State of GameSalad on June 6th 2016

2

Comments

  • DigiChainDigiChain Member, PRO Posts: 1,288

    I agree with both BigDave & Hypnorabbit too - the current feature set of GS is very good, and there's no reason why we can't continue to develop and earn a reasonable income from it as it now stands.

    However I do hope at the very least there will be continued support for the current features, and updates where necessary when Apple/Google/Amazon change their requirements or OS's etc - otherwise eventually there'll be a lot of apps having to be pulled from the app stores.

  • unbeatenpixelunbeatenpixel Game Developer Member, PRO Posts: 568

    @BigDave said:
    aslong game salad keeps the current build with a stability update running
    it works for me.

    we have custom shapes and rewarded videos there is really nothing holding us off doing neat apps and making some money.

    totally agree

    Check out my games on the App Store!

    Wordgraphy / Polycolor / 20 Seconds / Minimal Maze

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited June 2016

    @BigDave said:
    as long as game salad keeps the current build with a stability update running
    it works for me.

    Same here, 1.25.54 is working great for me (luckily I never update OSX to the latest), with all the more recent features, speed improvements, general stability, we have the best version of GameSalad there has ever been (once the OSX 11.10.5 issue is sorted out for El Capitan users)

    If someone were to tell me last year that in a year's time we would have custom / polygonal collisions, COM/Pin functions, custom fonts, faster (and customisable) Loop iterations, the abilty to switch off physics automatically when not needed ('Can Sleep'), rewarded videos, Tapdaq, HTML5 export, Accurate collision control . . . etc etc etc . . . I wouldn't have believed them as up until that point progress on features had been incredibly slow (or more honestly, non-existent).

    Now here we are, a year later, with a vastly improved, faster, more stable, more feature rich GameSalad, deleting images doesn't cause asset mayhem, actors are placed on whole number coordinates, stereo audio files are not stripped down to mono, the default text colour is black, the Otherwise section is emboldened if in use . . . etc etc . . . (and a dozen other small but important improvements) . . .

    And on top of all this GameSalad are hinting at . . . finally . . . UI improvements !

    @BigDave said: "it works for me"

    I'd also be happy to work with this engine for the foreseeable future, I was happy to work with the old much inferior GameSalad for the best part of 5 years, and like @Hypnorabbit says further improvements that come out of the educational push are just icing on the cake.

  • AlchimiaStudiosAlchimiaStudios Member Posts: 1,069
    edited June 2016

    @Socks said:
    a year later, with a vastly improved, faster, more stable, more feature rich GameSalad, deleting images doesn't cause asset mayhem

    So true. What's funny is I still hesitate each time I go to delete an image. Old habits die hard.

    Follow us: Twitter - Website

  • ChunkypixelsChunkypixels Member Posts: 1,114

    Have to say I think Im more coming round to the new direction, the more I think about it...

    Ive never really been too bothered about a lot of the new or promised features, (monetisation stuff,multi-player, etc), and for the most part, still use the bulk of the engine features that have been in the engine for years... what Ive always pushed for, is a solid, stable version of the software, and the company behind it, that we can trust and rely on. Well that and basic UI improvements that improve workflow.

    I guess the ever deteriorating situation of the past few years has put GS in a position where it can no longer try to keep up with other engines or changes in the marketplace... and they've found that they've been fighting against the tide, and losing. At least with the new direction, it gives them time to catch their breath, then come back and rebuild slowly, and at a much less stressful pace.

    If changing direction, and rebuilding the company through education means that they can stop having to chase a huge feature request list that pulls them in so many different directions, and just work on supporting and stabilising the current engine, then I guess thats not necessarily a bad thing.

    For me, I always hoped that GS would improve the UI, then concentrate on building on the core game engine... making it into a solid, dependable one that would gain widespread use and recognition in the games industry. At its core, its an amazing tool. Sadly, that never really happened though, and through mismanagement, and chasing various false strategies the company and software has ended up at where we are today.

    I just have to accept that it is what it is.... that my vision and hope of what could have been isn't going to happen.

    But it could be a new start for GS... a chance to steady itself, and maybe move forward. And maybe, with a less intense development environment and expectations, they can start to just be more honest with the community, and realise they don't need to promise stuff that they're never going to get around to implementing :)

    But yup... Im starting to look at it all a bit more positively...

  • ChunkypixelsChunkypixels Member Posts: 1,114

    A cheeky thought for the future... Raspberry Pi and BBC MicroBit support? :)

  • HopscotchHopscotch Member, PRO Posts: 2,782
    edited June 2016

    I am still keenly awaiting the statement from the new CEO, because from the info floating around, the vision is still neither here nor there.

    As others have mentioned, a working(!) 1.25 featured version is a great basis for GS and a viable tool for what I always thought the target monetizable audience was: hobbyist, designers with passable coding knowledge, programmers who are sick of coding and serious developers who are happy to sacrifice some features for the sake of the fastest and most fun development experience around. This is a huge market segment that could have been capitalized on.

    So I sincerely hope GS does not cut these people out of the equation for several reasons:

    1. these are the people who build the community, provide support, tutorials, etc.
    2. without developers using the tool in a "professional" manner, there is little incentive for youngsters wanting to learn the tool. The youngsters I know, look towards industry standards, something that may give them a jump-start on a future career.
    3. personally I feel that GS is a little too abstract as a tool intended to teach programming. It is great for basic introductory logic courses, but I doubt this market is big enough to be sustainable as there are many free, simpler and more focused alternatives in this segment.

    My humble input is this,

    1. keep the 1.25 engine features stable and up to date for the serious developers. They play a vital part in the success of the product and its long term acceptance in the market (education and otherwise)
    2. concentrate on quality of life changes to the creator.
    3. oh, and please be involved with and take care of your community.
  • IceboxIcebox Member Posts: 1,485

    The only thing im concerned with thats making me think alot of changing is the idea that gamesalad is mainly for mobile apps ... i know its always been this way but i really was hoping that someday i would be able to publish to steam or exe or they would improve html5 to publish on websites with good solid performance ... thats why i was disappointed .. everything i need is here but only these few features . I love gamesalad and my subscription wont end till may 2017 i just hope they will give us these stuff but im sure as it is its a good engine. Im also sure that even if i decide to change ill end up coming back to gs as it makes life easier lol :)

  • luke2125luke2125 Member, PRO Posts: 225

    @Hopscotch said:
    I am still keenly awaiting the statement from the new CEO, because from the info floating around, the vision is still neither here nor there.

    As others have mentioned, a working(!) 1.25 featured version is a great basis for GS and a viable tool for what I always thought the target monetizable audience was: hobbyist, designers with passable coding knowledge, programmers who are sick of coding and serious developers who are happy to sacrifice some features for the sake of the fastest and most fun development experience around. This is a huge market segment that could have been capitalized on.

    So I sincerely hope GS does not cut these people out of the equation for several reasons:

    1. these are the people who build the community, provide support, tutorials, etc.
    2. without developers using the tool in a "professional" manner, there is little incentive for youngsters wanting to learn the tool. The youngsters I know, look towards industry standards, something that may give them a jump-start on a future career.
    3. personally I feel that GS is a little too abstract as a tool intended to teach programming. It is great for basic introductory logic courses, but I doubt this market is big enough to be sustainable as there are many free, simpler and more focused alternatives in this segment.

    My humble input is this,

    1. keep the 1.25 engine features stable and up to date for the serious developers. They play a vital part in the success of the product and its long term acceptance in the market (education and otherwise)
    2. concentrate on quality of life changes to the creator.
    3. oh, and please be involved with and take care of your community.

    Hi Hopscotch,

    Good and valid points there......God Bless...

    Sincerely,

    Sunday

  • luke2125luke2125 Member, PRO Posts: 225

    @Icebox said:
    The only thing im concerned with thats making me think alot of changing is the idea that gamesalad is mainly for mobile apps ... i know its always been this way but i really was hoping that someday i would be able to publish to steam or exe or they would improve html5 to publish on websites with good solid performance ... thats why i was disappointed .. everything i need is here but only these few features . I love gamesalad and my subscription wont end till may 2017 i just hope they will give us these stuff but im sure as it is its a good engine. Im also sure that even if i decide to change ill end up coming back to gs as it makes life easier lol :)

    Hi Icebox,

    Yes, and I was waiting for as well, but it still hasn't materialize, and to tell you truth, I don't know, if we will ever get the **Publish to Steam ( exe ) **? Most if not other game engines have this feature, but GameSalad is still lacking this feature? For example, how long did it take to have custom fonts? I've been here with GameSalad over 6 years, made like 7 games with it, and seen the ups and downs. Lots of people have left this community, people who invested their time to help this community out through their insights and tutorials. In fact, I'm already trying out another game engine to suit my needs for game designing, yes, it involves programming, but in my opinion, it has a solid foundation, and a very active community.

    Nevertheless, I would like to give GameSalad the benefit of the doubt, since it's very user friendly, no coding, a good community. But that really depends on what the new CEO has to say, and the vision for this company, road maps, and improve communication with the community in general.

    God Bless...

    Sincerely,

    Sunday

  • NNterprisesNNterprises Member, PRO Posts: 387

    As long as GS includes Google Play Services in their education, I'm good.

  • jay2dxjay2dx Member Posts: 611

    awesome news @CodeWizard I'm looking at starting a game design school in the uk so looking forward to working with your education direction.

  • IceboxIcebox Member Posts: 1,485

    @luke2125 yep ill stick around and see how it goes hopefully they will have a good plan for the future :)

  • ArmellineArmelline Member, PRO Posts: 5,364
    edited June 2016

    @Hopscotch You made a very, very good point about the connection between the community and hobbyist developers. If hobbyists are neglected enough that they drift way, there's going to be very little free support being provided. And right now, there's enough free support provided on the forums to cover a full time staff member. I guess if teachers are providing the support to their students, there won't be a real gap. But it could end up with lots of new students using the tool, wanting to play with it in their own time, and having lots of questions that there are few people left to answer.

    Hopefully that's not the way things are going. Hopefully hobbyists, even if not the priority, will not be forgotten.

  • jay2dxjay2dx Member Posts: 611

    @Armelline said:
    @Hopscotch You made a very, very good point about the connection between the community and hobbyist developers. If hobbyists are neglected enough that they drift way, there's going to be very little free support being provided. And right now, there's enough free support provided on the forums to cover a full time staff member. I guess if teachers are providing the support to their students, there won't be a real gap. But it could end up with lots of new students using the tool, wanting to play with it in their own time, and having lots of questions that there are few people left to answer.

    Hopefully that's not the way things are going. Hopefully hobbyists, even if not the priority, will not be forgotten.

    yes good point!

  • lycettebroslycettebros Member, PRO Posts: 1,598
    edited June 2016

    I do not see the Education (GS for Teachers I think it was called) section of the forum as there once was and when did you last post to that section? There is much to be done.

    The people who contribute to this community are not teachers. At least very few are teachers. So much work has to be done to make the pivot successful and will the community follow or as @Hopscotch says 'drift away'. Perhaps the new CEO is a genius in this field, I hope so because he will have to be.

    I am cautious with all these plans and little evidence as we have seen this record before. I hope God is listening to Mr Dusing's prayers.

  • BenSawyerBenSawyer Member, PRO Posts: 37

    I'm glad to hear that there is a focus on fixing various issues that are showstoppers. I agree with others who have said that the current build (Mac issues aside) is strong and better to focus on quality.

    I would add that while GS may move into focusing on student and institutional sales, keeping it going for professional/hobbyist professionals would be good, and mostly, from what I see working with indies, the biggest need would be expansion and maintenance of advertising SDKs, and other cloud services like GameCenter, etc. Expanding platforms would be good too when possible, which also would be the types of things that improve GameSalad's power without necessarily engineering entirely new features and behaviors.

    Just make sure to keep an eye on issues that keep or expand monetization pathways and I think things can be ok for quite a while.

    I've been evaluating other systems for a while, and while there are a couple in particular I'm working with, I have to say, it became more apparent how much GameSalad offers as I looked at the pros/cons of other systems. Fingers crossed this all works out in the end.

  • Nabbo (ReflectiveByte)Nabbo (ReflectiveByte) Member Posts: 278
    edited June 2016

    Well according to me most educational institutes might also look for Engines which has a great game library and features so that they show the best games to the kids, who will try the same.. but without individaul pro support (i.e. exprienced community) - the GS old supporters will eventually go out for other engines and as a result GS will loose valuable assets (i.e. community) which already they have started loosing, who (only the community not kids) might create better and better games to compete with other engines. As I have already seen due lack of support from GS most good indie developers have already shifted.

    I am also considering to finish my project and maybe shift else where if no better support or communication or priority is provided as I saw recently very bad communication from GS team.

  • jay2dxjay2dx Member Posts: 611

    I think a lot of this just means that they have a focus on schools buying into their product and paying licensing fees for the software to use in schools! So they make more money, It's a marketing push, I doubt generally GS will change for the worse,

    It's just a tool to make games after all, and if you can't make games with it they don't have a product worthy of schools buying into!

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporeMember Posts: 272

    @Nabbo (ReflectiveByte) I sort of feel the same in wanting to shift to a new platform, but I struggle to find a suitable alternative to the ease-of-use of GS. I don't think Gamesalad cares too much about its userbase or it would have learnt to communicate better over the past 7 years, which it hasn't really. And as a consequence has lost a lot of its PRO subscribers (and staff).

    Unless something drastically happens with the new CEO, who has yet to reveal himself to the GS world. Maybe I should just learn Swift!

  • apitlekaysapitlekays Coventry, United KingdomMember Posts: 67
    edited June 2016

    Hi all,

    I think it's best to wait for a formal statement from the new CEO. Bouncing around predictions and expectations will only elevate tensions and stress around this forum, which in turn will chase away good and honest people.

    That being said, I beg the new CEO to step up and provide us with a clear explanation about what has been going on at the GSHQ, and the meaning behind the new 'education/al' direction. My message to Brent, the new CEO of GS:

    Dear CEO,

    I sincerely hope that you will consider the voices that you've heard in this community, as it is vital to the growth and sustainability of GameSalad as a tool, a product, and a community.

    I have been, a lurker, a member, a game developer, and finally a researcher in this community for the past 3 years. I have devoted all my energy, intelligence, passion, and time, to study this community, and although I can send you my 300++ pages PhD thesis about this community, I can sum it up with a paragraph. I hope you take this into consideration:

    This community sits at the centre of everything. The Helpers are the catalysts to participation, learning, and the community, contributing to the numbers that you have seen on the forum statistics at the backend. Without them, GameSalad is meaningless. Together, we have created a sustainable community, one that tirelessly supports the GS tool, even though sometimes the tool didn't exactly ran as smooth as we wished. But we persevered. To build a community like this is very difficult. It'll take you 5-7 years to have a community with similar motivated and passionate Helpers. Don't neglect us. Communicate with us. We are part of GS. We are GS.

    Best wishes,

    Hafiz
    The Silent Researcher.

    Dat GameSalad Research Guy :D

  • PhilipCCPhilipCC Encounter Bay, South AustraliaMember Posts: 1,390

    @apitlekays said:

    This community sits at the centre of everything. The Helpers are the catalysts to participation, learning, and the community, contributing to the numbers that you have seen on the forum statistics at the backend. Without them, GameSalad is meaningless. Together, we have created a sustainable community, one that tirelessly supports the GS tool, even though sometimes the tool didn't exactly ran as smooth as we wished. But we persevered. To build a community like this is very difficult. It'll take you 5-7 years to have a community with similar motivated and passionate Helpers. Don't neglect us. Communicate with us. We are part of GS. We are GS.

    Hear, here! Well said.

  • imGuaimGua Member Posts: 1,089
    edited June 2016

    @CodeWizard said:
    I'm getting a bit burned out with the day-to-day operations of the company.

    Looks like the time for a new avatar has come.


    (Originally posted by Socks in CodeWizard introduction topic)

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporeMember Posts: 272

    So is the new CEO Brent going to explain his new appointment as CEO + say hello or just hide in the background and promote his educational stuff. Seems a bit rude not to say hi and neglect his users.

    Maybe he's just terrified of posting in the forums.

  • BenSawyerBenSawyer Member, PRO Posts: 37

    Or maybe he's still getting a handle on everything and taking his time before being besieged by questions the first time he posts. At the moment hearing from @CodeWizard was fine for now. He made clear, as did @ForumNinja that there is some plan to keep his engineering involvement. That buys a few weeks in my book for now.

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporeMember Posts: 272
    edited June 2016

    Well it would buy a few weeks provided the creator worked, which it doesn't. I guess I'm just anxious for a fix soon so I can continue my project. Would prefer that to just "hearing from" an engineer! Will remain patient :sweat:

  • jay2dxjay2dx Member Posts: 611

    If the ceo says hi or not, it really makes no difference to my Game,

    If GS stops working well I'll just move somewhere else! And I expect everyone else will, stop worrying when nothing's even happened!

  • jay2dxjay2dx Member Posts: 611

    @hypnorabbit your creator is not working? Why? What's up man, mines fine I've not saw reports of it not working! Am I missing something

  • pHghostpHghost London, UKMember Posts: 2,342

    @jay2dx said:
    Am I missing something

    The creator in not working for anyone on the latest OS X.

    Opening a simple actor takes seconds or even minutes.

  • AlchimiaStudiosAlchimiaStudios Member Posts: 1,069
    edited June 2016

    @jay2dx said:
    @hypnorabbit your creator is not working? Why? What's up man, mines fine I've not saw reports of it not working! Am I missing something

    It's just really slow for people who upgraded to newest OSX right away.

    @jay2dx said:

    If the ceo says hi or not, it really makes no difference to my Game,

    If GS stops working well I'll just move somewhere else! And I expect everyone else will, stop worrying when nothing's even happened!

    You're right in that there isn't so much to worry about, because whatever happens happens, it's out of our control. But some people have projects with many months or many years that would be put in a bad spot if something dire happened. And moving on could mean rebuilding these projects for more months or years. So that's the worry.

    But at this point and time everything seems to be going OK. We go this post from Codewizard which has helped ease the situation immensely.

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