I was a QA tester for 6 years, and a designer for 6 years.
I take QA very seriously. I single handedly performed the QA for a game that shipped on PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox, and it was a solid game.
Game Salad should have the ability to identify and fix bugs before shipping out a build, specifically for a major release. Irrelevant of their company size, they should have test processes set up to catch things like these white images, and fix them, especially if they happen on all iOS devices, and even in the Game Salad Creator preview itself!
It's not like this is something that happens sometimes on certain Android devices, once they've gone to market, or something. These things happen in the Creator.
I simply don't understand why Pro users who like to come onto the boards and defend Game Salad as being perfectly within it's right to have bugs. Why do you do that?
Saying that "bugs are to be expected, and are OK" is not productive. They should never be seen as acceptable and expected.
Regarding your other points, Beefy, I am still using Game Salad because I have an investment in it. I have several large scale game in development, largely as a hobbyist, somewhat as a businessman, and to simply leave Game Salad would be to throw that development in the bin. I stay with Game Salad as a gamble that they will provide improvements and stability, something which has been evidenced on occasion, and often crippled with bugs.
The bugs are REALLY the issue for me.
ONE single bug can make a build unusable as a release platform.
The sound stuttering bug was in Game Salad for months and months, perhaps 4 - 6 months, I can't even remember. That made all of those builds - in my opinion - unusable as a release platform.
FINALLY it's fixed - as far as I know, due to my carefully detailing the bug and sending them a project to test it against - which is GREAT!
BUT NOW the white images bug! Ruining the latest versions of Game Salad for me. I cannot use them to work on my game. And these bugs are the cause of the problems.
They need to NOT be there! And if they appear, they need to be quelled straight away!
I really hope that Game Salad's processes for developing and releasing versions of this toolkit and are somehow coming together and improving. Because I really don't see how I could convince myself to renew a Pro membership if the bugs remain.
I've seriously drawn out development of my latest projects by a full year due to the issues of waiting for Game Salad to fix this bug or that.
It is unfortunate that I get so frustrated on these forums, and I TRY to keep things on-topic and practical, but I admit that I get emotional, because I feel so helpless about actually improving Game Salad and getting the fixes that I need in as soon as possible.
I spend a lot of time with Game Salad just wondering "do Game Salad even realise how annoying X, Y, Z experiences are while using their own product?" I try to write up bugs, and report them, but I really don't know what's getting fixed, and when.
I have NO IDEA whether the "Display Text" behaviour in Android is going to ever be fixed or improved. It kills my games on Android, and makes them unreleasable, and I have no idea whether that is ackowledged as a problem, or is written down somewhere as "Will not be fixed, not a bug". Not knowing causes so much frustration.
Working at a games studio, you can walk up to the head of programming and ask if they're aware of a certain crash, a certain slowdown, problems with some elements of a tool, and get an immediate answer, or discover that they had no idea there was anything wrong, and show them directly, "Look, if I press here, it explodes", and they go, "Oh man, that is absolutely not acceptable, you can't do your job there, let me get James to look at that for you now", or at least tell you what might be done about it, and when.
I hear hints of a Game Salad forward-facing bug database, which sounds promising, but I haven't looked into what that means for us exactly yet. That might help. I'd like to see actual bugs, itemised in details, steps to reproduce. So we know exactly what the known issues are, and what status they're in. They could even have ETA's for fixes, priorities, so we can see what is considered Priority A, and what is Priority C, or just a Suggestion. And we could raise issues if something seems to have been put on low priority that is actually important to many developers. The make communication and information more transparent.
It's going to be VERY SAD for me if I end up leaving Game Salad come November this year, without having finished off my two unfinished-games that I've worked so long on. It will break a little part of me inside, and that is not the sort of relationship I want to remember having with Game Salad. Things could still come good, if only we could have responsive, stable, bug free software releases!
@Hymloe Thanks for the reply and I get everything you're saying, I really do! I guess I've never had a build rendered useless by a bug, yes i've been effected but by the time I'm ready to release the bugs have been squashed.
Like I was getting the white image bug (only in viewer) on the last nightly, upgraded last night and now back to normal.
I genuinely hope after all of this, you do get to release your work. I also hope you don't mind sharing what game you QA'd on?
@beefy_clyro said:
Hymloe Thanks for the reply and I get everything you're saying, I really do! I guess I've never had a build rendered useless by a bug, yes i've been effected but by the time I'm ready to release the bugs have been squashed.
Like I was getting the white image bug (only in viewer) on the last nightly, upgraded last night and now back to normal.
I genuinely hope after all of this, you do get to release your work. I also hope you don't mind sharing what game you QA'd on?
I QA'd on...
Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendency (2000)
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (2003)
The Polar Express (2004)
Barnyard (2006)
Rad Skater Apocalypse (2012) [Game Salad]
Pulp Diction (2012) [Game Salad]
Thief 2 Fan Mission - "Lady Lomat's Flute" (2014)
I've designed on...
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis (2003)
Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots (2007)
Back at the Barnyard: Slopbucket Games (2008)
Real Racing 2 (2010)
SPY Mouse (2011)
Rad Skater Apocalypse (2012) [Game Salad]
Pulp Diction (2012) [Game Salad]
Thief 2 Fan Mission - "Lady Lomat's Flute" (2001, updated in 2014)
$50 a month sounds like a nice idea. I'd even like to see something like a 6 month term. Since most of the little things don't really take a year to develop on my end. Just tiny hobby projects to have fun, yet still justify having a Pro license. I've ran into some bugs, but most of them aren't really the popular ones everyone seems to be having. My main concerns are the feature choices that GS decides to implement. Some of them seem to be a waste of time IMO. For example the rotating display text? Doesn't really seem to be a ground breaking feature helping us use the product in our businesses...I would think that making GS more social network friendly would be much much higher on the list.
Also, pumping out features doesn't make your product more sustainable and reliable. Having fewer awesome practical features will far outweigh the many features that are used by less than %25 of users.
@JDuaneJ said:
$50 a month sounds like a nice idea. I'd even like to see something like a 6 month term. Since most of the little things don't really take a year to develop on my end. Just tiny hobby projects to have fun, yet still justify having a Pro license. I've ran into some bugs, but most of them aren't really the popular ones everyone seems to be having. My main concerns are the feature choices that GS decides to implement. Some of them seem to be a waste of time IMO. For example the rotating display text? Doesn't really seem to be a ground breaking feature helping us use the product in our businesses...I would think that making GS more social network friendly would be much much higher on the list.
Also, pumping out features doesn't make your product more sustainable and reliable. Having fewer awesome practical features will far outweigh the many features that are used by less than %25 of users.
A monthly subscription will never ever ever ever ever happen for Gamesalad. Everyone would just pay when they want to release their game and then stop their payment the next month. They would lose a lot of money.
A monthly subscription will never ever ever ever ever happen for Gamesalad. Everyone would just pay when they want to release their game and then stop their payment the next month. They would lose a lot of money.
If priced fairly high - like the $50 I suggested, I don't think they'd lose any money. Most yearly subscribers would keep their yearly subscription and those who don't renew/buy it due to the upfront cost could buy a month. $50 is double the price of each month on a yearly, so no small amount.
I do think you're right that it'll never happen, but I'd still like to see it.
Sorry that would never work since people would only pay the months they want to publish, and if you are like most of us and waiting for a stable version GS would never make any money.... I have a few games I want to publish but can because of simple things I am waiting for...
@Wboko said:
Sorry that would never work since people would only pay the months they want to publish, and if you are like most of us and waiting for a stable version GS would never make any money.... I have a few games I want to publish but can because of simple things I am waiting for...
Those who frequently publish games and updates for their games and make good money would continue to buy the yearly. Those who only publish games a few times a year, or who make very little, are not likely to resubscribe to Pro, but would buy a month or two or four across the year.
Right now GameSalad gets nothing from the later group. If they price it right, a monthly fee wouldn't eat into their yearly sales.
@Wboko said:
Sorry that would never work since people would only pay the months they want to publish, and if you are like most of us and waiting for a stable version GS would never make any money.... I have a few games I want to publish but can because of simple things I am waiting for...
Adobe makes money because they have a product to sell. GS doesnt have a product for sell. They have features that they charge you to use with their unstable, bug infested, beta platform that is infested with bug infested features that dont work half the time. Features that cause other features to have bugs. Instead of fixing issues as they arise and making sure they are fixed before adding more features. They have gone "feature wild", WIth the thought process that " Hey if we advertise more features we can make more money" trying to increase selling points. HTML 5? really? Thats a advertising point that needs to be removed. Thats one icon that needs to be removed from the selling point of the website.
Thats like the old " Guaranteed to kill all roaches" Ad. What they dont tell you is that they are mailing you 2 blocks of wood. Instructions are as follows.
1: Capture Roach
2: Place roach on top of Block 1
3: Take Block 2 and slam roach into Block 1.
Guaranteed to kill all roaches.
I dont think GS could even go on kickstarter now and make money.
HTML 5 is suppose to open the imagination. Unshackle you from burden. But GSs version of HTML5 is just the opposite with all its HTML 5 restrictions and abilites.
Before GS can finish and polish 1 feature. They release 3 more bug ridden features that cause other features that were working to become buggy.
GS is like a certain President Im thinking of. All promising and hopeful with change. But given time......... we see him for what he really is. YES we can...... oh wait.. NO we cant.
I've felt this entire year so far has been wasted Pro time, and it looks like my Pro will run out before I can submit a game that doesn't get rejected due to GS bugs.
Every time I submit, rejected due to ad framework bug. It's just wasted time and money at this point.
@Armelline said:
I've felt this entire year so far has been wasted Pro time, and it looks like my Pro will run out before I can submit a game that doesn't get rejected due to GS bugs.
Sad
But they're in BETA, man. You have no right to complain, feel duped, you should have known by the beautifully built website and all those banners showing all those endorsments by world renowned companies and all those awards and praises. That your investment into their service was going to fail. You should have known man. What were you thinking? So you have no reason to feel duped or sad. You knew what you were getting into.
There!!!!! Now Im posting like I drank the Kool-Aid.
I am happy with my yearly subscription and I am happy with my Pro status.
The Tizen promotion gave me another year so I am even more satisfied. I will keep paying my subscription.
I have made enough profits to buy my own Kool Aid so I am staying
It think GS is like a trap, you get in and it is so hard to get out!
I love to program, and build games with other tools and the issue is GS is so great to get some ideas up and running... When or if they ever get GS all together no one else will be able to hold a candle to it, but till then.... BUGS EVERYWHERE!!!
@Hymloe there has been talks about it and CodeWizard mentioned it a few times. I read that all bugs are been put into a database but a front end has not been implemented yet.
@neoman said:
Hymloe there has been talks about it and CodeWizard mentioned it a few times. I read that all bugs are been put into a database but a front end has not been implemented yet.
@neoman said:
Hymloe there has been talks about it and CodeWizard mentioned it a few times. I read that all bugs are been put into a database but a front end has not been implemented yet.
Cheers, OK. I think that could be really helpful, so users know what bugs are currently in the bug base, and therefore feel more connected to the feedback / QA / development process, and feel generally more in control, and more in touch with what's going on.
I think it'd help people to clearly and thoroughly submit useful bugs to Game Salad too, which would help us all out.
Comments
99 little bugs in the GS code,
99 bugs in the GS code,
fix one bug, compile it again,
1001 little bugs in the GS code.
1001 little bugs in the GS code,....
(Repeat until BUGS = 0)
I was a QA tester for 6 years, and a designer for 6 years.
I take QA very seriously. I single handedly performed the QA for a game that shipped on PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox, and it was a solid game.
Game Salad should have the ability to identify and fix bugs before shipping out a build, specifically for a major release. Irrelevant of their company size, they should have test processes set up to catch things like these white images, and fix them, especially if they happen on all iOS devices, and even in the Game Salad Creator preview itself!
It's not like this is something that happens sometimes on certain Android devices, once they've gone to market, or something. These things happen in the Creator.
I simply don't understand why Pro users who like to come onto the boards and defend Game Salad as being perfectly within it's right to have bugs. Why do you do that?
Saying that "bugs are to be expected, and are OK" is not productive. They should never be seen as acceptable and expected.
Regarding your other points, Beefy, I am still using Game Salad because I have an investment in it. I have several large scale game in development, largely as a hobbyist, somewhat as a businessman, and to simply leave Game Salad would be to throw that development in the bin. I stay with Game Salad as a gamble that they will provide improvements and stability, something which has been evidenced on occasion, and often crippled with bugs.
The bugs are REALLY the issue for me.
ONE single bug can make a build unusable as a release platform.
The sound stuttering bug was in Game Salad for months and months, perhaps 4 - 6 months, I can't even remember. That made all of those builds - in my opinion - unusable as a release platform.
FINALLY it's fixed - as far as I know, due to my carefully detailing the bug and sending them a project to test it against - which is GREAT!
BUT NOW the white images bug! Ruining the latest versions of Game Salad for me. I cannot use them to work on my game. And these bugs are the cause of the problems.
They need to NOT be there! And if they appear, they need to be quelled straight away!
I really hope that Game Salad's processes for developing and releasing versions of this toolkit and are somehow coming together and improving. Because I really don't see how I could convince myself to renew a Pro membership if the bugs remain.
I've seriously drawn out development of my latest projects by a full year due to the issues of waiting for Game Salad to fix this bug or that.
It is unfortunate that I get so frustrated on these forums, and I TRY to keep things on-topic and practical, but I admit that I get emotional, because I feel so helpless about actually improving Game Salad and getting the fixes that I need in as soon as possible.
I spend a lot of time with Game Salad just wondering "do Game Salad even realise how annoying X, Y, Z experiences are while using their own product?" I try to write up bugs, and report them, but I really don't know what's getting fixed, and when.
I have NO IDEA whether the "Display Text" behaviour in Android is going to ever be fixed or improved. It kills my games on Android, and makes them unreleasable, and I have no idea whether that is ackowledged as a problem, or is written down somewhere as "Will not be fixed, not a bug". Not knowing causes so much frustration.
Working at a games studio, you can walk up to the head of programming and ask if they're aware of a certain crash, a certain slowdown, problems with some elements of a tool, and get an immediate answer, or discover that they had no idea there was anything wrong, and show them directly, "Look, if I press here, it explodes", and they go, "Oh man, that is absolutely not acceptable, you can't do your job there, let me get James to look at that for you now", or at least tell you what might be done about it, and when.
I hear hints of a Game Salad forward-facing bug database, which sounds promising, but I haven't looked into what that means for us exactly yet. That might help. I'd like to see actual bugs, itemised in details, steps to reproduce. So we know exactly what the known issues are, and what status they're in. They could even have ETA's for fixes, priorities, so we can see what is considered Priority A, and what is Priority C, or just a Suggestion. And we could raise issues if something seems to have been put on low priority that is actually important to many developers. The make communication and information more transparent.
It's going to be VERY SAD for me if I end up leaving Game Salad come November this year, without having finished off my two unfinished-games that I've worked so long on. It will break a little part of me inside, and that is not the sort of relationship I want to remember having with Game Salad. Things could still come good, if only we could have responsive, stable, bug free software releases!
I genuinely hope things improve enough for you @Hymloe. We would all be winners.
+1 for the above
Free Mini Games and Demo Templates
"I take QA very seriously. I single handedly performed the QA for a game that shipped on PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox, and it was a solid game."
Where were you for Battlefield 4?
@Hymloe Thanks for the reply and I get everything you're saying, I really do! I guess I've never had a build rendered useless by a bug, yes i've been effected but by the time I'm ready to release the bugs have been squashed.
Like I was getting the white image bug (only in viewer) on the last nightly, upgraded last night and now back to normal.
I genuinely hope after all of this, you do get to release your work. I also hope you don't mind sharing what game you QA'd on?
I QA'd on...
I've designed on...
Awesome, looking forward to seeing your releases (assuming you do get to release them)
Cheers Beefy.
$50 a month sounds like a nice idea. I'd even like to see something like a 6 month term. Since most of the little things don't really take a year to develop on my end. Just tiny hobby projects to have fun, yet still justify having a Pro license. I've ran into some bugs, but most of them aren't really the popular ones everyone seems to be having. My main concerns are the feature choices that GS decides to implement. Some of them seem to be a waste of time IMO. For example the rotating display text? Doesn't really seem to be a ground breaking feature helping us use the product in our businesses...I would think that making GS more social network friendly would be much much higher on the list.
Also, pumping out features doesn't make your product more sustainable and reliable. Having fewer awesome practical features will far outweigh the many features that are used by less than %25 of users.
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SHHH that kind of logic might get you banned!!
Surely $30 a month would make more sense, seeing that adds up to $360.
game salad will lose money!
A monthly subscription will never ever ever ever ever happen for Gamesalad. Everyone would just pay when they want to release their game and then stop their payment the next month. They would lose a lot of money.
@NtG yup I agree completely.
What I actually want is a longer-term subscription. Say, $529 for 24 months, save $69 (that's what, 11-12% savings?).
If priced fairly high - like the $50 I suggested, I don't think they'd lose any money. Most yearly subscribers would keep their yearly subscription and those who don't renew/buy it due to the upfront cost could buy a month. $50 is double the price of each month on a yearly, so no small amount.
I do think you're right that it'll never happen, but I'd still like to see it.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Sorry that would never work since people would only pay the months they want to publish, and if you are like most of us and waiting for a stable version GS would never make any money.... I have a few games I want to publish but can because of simple things I am waiting for...
Those who frequently publish games and updates for their games and make good money would continue to buy the yearly. Those who only publish games a few times a year, or who make very little, are not likely to resubscribe to Pro, but would buy a month or two or four across the year.
Right now GameSalad gets nothing from the later group. If they price it right, a monthly fee wouldn't eat into their yearly sales.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Adobe makes money because they have a product to sell. GS doesnt have a product for sell. They have features that they charge you to use with their unstable, bug infested, beta platform that is infested with bug infested features that dont work half the time. Features that cause other features to have bugs. Instead of fixing issues as they arise and making sure they are fixed before adding more features. They have gone "feature wild", WIth the thought process that " Hey if we advertise more features we can make more money" trying to increase selling points. HTML 5? really? Thats a advertising point that needs to be removed. Thats one icon that needs to be removed from the selling point of the website.
Thats like the old " Guaranteed to kill all roaches" Ad. What they dont tell you is that they are mailing you 2 blocks of wood. Instructions are as follows.
1: Capture Roach
2: Place roach on top of Block 1
3: Take Block 2 and slam roach into Block 1.
Guaranteed to kill all roaches.
I dont think GS could even go on kickstarter now and make money.
HTML 5 is suppose to open the imagination. Unshackle you from burden. But GSs version of HTML5 is just the opposite with all its HTML 5 restrictions and abilites.
Before GS can finish and polish 1 feature. They release 3 more bug ridden features that cause other features that were working to become buggy.
GS is like a certain President Im thinking of. All promising and hopeful with change. But given time......... we see him for what he really is. YES we can...... oh wait.. NO we cant.
I've felt this entire year so far has been wasted Pro time, and it looks like my Pro will run out before I can submit a game that doesn't get rejected due to GS bugs.
Every time I submit, rejected due to ad framework bug. It's just wasted time and money at this point.
Sad
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
But they're in BETA, man. You have no right to complain, feel duped, you should have known by the beautifully built website and all those banners showing all those endorsments by world renowned companies and all those awards and praises. That your investment into their service was going to fail. You should have known man. What were you thinking? So you have no reason to feel duped or sad. You knew what you were getting into.
There!!!!! Now Im posting like I drank the Kool-Aid.
I disagree with your point and the reason behind it, but the end result is sadly the same.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
I am happy with my yearly subscription and I am happy with my Pro status.
The Tizen promotion gave me another year so I am even more satisfied. I will keep paying my subscription.
I have made enough profits to buy my own Kool Aid so I am staying
It think GS is like a trap, you get in and it is so hard to get out!
I love to program, and build games with other tools and the issue is GS is so great to get some ideas up and running... When or if they ever get GS all together no one else will be able to hold a candle to it, but till then.... BUGS EVERYWHERE!!!
Is there a way to see the current Front Facing Bug Database status in any amount of detail, in real time, on a webpage or something?
@Hymloe there has been talks about it and CodeWizard mentioned it a few times. I read that all bugs are been put into a database but a front end has not been implemented yet.
Free Mini Games and Demo Templates
Yep, it has been talked about for a LONG TIME!!!
Cheers, OK. I think that could be really helpful, so users know what bugs are currently in the bug base, and therefore feel more connected to the feedback / QA / development process, and feel generally more in control, and more in touch with what's going on.
I think it'd help people to clearly and thoroughly submit useful bugs to Game Salad too, which would help us all out.
Hmm, perhaps I'll try adding the message then!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
FYI, I won't be making my weekly state-of post until tomorrow afternoon.