State of GameSalad on 2-27-2014
CodeWizard
Inactive, Chef Emeritus Posts: 1,143
Sorry for the delay in posting this, folks. 
We continue to turn the crank on fixing bugs and shoring up 0.11.0 for release. Here's the current at-a-glance status as of this morning:
We've closed out 20 bugs this week and continue finding more during our testing. I'm having the team to a bug triage today to make sure we're focused on only the most critical issues for release. I'll post another update once that's done.
I see quite a bit of frustration on the forums as of late. That's entirely understandable and I'm going to take the remainder of this post to discuss why this release is taking as long as it is. I've covered most of these issues in past posts but it never hurts to reiterate.
The first thing to understand is that release 0.11.0 contains some major changes to the code. We've done some major reworking of internal code structure and cleaned up a bunch of stuff. We've replaced things like how we load images, how we manage rendering, how we load Lua code, how we build the code, etc. This kind of work is risky business. It causes all manner of bugs and issues to arise. This is unavoidable when refactoring a large codebase. That's the main issue here.
Secondarily are the additions of major features like Chartboost & Revmob. These have been straightforward to implement but we are running into odd compatibility issues with various versions of Android that need to be sorted out. It's proving a bit more complicated than expected to get these systems to "just work."
There's also a handful of smaller issues that have recently derailed efforts on 0.11.0. Apple rejecting apps based on advertising identifier usage is a great example of this. This caused us to have to step back and fix some issues in 0.10.4. Versions of Creator / engine previous to 0.11.0 are using an older and less reliable system. It's quite a bit of extra work for us to build and maintain the older versions of the engine. Simply getting our old build server to reliably create binaries for testing is a risky task. But, all that aside, the true problem with this Apple rejection issue is that it forced us to add ad-hoc support for more engine binaries on the web publishing side. And that's been proving a messy system to update. We're tracking more versions of the game engine on the web and that system was not originally designed to handle this complexity. This has taken attention of several developers for a while to resolve.
It's critical for you to understand the importance of this code refactoring that we're doing. It serves as the basis for all work moving forward on current Creator.
Once we've release 0.11.0 to you then we'll turn our attention to smaller releases on a more rapid cycle. The high-level code restructure that we've been polishing up is the last major refactor coming to Creator for quite some time. Once it's stable and available we'll focus on smaller feature releases and targeted bugfixes & optimizations.
I also need to apologize for not having a stronger presence on the forums. I'm neck deep in my management work and a full-time coding load. I'll do my best to increase my presence here and will definitely ensure my weekly posts are more detailed than they have been as of late.
On a really positive note, we just signed on a 18-year game engine veteran that will be dedicated full time to working on Creator (Mac & Windows).
I'll update you again once the bug triage is complete. Sorry it's taking us so long, but the work we're doing to shore up the code and get our house in order is critical work.
We continue to turn the crank on fixing bugs and shoring up 0.11.0 for release. Here's the current at-a-glance status as of this morning:
We've closed out 20 bugs this week and continue finding more during our testing. I'm having the team to a bug triage today to make sure we're focused on only the most critical issues for release. I'll post another update once that's done.
I see quite a bit of frustration on the forums as of late. That's entirely understandable and I'm going to take the remainder of this post to discuss why this release is taking as long as it is. I've covered most of these issues in past posts but it never hurts to reiterate.
The first thing to understand is that release 0.11.0 contains some major changes to the code. We've done some major reworking of internal code structure and cleaned up a bunch of stuff. We've replaced things like how we load images, how we manage rendering, how we load Lua code, how we build the code, etc. This kind of work is risky business. It causes all manner of bugs and issues to arise. This is unavoidable when refactoring a large codebase. That's the main issue here.
Secondarily are the additions of major features like Chartboost & Revmob. These have been straightforward to implement but we are running into odd compatibility issues with various versions of Android that need to be sorted out. It's proving a bit more complicated than expected to get these systems to "just work."
There's also a handful of smaller issues that have recently derailed efforts on 0.11.0. Apple rejecting apps based on advertising identifier usage is a great example of this. This caused us to have to step back and fix some issues in 0.10.4. Versions of Creator / engine previous to 0.11.0 are using an older and less reliable system. It's quite a bit of extra work for us to build and maintain the older versions of the engine. Simply getting our old build server to reliably create binaries for testing is a risky task. But, all that aside, the true problem with this Apple rejection issue is that it forced us to add ad-hoc support for more engine binaries on the web publishing side. And that's been proving a messy system to update. We're tracking more versions of the game engine on the web and that system was not originally designed to handle this complexity. This has taken attention of several developers for a while to resolve.
It's critical for you to understand the importance of this code refactoring that we're doing. It serves as the basis for all work moving forward on current Creator.
Once we've release 0.11.0 to you then we'll turn our attention to smaller releases on a more rapid cycle. The high-level code restructure that we've been polishing up is the last major refactor coming to Creator for quite some time. Once it's stable and available we'll focus on smaller feature releases and targeted bugfixes & optimizations.
I also need to apologize for not having a stronger presence on the forums. I'm neck deep in my management work and a full-time coding load. I'll do my best to increase my presence here and will definitely ensure my weekly posts are more detailed than they have been as of late.
On a really positive note, we just signed on a 18-year game engine veteran that will be dedicated full time to working on Creator (Mac & Windows).
I'll update you again once the bug triage is complete. Sorry it's taking us so long, but the work we're doing to shore up the code and get our house in order is critical work.
Comments
As a side note, does anyone know how to add Chartboost to Gamesalad in the nightly builds? It's not a behavior, so I'm a little stumped.
Anyway Awesome.
I know I express my frustrations from time to time on here, but I honestly appreciate the hard work and I do understand that fixing that disgusting code base they called an engine must be riddled with migraines for you guys. My main frustrations have really just been centered around the fact that the ad networks (Mobclix specifically) have been known to be falling apart and all I wanted from you guys PRIOR to fixing the entire engine was simply to complete and release Revmob/Chartboost prior to taking on that enormous task. That way we could have had ad revenue tiding us over while we wait for you to finish this monstrous undertaking. In any case, when you finally finish 11.0 (hopefully very soon as I really am still very impatient at this point), I won't have any need to complain as I do now. You are simply withholding my most desperately needed feature (ads) which results in my complaints.
In any case, great work, keep it up, and please get 11.0 out in a clean and timely manner.
PS: If you guys could start providing accurate timelines in those cleaner and smaller stable builds that would be great. For many of us it is a business, and if we have no indication of a time frame it makes timing our projects and giving estimates to customers more of a challenge as well. Even if you guys can't meet that timeline, simply letting us know before then and being open about why goes a long way with morale and our support.
www.rossmanbrosgames.com
Looking forward to the stable release!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Then add the fact that Apple is constantly evolving and often requires developers to comply with its rules of programming.
Last thing to consider is the price that GameSalad takes to become a PRO member. I think dua a very reasonable figure given the potential gains that can be done with a good game.
Thank you very much Team of GameSalad, for giving me the possibility to develop games without having to write a single line of code. You are doing a great job!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
My other question is from what I see about "Ads" that seems to be a server side script that is implemented when we publish and not on the client side, so I am missing the mark on why we would need to wait for 0.11.0 anyways to place "Ads" in Android games.
Just asking.... Still great work!
0.11.0 has client-side changes to support Chartboost & Revmob. You enable them on the web-publishing side but the client changes are required for that to work.
I can take responsibility for making the call to put Chartboost & Revmob in the new 0.11.0 development branch. We needed to make the feature cut somewhere because it's a huge pain in our butts to maintain both versions. So I made that call.
Bug triage should be done soon and I'll post an update on this stuff.
Current ETA for the first release candidate is Monday / Tuesday.
I have 1 thing...to ask is there any chances to increase...the capacity of your Gamesalad servers.Because number of users growing every year , and servers are too busy to connect..it is too slow and not able to connect in peak times....showing.. server not found...or connection time out...while signing up and publishing time.
Thanks
Look forward to Next week!
BTW, I used the new table search feature to replace the 80 attribute dictionary hack (80,000 words) I was using for word games. It's fantastic. If anyone is interested I have a 180,000 word dictionary (about 2megs) that can check words instantly. One of the nicer new features for sure!
Our games http://Donkeysoft.ca
My GameSalad Academy Courses! ◦ Check out my quality templates! ◦ Add me on Skype: braydon_sfx
www.appdore.com || appdore twitter || appdore facebook
Cheers,
Chris.
btw, it is bigger than 2megs... 7.9 in the project. Compresses nicely though. You could easily export the table, remove the 10character + words to reduce the size if you wanted.
Our games http://Donkeysoft.ca
My GameSalad Academy Courses! ◦ Check out my quality templates! ◦ Add me on Skype: braydon_sfx
www.appdore.com || appdore twitter || appdore facebook