriving and booming, and they are constantly optimising and adding more cool features every release. And I watched the whole Unite opening presentation the other day, and the 2D stuff was awesome, really exciting.
With the release of Nightly 00.99, I'm actually really pleased that Game Salad now seems to have a version of the creator that's ticked off some of the more annoying bugs that have been hanging around for many months. Improvements are very slow, and they obviously don't have much staff, and I find that extremely frustrating, having used Game Salad for about 2 years myself also.
I've also wondered whether a month by month subscription option could work with Game Salad. Personally, it galls me a bit that I have to keep paying for a Pro license of Game Salad, even if I'm not making any new games with it, just to upkeep my Playhaven revenues being paid through to me.
Perhaps there could be an option to pay for an "upkeep" license only, for those who are no longer publishing games, but want to still receive the money-streams they've worked so hard to build games for (via Playhaven, for example).
Unity just keep giving more and more away for free, now letting users publish to iOS and Android for FREE (with the Unity splash screen shown at startup), and have now added Shadows, and NavMesh support for the free users.
Game Salad still has some appeal for quickly dragging and dropping behaviours together. But as the project gets more complex, I think the problems with the slow down and clunkiness of some parts of the tools and pipeline really start to outweigh the benefits.
Anyway, I'm grateful for what I've learned with Game Salad, and it's really nice when the bug fixes come in, and it sounds like some good things are coming down the (rather thin) pipe. Let's just hope that some more wizards start to knock on the doors of GameSalad looking for some rambunctious wizarding to do. And may the wizards bring MILK! LOTS OF MILK!
GameSalad are in Austin, Texas, yeah? I really need to encourage old colleagues to head over there for work.
To the GameSalad team - It's gotta be tough spending your days working on a project that is someone else's dream. Just know this, there are a lot of us out here who appreciate every little update, every new little feature and all of the time you're spending making this program. We are demanding, we complain, we talk about leaving you, but in the end, we will always love you!
As has been said there is a tool for all needs. Having learned Unity I can say be prepared for a steep learning curve. It will demand twice the effort you put into learning GS. Development will take twice the time. I've been on the forums for three years and from my observations most people I see on here don't have that kind of determination and invest that kind of effort. The grass is always greener on the otherside. The facts are most people don't last in this industry more than two years. It's a brutal journey to climb into the ten percent that make decent money. I find in life most of the population lack the level of determination it takes to attempt it. Even having it isn't a guarantee you'll make it.
GS will get there it's just gonna take sometime. I have faith in @codewizard and he's doing what needs to be done to set things right.
Thanks for another positive sounding update. Can't wait to find out more about how a-sync multiplayer is going to be implemented and what limitations/options we have for it. Looking forward 10.0.4 as well.
@Codewizard Do you know if the Windows update will fix the compatibility problem with tables being read/written. My Point and click adventure game template works perfectly on the mac, but has issues reading/updating tables when you use the current Windows version.
As always Unity is looking awesome and offering new features ... but also still includes the steep learning curve. Which is made all the harder to endure when you know how quickly you can build things in GameSalad. I've tackled a few things in it... but it needs more time and understanding...nuff said.
As much as I love the GS team's enthusiasm. they aren't doing that good of a job objectively. Yes, I know development takes time, but there really haven't been any major features recently. The major recent features that I can think of: - Universal Builds - Writable Tables
These features are not very recent at all. It's been months since we have had any real progress. I think the GS team is kidding themselves with these weekly post. Sure, things seem great, but nothing is really ever finished. Let's take a look at some of the stuff that GS has been kidding themselves about. - Multiplayer (Hasn't happened yet) - Lua optimizations (Not really seeing any progress in any of my games) - Custom loading wheel (Never completed, engineer jumped to another project before it was finished) - Plugin Engine - (Talked about, nothing materialized) - JSON (Mentioned for about two weeks, then never heard of again) - Workflow improvements (We have been told that there would be improvements, but there hasn't been) - Bug Fixes (Nothing outstanding here) - Tizen support (Told it's almost done for months) - New Mac UI (What happened to this??? We were told it was a couple weeks out months ago) - HTML (I haven't seen any progress here.) - GS Ad bar - (No progress) - Ice Cap Games for Devs (Haven't heard that they were accepting game submissions) Endless more things that never have been accomplished. While I love the openness of development that GS has given us, they really need to focus on one or two features and excel.
Another question - why did gs abandon the lua free engine. While the answer is that codewizard saw more opportunities in the lua engine, it doesn't make sense. Why did they decide to not pursue something that WAS THE BEST IMPROVEMENT TO GS EVER? Honestly, I think we all saw the video comparing load times. Even with all the fancy lua optimizations, we aren't getting close to the lua free speeds.
The point is that we shouldnt be going all crazy until we actually get the finished feature in our hands. Once that happens, that is the time to go crazy with love for the team. But going crazy with praise for a team that hasn't given us anything concrete is not right. This false sense that GS is moving forward isn't really true. It seems to me that while CodeWizard and others are talking about all the cool possibilities of GameSalad, nobody should believe it until it's actually usable.
@team6labs ever run a business and by that a business that has a weekly 5 figure payroll? Ever managed a large group of people? You guys all shoot from the hip yet you have no idea what's involved in running a department or business. @codewizard was very clear on the problems he found that was clogging and creating problems in their process. Past management failed to address these issues. Now he is working to lay the proper foundation for being able to move the department forward properly and get things fixed properly on the backend. This is vital for the long term goals he has set. Anyone with experience having these types of responsibilities clearly understands that what he is doing right now is exactly what he should be doing. He is making progress lots of progress and the right kind of progress. This work they are doing on the backend will lead to a speedier process with less issues and distractions down the road. Being a great leader means you need the vision and patience to play the long game. Having experience managing million dollar projects, I completely understand what @codewizard is up to and how hard it is to accomplish. We all already complained last week and he gave a very candid responce and detailed the problems left by bad management that he's getting fixed. Show the guy some respect as he's been candid and forthcoming. I totally agree with his plan because it's the right one.
Good read @Codewizard and everyone else who doest get recognition. Some comments really make you wish there was a dislike button, I think people tend to forget that without GS existence they wouldn't be able create games. Hopefully a release is coming soon cause I am loving these features.
Well then if he is a CEO he should know better. Having a few people on payroll is much different than managing a large company. Making a $5000 payroll and managing 5 people is different from having a $50,000 payroll and managing 40 people. Even though my studio is a business I only have to manage me. This is a walk in the park compared to when I was managing 40 people and coordinating with other firms. I don't consider what I have now anything other than freelance at this point.
Well then if he is a CEO he should know better. Having a few people on payroll is much different than managing a large company. Making a $5000 payroll and managing 5 people is different from having a $50,000 payroll and managing 40 people. Even though my studio is a business I only have to manage me. This is a walk in the park compared to when I was managing 40 people and coordinating with other firms. I don't consider what I have now anything other than freelance at this point.
I think he meant he's a CEO of himself. Anyone these days can start a one man business and call themselves CEO. I prefer to be called 'Lord master of all Dominions' but that's just me.
I'm not attacking CodeWizard at all. I just think that they need to focus. To @jonmulcahy point, yes, but GS is metaphorically putting on several additions that never seems to pan out. I wish they would focus on getting one or two features down before starting the 12 or so features that never get done.
As much as I love the GS team's enthusiasm. they aren't doing that good of a job objectively. Yes, I know development takes time, but there really haven't been any major features recently.
I think Steve's advice for developers could also apply to GameSalad itself. Instead of trying to go for home runs, start hitting some base hits! My big problem with GameSalad isn't the lack of major features. It's the little things. Pro should mean pro!
Also, I don't really compare GameSalad to Unity. A good carpenter can have more than one hammer. GameSalad is what it is... a fast and easy way to make apps.
- Workflow improvements (We have been told that there would be improvements, but there hasn't been) - New Mac UI (What happened to this??? We were told it was a couple weeks out months ago)
I would love to see solid statistics on how many people are being hired to make things moving along faster. Some reason to think things are really going to pick up beyond a slow trickle.
I HATE having to scroll down my list of attributes looking for the one I know is there, knowing the name of it, but having to scroll through the non-sizeable little expression editor drown down box, hurting my brain, straining my hand, having to find an attribute manually. It's so annoying. It wastes so much time.
Would LOVE to see some general improvements to workflow, even if it meant being able to resize the expression editor box so you can see more attributes at once, instead of having to put your face up to the screen, and scroll as slow as you can to try to not miss the attribute as it scrolls past.
Some sort of auto-find / auto-complete would be a heaven send.
I HATE having to scroll down my list of attributes looking for the one I know is there, knowing the name of it, but having to scroll through the non-sizeable little expression editor drown down box
I find just searching through the list of attributes where we can set them equally annoying, the place where we add new attributes. Having them automatically sort in alphabetical order would be a massive time saver. And probably only a 10-20 minute fix.
Having them sort in alphabetical order everywhere including the drop down list has to be a lot easier to implement (for now) then an auto complete feature.
I've just noticed that you can sort the attributes yourself quite easily in an XML/text editor, if you want to save yourself 6 squids. Just open the gameproj file and edit the object.xml file. Do so at your own risk though, and make a backup, just in case it goes Pete Tong.
I think Gamesalad is a Great tool! Super easy, you can walk around almost any lack of features. The Only feature i miss is a change layer behavior. Is a bit exhausting and hits the game performance to have to constrain 5 actors in each layer just to create the illusion of a change layer behavior. I Know you have many request, thats the only one i think is holding me back. Thanks, an keep drinking milk!
Comments
Oh, I understand. I wish you luck on your next venture! Don't count us out though. We're drinking milk!
[runs for cover]
Xcode + Gamesalad + Unity3D + Visual Studio + Eclipse + Sublime == awesome sauce.
To be quite Honest, GS is amazing and it has the potential to become so much more. With the addition of @CodeWizard and the increase in pace at which things seem to be getting done by @BlackCloakGS, ala nightly builds, It feels GS is on the right track.
While they could probably infinitely cater the program to beginners in game development, it seems that the natural progression for those serious about game design as a way of life would be to move on to a platform that does not restrict you - an environment that allows you to code.
Basically at the moment with GS, If there's something you want to do that has not been implemented yet, you're sh*t outta luck and praying for the features you desperately need to be mentioned in the latest nightly build thread. And that's the way it is with anything that does not allow you to code.
People can post about Unity this, or GameMaker that, but ultimately, I think It's important that we first imagine our games and how they should be, and then choose the right way to get the job done.
Bottom line, you cannot find an easier way to take a 2d game concept from your mind to your mobile, than to use GS. I think most of us love GS so much, we just desperately want the features we want. With a limited team, they are only going to come so fast.
To the GameSalad team- It's gotta be tough spending your days working on a project that is someone else's dream. Just know this, there are a lot of us out here who appreciate every little update, every new little feature and all of the time you're spending making this program. We are demanding, we complain, we talk about leaving you, but in the end, we will always love you!
That's classic man.
I feel fairly similarly. Unity is thriving and booming, and they are constantly optimising and adding more cool features every release. And I watched the whole Unite opening presentation the other day, and the 2D stuff was awesome, really exciting.
With the release of Nightly 00.99, I'm actually really pleased that Game Salad now seems to have a version of the creator that's ticked off some of the more annoying bugs that have been hanging around for many months. Improvements are very slow, and they obviously don't have much staff, and I find that extremely frustrating, having used Game Salad for about 2 years myself also.
I've also wondered whether a month by month subscription option could work with Game Salad. Personally, it galls me a bit that I have to keep paying for a Pro license of Game Salad, even if I'm not making any new games with it, just to upkeep my Playhaven revenues being paid through to me.
Perhaps there could be an option to pay for an "upkeep" license only, for those who are no longer publishing games, but want to still receive the money-streams they've worked so hard to build games for (via Playhaven, for example).
Unity just keep giving more and more away for free, now letting users publish to iOS and Android for FREE (with the Unity splash screen shown at startup), and have now added Shadows, and NavMesh support for the free users.
Game Salad still has some appeal for quickly dragging and dropping behaviours together. But as the project gets more complex, I think the problems with the slow down and clunkiness of some parts of the tools and pipeline really start to outweigh the benefits.
Anyway, I'm grateful for what I've learned with Game Salad, and it's really nice when the bug fixes come in, and it sounds like some good things are coming down the (rather thin) pipe. Let's just hope that some more wizards start to knock on the doors of GameSalad looking for some rambunctious wizarding to do. And may the wizards bring MILK! LOTS OF MILK!
GameSalad are in Austin, Texas, yeah? I really need to encourage old colleagues to head over there for work.
GS will get there it's just gonna take sometime. I have faith in @codewizard and he's doing what needs to be done to set things right.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
@Codewizard
Do you know if the Windows update will fix the compatibility problem with tables being read/written. My Point and click adventure game template works perfectly on the mac, but has issues reading/updating tables when you use the current Windows version.
As always Unity is looking awesome and offering new features ... but also still includes the steep learning curve. Which is made all the harder to endure when you know how quickly you can build things in GameSalad. I've tackled a few things in it... but it needs more time and understanding...nuff said.
We've got milk
- Universal Builds
- Writable Tables
These features are not very recent at all. It's been months since we have had any real progress. I think the GS team is kidding themselves with these weekly post. Sure, things seem great, but nothing is really ever finished. Let's take a look at some of the stuff that GS has been kidding themselves about.
- Multiplayer (Hasn't happened yet)
- Lua optimizations (Not really seeing any progress in any of my games)
- Custom loading wheel (Never completed, engineer jumped to another project before it was finished)
- Plugin Engine - (Talked about, nothing materialized)
- JSON (Mentioned for about two weeks, then never heard of again)
- Workflow improvements (We have been told that there would be improvements, but there hasn't been)
- Bug Fixes (Nothing outstanding here)
- Tizen support (Told it's almost done for months)
- New Mac UI (What happened to this??? We were told it was a couple weeks out months ago)
- HTML (I haven't seen any progress here.)
- GS Ad bar - (No progress)
- Ice Cap Games for Devs (Haven't heard that they were accepting game submissions)
Endless more things that never have been accomplished. While I love the openness of development that GS has given us, they really need to focus on one or two features and excel.
Another question - why did gs abandon the lua free engine. While the answer is that codewizard saw more opportunities in the lua engine, it doesn't make sense. Why did they decide to not pursue something that WAS THE BEST IMPROVEMENT TO GS EVER? Honestly, I think we all saw the video comparing load times. Even with all the fancy lua optimizations, we aren't getting close to the lua free speeds.
The point is that we shouldnt be going all crazy until we actually get the finished feature in our hands. Once that happens, that is the time to go crazy with love for the team. But going crazy with praise for a team that hasn't given us anything concrete is not right. This false sense that GS is moving forward isn't really true. It seems to me that while CodeWizard and others are talking about all the cool possibilities of GameSalad, nobody should believe it until it's actually usable.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
Hopefully a release is coming soon cause I am loving these features.
Keep up the great work
Hey I'm sure he knows what your talking about. He is the CEO of his own company.
- Thomas
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
http://jamie-cross.net/posts/ ✮ Udemy: Introduction to Mobile Games Development ✮ Learn Mobile Game Development in One Day Using Gamesalad ✮ My Patreon Page
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
Also, I don't really compare GameSalad to Unity. A good carpenter can have more than one hammer. GameSalad is what it is... a fast and easy way to make apps.
That was a good analysis though - nice post!
I HATE having to scroll down my list of attributes looking for the one I know is there, knowing the name of it, but having to scroll through the non-sizeable little expression editor drown down box, hurting my brain, straining my hand, having to find an attribute manually. It's so annoying. It wastes so much time.
Would LOVE to see some general improvements to workflow, even if it meant being able to resize the expression editor box so you can see more attributes at once, instead of having to put your face up to the screen, and scroll as slow as you can to try to not miss the attribute as it scrolls past.
Some sort of auto-find / auto-complete would be a heaven send.
Having them sort in alphabetical order everywhere including the drop down list has to be a lot easier to implement (for now) then an auto complete feature.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Thanks for the recommendation. Just waiting for the activation code