How many hours to make a Slot game?

Bad wolf Guy

Hi,

Hope everything is going good.

Currently have a project that has not been touched for a year or two. It is a slot game. I created it in GameSalad but I am unsure of how long Gamesalad will be alive for since the new engine is in the works.
I now looking into hiring a developer outside GameSalad to build for the game for me. I have a 50 page specifications of how everything works and what for that has been created over the last 3 months. As well as all graphics. The game will only have 5 different slot games and all information about each is included. The programmer would just have to follow the instructions provided ideally for a more smooth process.

Does any one know how many hours this would be expected to take? I am trying to prepare an estimated budget for this project.
Are we looking around 200 hours? more? To see what hourly rate I could budget for ($50 - $150/hr normally)
Just trying to get some insight.

Thanks

jamie_c

No idea about your main question. But you don't have to worry about the life span of Gamesalad, I'd expect it to be around and supported for years to come.

tatiang

If you built it in GameSalad, I would stick with GameSalad unless there are features you simply can't add because of limitations with the engine. As far as hours are concerned, can you estimate by taking the number of hours it took you to get to this point and figuring out the percentage of progress you think you've made?

Bad wolf Guy

@jamie_c Thanks, and it was a long process in deciding and talking to others. In the end, Gamesalad was not the suitable choice. This was decided based on past behaviour patterns, the current management team, the current available resources and how often bugs and server issues occur with Gamesalad. Unfortunately it is more than I am willing to look past, despite already having the completed game. Gamesalad also took months to account for new devices screens, software updates, and don't want to put in the likely and realistic situation where the game does not work and the team has stopped support for Gamesalad to focus on Graphine.

@tatiang The problem is that the game was made via drag and drop. From my understanding it is a lot quicker than actually typing the code. Therefore was wondering if anyone knew how much faster it is to use a drag and drop in comparison. Then I would be able to calculate the time I spent by the comparison rate.

tatiang

I'm confused now (sorry!). GameSalad is drag and drop. But you're saying it's faster than typing the code. But you're wanting someone to code it, correct (that is, NOT use GameSalad)? I guess you'd have to show the finished game to a coder and ask them for an estimate... I'm not sure this is the best forum to ask that sort of advice.

ookami007

Unless you are writing in native code, there is always the risk of loosing support. I've programmed mobile apps in Corona SDK and GameSalad. Both are cross platform systems but either could go under, get bought out, etc.

In the same vein, things change with native code as well, an app that was built 4 years ago might not compile or have support for things that are required by Apple or Android now.

Anything you do is a risk. Personally, if you have the app developed in GameSalad, then you should stick with it as long as possible. You'll most likely get some inkling of whether or not support will be dropped, at which time you can decide on a new platform and if you've saved up some money from the money you make NOW, you can hire a programmer to re-create it.

jamie_c

I was confused by your question too. But now I see you are not even considering Gamesalad as an option and are simply wondering how long it would take to code a slot game using a traditional coding package. Afraid I have no idea, you might get a more accurate quote/estimate by asking people who DON'T use Gamesalad.

Armelline

If you're looking to have a game made without using one of the engines similar to GameSalad, you're going to be looking at a budget of $20,000+ in all likelihood. The reason a lot of people ask for games to be developed in GameSalad is that they can get it done for a fraction of the cost of hiring a native code programmer. 200 hours is probably not far off what it would take.

Following on from what @ookami007 said, my first iPhone game was built using Xcode, around 7 or 8 years ago. It took me approximately 20x as long to write as it would have taken to make the same thing in GameSalad. Probably more. I tried to open the file a couple of years ago and it wouldn't compile without extensive changes. I daren't even open it now. In other words, you can probably maintain a GameSalad game if you get it made in GameSalad, but you're going to end up spending more money every time you want to make even small changes if you get it made in Swift or something similar.

I moved to GameSalad for two reasons:

1. You can test out ideas incredibly quickly and easily.
2. My hands became arthritic and the amount of typing needed to write proper code is painful for me now.

Unless you want your game to include features GameSalad cannot handle, as has already been noted, you should strongly consider using GameSalad. You'd be surprised what a very experienced developer can pull off with this great tool.

cbt

I can do the game you want but to give a more realistic prediction I need to see the game or the specifications you mentioned. PM me if you are interested.

Socks

@Bad wolf Guy said:
Gamesalad also took months to account for new devices screens . . .

GameSalad has never been unable to support a particular device screen, the very way GS works means you can create projects for any size or resolution screen, I think what's being conflated here (with an inability to support a certain screen) is that GameSalad can lack (until support makes its way into a build) an 'automatic' button/mode that works out the resolution handling for you - but without that 'automatic' button/mode there is still no barrier to supporting any device screen you want to.

For example I had an iPad3 (the first Retina iPad) quite a while before GS had Retina support, but that was no barrier to creating a Retina iPad project in GameSalad, the process was trivial (and now well known) double the resolution of your assets, no need to wait for months for GameSalad to add a tiny piece of metadata handling to the list of project sizes/modes.

Similarly if Apple release the rumoured 12.9" iPad Pro this October, and the resolution is - as rumours suggest - 2560 x 1920 pixels, there would also be no reason to wait weeks or months for GameSalad to add the words "iPad Pro Landscape" to the drop down list of project defaults when you can already build an iPad Pro Landscape project using an iPad project with x2.5 assets.

So in that respect I wouldn't really say Gamesalad is slow to support new device screens.

Socks

@Armelline said:
Following on from what ookami007 said, my first iPhone game was built using Xcode, around 7 or 8 years ago. It took me approximately 20x as long to write as it would have taken to make the same thing in GameSalad. Probably more. I tried to open the file a couple of years ago and it wouldn't compile without extensive changes. I daren't even open it now.

Yep! I know I'm going off on a bit of a non-code tangent here, but I'd say GameSalad was one of the most backward compatible pieces of software I use, I can still open the very very oldest GameSalad projects in the latest build without issues (they just run better!), the same is not true for even established brands like ProTools and Logic from Apple, even files from 3 or 4 years ago are a disaster to open on newer versions, same deal with 3D work in Cinema4D or even AfterEffects and Final Cut projects, often the best you can expect when opening an old project is that rebuilding them isn't too difficult / time consuming . . . . but basically the majority of software suffers some degree of backward compatibility issues.

Thunder_Child

I made my 5 reel slots game in about 150-200 hours and it's just about a week of tweeting away from publishing for review. All made in GameSalad.