Creator (web version)

Bowhill Games

Hi Guys,

Is the new web version of GS available for use yet?

I see that there is a lot more features available but was wondering if people are actively using it for their projects?

jamie_c

It can be reached at this link: https://creator.gamesalad.com/

I've messed around with it some but not used it for any real projects yet. It continues to improve. I believe it is the main platform for the eduction sector at this point so I believe it is getting used by schools.

Bowhill Games

seems strange that GS is continuing to support three different creators rather then stopping the PC/ MAC versions and allowing them to focus on one codebase / tool, as far as I can see the online version has all of the capabilities or more then the desktop versions.

Japster

@Bowhill Games said:
seems strange that GS is continuing to support three different creators rather then stopping the PC/ MAC versions and allowing them to focus on one codebase / tool, "as far as I can see the online version has all of the capabilities or more then the desktop versions".

@Bowhill Games I normally agree with you man, but seriously, have you had a knock on the head?! - Besides that statement only being true in an alternate dimension, please, PLEASE do not give Brent any stupid ideas! argh!!!

jamie_c

The Mac/PC version is slatted to end at some point, but only after they are satisfied the web tool is a full replacement I believe.

Bowhill Games

@Japster lol no not a knock on the head, I work for a software company myself and from a commercial standpoint what there doing currently isn't cost effective, by which I mean maintaining three distinct variations of the same tool.

For a company the size of GS to do this would mean that its already limited development resources would be considerably stretched, this will likely lead more compatibility issues, more bugs in all versions, less support/ bug fixes, and the worst thing longer lead times for fixes.

Being a fan of the Mac version of the creator (ignoring all the issues it has / it had) it would be a shame to see it go, but focusing on one tool that isn't OS dependant would be the best approach for the company to move forward, allowing them to offer better support all round, introduction of newer and much need functionality, and most importantly less bugs....

Japster

@Bowhill Games said:
@Japster lol no not a knock on the head, I work for a software company myself and from a commercial standpoint what there doing currently isn't cost effective, by which I mean maintaining three distinct variations of the same tool.

For a company the size of GS to do this would mean that its already limited development resources would be considerably stretched, this will likely lead more compatibility issues, more bugs in all versions, less support/ bug fixes, and the worst thing longer lead times for fixes.

Being a fan of the Mac version of the creator (ignoring all the issues it has / it had) it would be a shame to see it go, but focusing on one tool that isn't OS dependant would be the best approach for the company to move forward, allowing them to offer better support all round, introduction of newer and much need functionality, and most importantly less bugs....

Yeah, I get your point, but WC (Hmm... interesting abbreviation... ) is nowhere near complete / optimised (or even fully compatible yet). You see, the native MacOS creator and publishing option is probably as close to the metal as you can get, so the performance of your built executable is actually VERY good - Compare that to the proposed HTML5 ONLY wrapped output, and a lot of the games currently created (or being created) in GS just wouldn't be do-able, and certainly not at the smoothness we can currently achieve.

@Adent42 has been informed that the performance hit by moving to some of these wrappers is marginal, but in my view, I've never, EVER seen a wrapped game perform anywhere near as well as native engines.

We'll see, but tbh, once my outstanding projects are finalised, it probably won't be my problem anymore - as it is, my game is released, but still having major issues getting it monetised / reliably rewarding players, so it just seems a constant uphill struggle anyway, although Adent is (and Chartboost have now also tried, to their credit) helping me out on the issues/investigation.

So, I guess I'm trying to say, I doubt that WC will be ready AND COMPLETE anytime soon, so if they just went to that anytime soon, it would probably be commercial suicide, compared to a currently buggy, but at least workable, product...

RowdyPants

@Japster said:
I've never, EVER seen a wrapped game perform anywhere near as well as native engines.

I 100% agree

Toque

@Japster said:
>
Yeah, I get your point, but WC (Hmm... interesting abbreviation... ) is nowhere near complete / optimised (or even fully compatible yet). You see, the native MacOS creator and publishing option is probably as close to the metal as you can get, so the performance of your built executable is actually VERY good - Compare that to the proposed HTML5 ONLY wrapped output, and a lot of the games currently created (or being created) in GS just wouldn't be do-able, and certainly not at the smoothness we can currently l

They will start wrapping their games for publishing??
That won’t improve preforance. I guess modern cpu will make it irrevalent on mobile or at least that’s what they hope. Never used a chrome book.

I missed that info!

When they drop creator and only have “webreator” that will help reduce workload for them.

bob loblaw

went to try the online creator. am i missing something? is it possible to import projects made with one of the desktop versions to work online?

jamie_c

@bob loblaw said:
went to try the online creator. am i missing something? is it possible to import projects made with one of the desktop versions to work online?

I believe you need to publish from the desktop version and then you can import that published file into the online version from the web portal. I'm not 100% sure how that works though, haven't tried it yet.

bob loblaw

@jamie_c said:

@bob loblaw said:
went to try the online creator. am i missing something? is it possible to import projects made with one of the desktop versions to work online?

I believe you need to publish from the desktop version and then you can import that published file into the online version from the web portal. I'm not 100% sure how that works though, haven't tried it yet.

thanks jamie.

so if that’s the case, if i have a few projects in dev, i would need to publish all first to be able to keep working on them with the online version. seems a bit of a pain.

jamie_c

I think that is true, as far as I've seen there is no option to just open a project from your local computer. Would be nice if that were the case for sure.

It seems fairly 'closed' as someone who has done a lot of tutorials and shared the projects for them as a download. I'm not sure what would work for sharing projects from the online tool unfortunately.

adent42

The publishing step is because "local" access from the browser isn't quite there for that kind of import yet (i.e. HTML5 allows us to read local files, but it's can't quite elegantly handle a directory like a gameproj file).

Once we wrap the HTML5 tool in into a desktop app, we should have something that will let you directly import. For now, it's just publish -> import into Creator2.

Also, I've been seeing this a lot. The HTML5 TOOL does not mean we will only have an HTML5 engine.

The native engine will continue to be supported.

So, @Japster we're not gonna abandon our native engine, as it's one of the best features of our platform. We're just making the TOOL based on HTML5 tech. The game engine will continue to be native.

The two "hard" problems for us are going to be getting the HTML5 engine to match the native engines more closely for better preview while developing online and to give the HTML5 tool the ability to launch the native engine for true preview.

For this second bit I'm imagining either the ability to launch a native viewer desktop app from the browser and/or a native inline preview in a wrapped desktop app.

@Bowhill Games yes, the idea is to reduce our support footprint and support:

• 1 tool
• 2 engines (native / HTML5)
• 5 target platforms

Hope that clears some things up!

bob loblaw

thanks @adent42

Japster

@adent42 Thanks also mate, appreciate the clarification and reassurance...