Iphone gamesalad issues is it worth it?

Bowhill Games

im looking at starting development with gamesalad as an alternative to unity3d and play maker as it seems to be more keyed to 2d game which is what I am looking for.

However every Gamesalad game I have played on Iphone / ipad is incredibly unstable crashing on start up or in game is this a core issue with gamesalad? I can imagine that all these developers have done the same thing wrong as it is every game I have tried so far, is there a fix on its way??

Thanks for any answers

Ryan

Socks

I've yet to experience a GameSalad game that has crashed on me - and I've downloaded a whole bunch of them, even the ones that weren't particularly good (presumably put together by people new to game developing) might have been a little amateurish but were still perfectly stable.

Bowhill Games

don't get me wrong I don't consider it amateurish I love these types of development programs iv just tried a few games cheeseman being my fav of all iv searched the forum and seen a lot of people moaning about crashing.

JSproject

Basically all GS games that were on the App Store before IOS 7 crashed on IOS 7. The GS creators fixed the issue with IOS7 and all devs. that published an update of their game after that had that issue fixed.

However, it is very possible to crash your GS app now if you're building a bigger app with lots of graphics/animations but it mostly comes down to RAM usage in combination with older IOS devices. The newer GS versions are much more memory hungry than the earlier ones.

These are the IOS devices that you are most likely to experience that issue with if your building such an app and are using resolution independence to support Ipad/Iphone/Ipod touch

Ipad1 = 256

Ipod touch 4g = 256

• Iphone4/4s = 512

• Ipod touch 5g = 512

And older devices than that

=RAM in MB

• retina device (and cause of that it will use your high res images = basically double the RAM usage compared to non-retina/low res images)

jigglybean

@ryanavent said:
im looking at starting development with gamesalad as an alternative to unity3d and play maker as it seems to be more keyed to 2d game which is what I am looking for.

However every Gamesalad game I have played on Iphone / ipad is incredibly unstable crashing on start up or in game is this a core issue with gamesalad? I can imagine that all these developers have done the same thing wrong as it is every game I have tried so far, is there a fix on its way??

Thanks for any answers

Ryan

What a load of crap. And for the record, you can make 2d games in Unity, so cya

Bowhill Games

Thanks Jsproject this explains the issues I have been seeing Cheeseman was published in 2012 and the other games iv been looking at are 2010-2011 so this might be the reason for the crashing, also big thanks for the list of devices that might have issues with. I own

1phone: 3, 3gs, 4, 4s, 5
Ipad 1, 2, mini, mini 2

So hopefully ill be ok for the testing.

and jigglybean thanks for the completely stupid and pointless comment I no you can make 2dgames in unity seeing as I own it already but as I'm an intermediate when it comes to programing I am struggling and find it is a difficult tool to use without playmaker or uscript (visual programing)

jigglybean

@ryanavent said:
Thanks Jsproject this explains the issues I have been seeing Cheeseman was published in 2012 and the other games iv been looking at are 2010-2011 so this might be the reason for the crashing, also big thanks for the list of devices that might have issues with. I own

1phone: 3, 3gs, 4, 4s, 5
Ipad 1, 2, mini, mini 2

So hopefully ill be ok for the testing.

and jigglybean thanks for the completely stupid and pointless comment I no you can make 2dgames in unity seeing as I own it already but as I'm an intermediate when it comes to programing I am struggling and find it is a difficult tool to use without playmaker or uscript (visual programing)

Then don't come on here totally bashing Gamesalad. You make a vague post, expect a vague response.

quantumsheep

@ryanavent‌

Firstly, welcome to the forums

Secondly, I think the main issue you mention could probably be attributed to Apple's change to iOS7 - at that time, most if not all games made for iOS had to be updated to firstly be compatible, and secondly to fit the large iPhone screens introduced with the 5.

One thing to look for on iTunes is when the game last got an update.

If it was not updated after the introduction of iOS 7 (not sure when that was, but I'm sure a quick google will shed some light on it) then it will likely crash.

This is true if it was made in GS or not.

Feel free to try out my game Attack of the Kraken - it's totally free, no ads, no IAP, and is available here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/attack-of-the-kraken/id335511023?mt=8

If you're playing on a 3GS or up then it shouldn't crash as I recently updated it specifically due to the iOS7 problem mentioned.

Hope that helps.

As to Unity+Playmaker - a lot of people like it, I personally tried it and never got into it, though I am looking at Unity (and Unreal, if I could get it to run on my laptop) for 3D games.

For 2D games, you won't find anything quite as easy as GameSalad. It really is fun to use and easy to learn.

Try it

Hope that helps,

QS =D

Bowhill Games

Hi quantumsheep

thanks for the info tbh I gave GS a 1day trial and its awesome already created a simple jumping game compatible with IOS devices, ok graphics need a dit of polishing but the fundamentals are there never used something quite so easy to get to grips with and I will defiantly take look at the game u mentioned if your looking at making 3d games I would defiantly look at Unity+Playmaker however you will need to learn some basic programing as although Playmaker is very good its a bit limited when it comes to 3d physics and a bit to slow in running that being said it is easy to modify with your own scripts

Ryan