Android Compile SDK 35, TargetSDK 35,

Bug Fixes:

• Android: Capture keyboard fixes. Delete should work.
• Compiled with ANDROID_SUPPORT_FLEXIBLE_PAGE_SIZES=ON (i.e. 16k page size)

Changes:

Ad Network Version Updates

Network | iOS | Android

• AppLovin | 13.5.1 | 13.5.1
• Amazon | 5.3.2 | 11.1.0+
• BidMachine | 3.5.0 | 3.5.0
• Bigo | 5.0.0 | 5.6.2
• Fyber (DT Exchange) | 8.4.2 | 8.4.1
• HyprMX | 6.4.4 | 6.4.3
• InMobi | 11.1.0 | 11.1.0
• LINE | 2.9.20250930 | 2.9.20251028
• Liftoff (Vungle) | 7.6.2 | 7.6.1
• Maio | — | 1.1.16
• Meta (Facebook) | 6.21.0 | 6.21.0
• Mintegral | 8.0.3 | 17.0.31
• MobileFuse | 1.9.3 | 1.9.3
• Moloco | 4.1.2 | 4.3.1
• MyTarget/VK | 5.36.2 | 5.27.4
• Ogury | 5.1.1 | 6.2.0
• Pangle | 7.8.0.4 | 7.8.0.7
• PubMatic | 4.4.0+ | 4.10.0
• Smaato | — | 22.7.2
• SuperAwesome | 9.4.0 | 9.4.0
• Unity | 4.16.4 | 4.16.4
• Verve (HyBid) | 3.7.1 | 3.7.1
• Yandex | 7.16.2 | 7.16.1
• YSO Network | 1.1.31 | 1.2.7
• AdMob | 12.14.0 | 24.8.0
• Chartboost | 9.10.1 | 9.10.2
• IronSource | 9.2.0.0 | 9.2.0

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

Update Android to Google Play Services V2 support.

IMPORTANT NOTE

For IronSource you will need to include the ad placement ids in your service config. You can get the IDs here:

And don't use our IDs. First I don't think they work if the app package id doesn't mach. Second, go ahead and use them if you want us to get the money!

You will need to place them here:

iOS file now use more efficient packing of the engine.

2025-05-01 Promoted to General Build, so every here is new.

Android Compile SDK 35, TargetSDK 35

Bug Fixes:

• Android: Capture keyboard fixes. Delete should work.

Changes

• Ad Network Updates (Android / iOS, x means N/A)
• Admob 24.4.0 / 11.10.0
• Chartboost 9.8.3 / 9.7.0
• IronSource 8.10.0 / 8.4.0
  • Adcolony 4.8.0
  • Amazon 11.0.0 / 4.10.0
  • AppLovin 12.6.1 / 13.0.0
  • Bidmachine 3.3.0
  • Bigo 5.4.0
  • Meta (formerly Facebook) 6.20.0 / 6.15.2
  • Fyber 8.3.7 / 8.3.2
  • HyprMX 6.4.3 / 6.4.1
  • InMobi 10.8.3 / 10.7.5
  • Liftoff (formerly Vungle) 7.5.0
  • Maio 1.1.16 / 1.6.3
  • Mintegral 16.9.71 / 7.7.2
  • MobileFuse 1.9.2
  • Moloco: 4.3.19 / 3.2.0
  • MyTarget 5.27.2 / x
  • Ogury 6.0.1
  • Pangle 7.3.0.3 / 6.2.0.7
  • Smaato 22.7.2 / 22.8.4
  • SuperAwesome 9.4.0 / 9.4.0
  • Tencent x / 4.15.00
  • Unity 4.15.1
  • Verve 3.6.0
  • Yandex 7.14.1 / 7.5.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

IMPORTANT NOTE

For IronSource you will need to include the ad placement ids in your service config. You can get the IDs here:

And don't use our IDs. First I don't think they work if the app package id doesn't mach. Second, go ahead and use them if you want us to get the money!

You will need to place them here:

Android Compile SDK 35, TargetSDK 35

Bug Fixes:

• Android: Capture keyboard fixes. Delete should work.
• Compiled with ANDROID_SUPPORT_FLEXIBLE_PAGE_SIZES=ON (i.e. 16k page size)

Changes

• Ad Network Updates (Android / iOS, x means N/A)
• Admob 24.4.0 / 11.10.0
• Chartboost 9.8.3 / 9.7.0
• IronSource 8.10.0 / 8.4.0
  • Adcolony 4.8.0
  • Amazon 11.0.0 / 4.10.0
  • AppLovin 12.6.1 / 13.0.0
  • Bidmachine 3.3.0
  • Bigo 5.4.0
  • Meta (formerly Facebook) 6.20.0 / 6.15.2
  • Fyber 8.3.7 / 8.3.2
  • HyprMX 6.4.3 / 6.4.1
  • InMobi 10.8.3 / 10.7.5
  • Liftoff (formerly Vungle) 7.5.0
  • Maio 1.1.16 / 1.6.3
  • Mintegral 16.9.71 / 7.7.2
  • MobileFuse 1.9.2
  • Moloco: 4.3.19 / 3.2.0
  • MyTarget 5.27.2 / x
  • Ogury 6.0.1
  • Pangle 7.3.0.3 / 6.2.0.7
  • Smaato 22.7.2 / 22.8.4
  • SuperAwesome 9.4.0 / 9.4.0
  • Tencent x / 4.15.00
  • Unity 4.15.1
  • Verve 3.6.0
  • Yandex 7.14.1 / 7.5.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

IMPORTANT NOTE

For IronSource you will need to include the ad placement ids in your service config. You can get the IDs here:

And don't use our IDs. First I don't think they work if the app package id doesn't mach. Second, go ahead and use them if you want us to get the money!

You will need to place them here:

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android (Compile SDK 34, TargetSDK 34, MinSDK24)

Bug Fixes:

• Upgraded from com.google.android.play:core:1.10.3 to new broken out libraries (com.google.android.play:review:2.0.1 and com.google.android.play:asset-delivery:2.2.2)
• Fixed Chartboost and enabled support chartboost banner ads (needs publishing page update to support).
• Fixed z-Index bug where deleted actors caused game to freeze / glitch

Changes

• Google UMP 2.2.0 Integrated
• Ad Network Updates (Android / iOS, x means N/A)
• Admob 23.3.0 / 11.10.0
• Chartboost 9.7.0
• IronSource 8.3.0 / 8.4.0
  • Adcolony 4.8.0
  • Amazon 9.10.0 / 4.10.0
  • AppLovin 12.6.1 / 13.0.0
  • Bidmachine 3.0.0
  • Facebook 6.18.0 / 6.15.2
  • Fyber 8.2.7 / 8.3.2
  • HyprMX 6.4.2 / 6.4.1
  • InMobi 10.7.7 / 10.7.5
  • Liftoff 1.9.1
  • Maio 1.1.16 / 1.6.3
  • Mintegral x / 7.7.2
  • Moloco: 3.1.0 / 3.2.0
  • MyTarget 5.22.1 / x
  • Pangle 6.2.0.4 / 6.2.0.7
  • Smaato 22.6.0 / 22.8.4
  • SuperAwesome 9.4.0 / 9.4.0
  • Tencent x / 4.15.00
  • Unity 4.12.3
  • Vungle 7.4.1
  • Yandex 7.0.1 / 7.5.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

We've also put in code for epochTime, but have not tested it yet (as seen in the HTML5 engine here). If you were waiting on any other fixes for android, feel free to ask about them here, I might have lost track of them. (But label them something like Feature Request: Thing I Want) so I can quickly differentiate them from comments and bug reports for this release.

Something about the build configuration and tool combination forces me to make the minimum supported version 24 instead of 21. We're working on fixing that.

2024-07-19 patch update:

Pushed update to fix epochTime implementation

2024-09-22 update:

Support for Z-Index (available in Creator 2.0). Allows you to adjust the order of render within a layer. It works a bit like z-index in CSS. If you set a number higher than the number of items in the layer, it sorts to the top. We haven't done a lot of performance testing so I wouldn't suggest constantly swapping the value, but targeted sort order changes can be very useful, especially when you're doing isometric games (think brawlers, arena shooter).

Support for Chrome Custom Tab for Open URL Behavior on Android. When you choose "embedded browser" for Open URL Behavior it will use a Chrome Custom Tab. It's a separate window still, but the browser UI uses a dark color to match existing and there's a X to close the tab and go back into the game immediately.

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

iOS Compiled with XCode 16.2

Android (Compile SDK 34, TargetSDK 34, MinSDK24)

Bug Fixes:

• Upgraded from com.google.android.play:core:1.10.3 to new broken out libraries (com.google.android.play:review:2.0.1 and com.google.android.play:asset-delivery:2.2.2)
• Fixed Chartboost and enabled support chartboost banner ads (needs publishing page update to support).
• Fixed z-Index bug where deleted actors caused game to freeze / glitch

Changes

• Google UMP 2.2.0 Integrated
• Ad Network Updates (Android / iOS, x means N/A)
• Admob 23.3.0 / 11.10.0
• Chartboost 9.7.0
• IronSource 8.3.0 / 8.4.0
  • Adcolony 4.8.0
  • Amazon 9.10.0 / 4.10.0
  • AppLovin 12.6.1 / 13.0.0
  • Bidmachine 3.0.0
  • Facebook 6.18.0 / 6.15.2
  • Fyber 8.2.7 / 8.3.2
  • HyprMX 6.4.2 / 6.4.1
  • InMobi 10.7.7 / 10.7.5
  • Liftoff 1.9.1
  • Maio 1.1.16 / 1.6.3
  • Mintegral x / 7.7.2
  • Moloco: 3.1.0 / 3.2.0
  • MyTarget 5.22.1 / x
  • Pangle 6.2.0.4 / 6.2.0.7
  • Smaato 22.6.0 / 22.8.4
  • SuperAwesome 9.4.0 / 9.4.0
  • Tencent x / 4.15.00
  • Unity 4.12.3
  • Vungle 7.4.1
  • Yandex 7.0.1 / 7.5.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

We've also put in code for epochTime, but have not tested it yet (as seen in the HTML5 engine here). If you were waiting on any other fixes for android, feel free to ask about them here, I might have lost track of them. (But label them something like Feature Request: Thing I Want) so I can quickly differentiate them from comments and bug reports for this release.

Something about the build configuration and tool combination forces me to make the minimum supported version 24 instead of 21. We're working on fixing that.

2024-07-19 patch update:

Pushed update to fix epochTime implementation

2024-09-22 update:

Support for Z-Index (available in Creator 2.0). Allows you to adjust the order of render within a layer. It works a bit like z-index in CSS. If you set a number higher than the number of items in the layer, it sorts to the top. We haven't done a lot of performance testing so I wouldn't suggest constantly swapping the value, but targeted sort order changes can be very useful, especially when you're doing isometric games (think brawlers, arena shooter).

Support for Chrome Custom Tab for Open URL Behavior on Android. When you choose "embedded browser" for Open URL Behavior it will use a Chrome Custom Tab. It's a separate window still, but the browser UI uses a dark color to match existing and there's a X to close the tab and go back into the game immediately.

2025-05-01 update:

Added preliminary support for the following text functions:

• textReverse
• textToUpper
• textToLower
• textTrim
• textUrlEncode (useful for network behaviors)
• Fix an issue where attributes weren't converted to string when doing a string comparision in a rule.

I wanted to test this release more on the iOS side, but the bitcode issue and the requirement to compile agaisnt a new SDK for updates were blocking releases, so I decided to push it out to RC. Compiling with the new XCode should fix the bitcode issue too, but I'll need to double check that.

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android

Changes

• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.2.0 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
    • Liftoff, Superawesome added.
    • Improved init to avoid sending data before GDRP consent
  • Admob 20.5.0
  • Chartboost 4.3.8
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.
• Google Play Rate App
• GameAnalytics
• Pollfish

Fixes

• Fix the speed issue on Pixel 4 and other phones that run over 60fps. We're going to lock GameSalad apps to run at a max of 60fps. Since I don't have a Pixel 4 yet, I can't test it, but we'll try to get one and test it before the RC becomes a stable build.

Notes

Build RC now builds an AAB, because that's what Google needs and if you need an APK, you can use command line tools to extract one.

A lot going on, so we're gonna break it up into multiple post.

Tweet Sheet Supercharged!

Some features require new behaviors. In order to get new features out to you more quickly, we sometimes “overload” the Tweet Sheet Action in order to allow you to use it to trigger these new behaviors. This lets you use new features without waiting for us to build new Behavior UIs or waiting for a new version of creator.

The “Message” field of the Tweet Sheet Action will be used to indicate the new behavior you want to trigger.

The “Image” field will be used to let you send arguments / configuration to these behaviors.

The new behaviors include:

Behavior Usage

gs:requestIDFA - On iOS, show dialog to request permission to enable cross-app tracking through the IDFA.

gs:rateApp - Shows the app store’s “rate my app” dialog.

gs:trackEvent - Used to track analytics events. See more below.

gs:showRewardedAd - Used to pause game and show a Rewarded Ad. See more below.

gs:showInterstitialAd - Used to pause game and show an Interstitial Ad. See more below.|

You’ll learn details about how some of these work below.

Google Play Rate App

To display the Google Play Store “Rate My App” GUI you can now use a custom TweetSheet behavior as follows:

Multiple Network w/ Default

What used to happen:

• Multiple ad networks could be enabled.
• At app startup, a network was chosen at random and used for the rest of the app's runtime.

Originally, we intended to add our own mediation layer that would let you adjust the mix of ad networks.

Since the inclusion of IronSrc, it no longer made sense to enable multiple ad networks (you might as well use IronSrc) or build our own mediation layer.

With the inclusion of Pollfish, we needed to allow creators to use a traditional ad network by default and Pollfish at the same time.

What happens now:

• Multiple ad networks can be enabled.
• A “Default” ad network can be selected when using more than one network
• Ad behaviors will use the set default ad network.
• Specially formatted calls using the TweetSheet behavior can trigger ads for a specific network.
• This also means you can trigger full screen without changing scenes.

We do not suggest enabling both IronSrc and Admob or Chartboost (unless you disable that network on the IronSrc side). We have not tested this and are unsure what will happen.

To use the TweetSheet behavior to show an ad use one of the following in the Message field:

• gs:showRewardedAd
• gs:showInterstitialAd 

and then put the name of the ad network in all lowercase in the Image field:

• pollfish
• admob
• chartboost
• ironsrc

For example, this would show a reward ad from admob:

Pollfish

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98629/pollfish-rewarded-polls/

GameAnalytics

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98630/gameanalytics/

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android (Compile SDK 34, TargetSDK 34, MinSDK24)

Bug Fixes:

• Upgraded from com.google.android.play:core:1.10.3 to new broken out libraries (com.google.android.play:review:2.0.1 and com.google.android.play:asset-delivery:2.2.2)
• Fixed Chartboost and enabled support chartboost banner ads (needs publishing page update to support).

Changes

• Google UMP 2.2.0 Integrated
• Ad Network Updates (Android / iOS, x means N/A)

• Admob 23.3.0 / 11.10.0
• Chartboost 9.7.0
• IronSource 8.3.0
  • Adcolony 4.8.0
  • Amazon 9.10.0 / 4.9.7
  • AppLovin 12.6.1
  • Bidmachine 3.0.0
  • Facebook 6.18.0 / 6.15.2
  • Fyber 8.2.7 / 8.3.1
  • HyprMX 6.4.2 / 6.4.1
  • InMobi 10.7.7 / 10.7.5
  • Liftoff 1.9.1
  • Maio 1.1.16 / 1.6.3
  • Mintegral x / 7.7.2
  • Moloco: 3.1.0 / 3.1.3
  • MyTarget 5.22.1 / x
  • Pangle 6.2.0.4 / 6.2.0.6
  • Smaato 22.6.0 / 22.8.3
  • SuperAwesome 9.4.0 / 9.4.0
  • Tencent x / 4.15.00
  • Unity 4.12.3
  • Vungle 7.4.1
  • Yandex 7.0.1 / 7.5.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

We've also put in code for epochTime, but have not tested it yet (as seen in the HTML5 engine here). If you were waiting on any other fixes for android, feel free to ask about them here, I might have lost track of them. (But label them something like Feature Request: Thing I Want) so I can quickly differentiate them from comments and bug reports for this release.

Something about the build configuration and tool combination forces me to make the minimum supported version 24 instead of 21. We're working on fixing that.

2024-07-19 patch update:

Pushed update to fix epochTime implementation

2024-09-22 update:

Support for Z-Index (available in Creator 2.0). Allows you to adjust the order of render within a layer. It works a bit like z-index in CSS. If you set a number higher than the number of items in the layer, it sorts to the top. We haven't done a lot of performance testing so I wouldn't suggest constantly swapping the value, but targeted sort order changes can be very useful, especially when you're doing isometric games (think brawlers, arena shooter).

Support for Chrome Custom Tab for Open URL Behavior on Android. When you choose "embedded browser" for Open URL Behavior it will use a Chrome Custom Tab. It's a separate window still, but the browser UI uses a dark color to match existing and there's a X to close the tab and go back into the game immediately.

Cheers!

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android (Compile SDK 34, TargetSDK 34, MinSDK24)

Bug Fixes:

• Upgraded from com.google.android.play:core:1.10.3 to new broken out libraries (com.google.android.play:review:2.0.1 and com.google.android.play:asset-delivery:2.2.2)
• Fixed Chartboost and enabled support chartboost banner ads (needs publishing page update to support).

Changes

• Google UMP 2.2.0 Integrated
• Ad Network Updates
  • Admob 23.0.0
  • Chartboost 9.7.0
  • IronSource 8.1.0
    • Adcolony 4.8.0
    • Amazon 9.9.3
    • AppLovin 12.5.0
    • Bidmachine 2.7.0
    • Facebook 6.17.0
    • Fyber 8.2.7
    • HyprMX 6.2.3
    • InMobi 10.6.6
    • Liftoff 1.9.1
    • Maio 1.1.16
    • Moloco: 2.3.0
    • MyTarget 5.20.0
    • Pangle 5.8.0.8
    • Smaato 22.6.0
    • SuperAwesome 9.3.2
    • Unity 4.12.0
    • Vungle 7.3.2
    • Yandex 7.0.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

2024-07-19 patch update:

Pushed update to fix epochTime implementation

We've also put in code for epochTime, but have not tested it yet (as seen in the HTML5 engine here). If you were waiting on any other fixes for android, feel free to ask about them here, I might have lost track of them. (But label them something like Feature Request: Thing I Want) so I can quickly differentiate them from comments and bug reports for this release.

Something about the build configuration and tool combination forces me to make the minimum supported version 24 instead of 21. We're working on fixing that.

Cheers!

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

iOS (Compile 17.5, Min SDK 13 for IronSrc builds, MinSDK 12.1 otherwise)

Features:

• Untest epochTime support

iOS Changes

• Ad Nework Updates
  • Admob 11.6.0
  • Chartboost 9.7.0
  • IronSource 8.1.1.0 and matching networks

Notes:

iOS publishing now generates an .ipa instead of a .app.zip file. The IPA includes the icon as iTunesArtwork and the requisite SwiftSupport directory for app store deploy. This means you'll need to use the Download link and something other than GameSalad to sign. We suggest the open source app iOS App Signer.

You can learn more here: https://help.gamesalad.com/gamesalad-cookbook/publishing/3-apple-publishing/using-ios-app-signer-optional/

2024-07-19 patch update:

Pushed update to fix epochTime implementation

Android (Compile SDK 34, TargetSDK 34, MinSDK24)

Bug Fixes:

• Upgraded from com.google.android.play:core:1.10.3 to new broken out libraries (com.google.android.play:review:2.0.1 and com.google.android.play:asset-delivery:2.2.2)
• Fixed Chartboost and enabled support chartboost banner ads (needs publishing page update to support).

Android Changes

• Google UMP 2.2.0 Integrated
• Ad Network Updates
  • Admob 23.0.0
  • Chartboost 9.7.0
  • IronSource 8.1.0
    • Adcolony 4.8.0
    • Amazon 9.9.3
    • AppLovin 12.5.0
    • Bidmachine 2.7.0
    • Facebook 6.17.0
    • Fyber 8.2.7
    • HyprMX 6.2.3
    • InMobi 10.6.6
    • Liftoff 1.9.1
    • Maio 1.1.16
    • Moloco: 2.3.0
    • MyTarget 5.20.0
    • Pangle 5.8.0.8
    • Smaato 22.6.0
    • SuperAwesome 9.3.2
    • Unity 4.12.0
    • Vungle 7.3.2
    • Yandex 7.0.1

Ad networks in italics are new, but we'll need to update publishing to allow you to use them.

We've also put in code for epochTime, but have not tested it yet (as seen in the HTML5 engine here). If you were waiting on any other fixes for android, feel free to ask about them here, I might have lost track of them. (But label them something like Feature Request: Thing I Want) so I can quickly differentiate them from comments and bug reports for this release.

Something about the build configuration and tool combination forces me to make the minimum supported version 24 instead of 21. We're working on fixing that.

No release notes as we didn't update anything, just recompiled.

We'll start working on an new release soon with the usual round of Ad Network library updates.

The target SDK / minimum macOS version supported is 11 now (to support Apple chips as well).

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android (Compile SDK, TargetSDK 33, MinSDK21)

Changes

• Google UMP 2.1.0 Integrated
• Ad Network Updates
  • Admob 22.6.0
  • Chartboost 9.5.0
  • IronSource 7.6.1
    • Adcolony 4.8.0
    • Amazon 9.8+
    • AppLovin 11.11.3
    • Bidmachine 2.4.0
    • Facebook 6.16.0
    • Fyber 8.2.4
    • HyprMX 6.2.0
    • InMobi 10.6.1
    • Liftoff 1.9.1
    • Maio 1.1.16
    • MyTarget 5.19.0
    • Pangle 5.6.0.4
    • Smaato 22.0.2
    • SuperAwesome 9.1.0
    • Unity 4.9.2
    • Vungle 7.0.0

Note that Yahoo and Tapjoy have been removed. Tapyjoy was acquired by IronSrc a while back, so it's ads are coming form IronSrc proper. Not sure what happened with Yahoo. Bidmachine is new, but won't be enabled until we add it to the list on the publishing page.

Google UMP will be on by default for now, while we fix up the backend. Here's what you'll need to do:

• Update to your game to remove custom screens and behaviors related to GDRP.
• Where the screens would have shown, use a Tweet Sheet Action with the message: gs:requestConsent 
• If the user is in a territory that requires consent, it will show a popup. After that, consent information is stored with google and will be pulled every time the game loads.
• If the user has already given consent or consent is not needed, then nothing will show and ad network code will Initialize
• If the form or requirements for consent change, the form will show up again, so just call it every time in the same place (sometime before you want ads to be shown).
• You will need to configure messages for your apps as noted here: https://developers.google.com/admob/android/privacy under "Create Message Type"

We are releasing this now to give you time to integrate it. We do have some work left to do on the publishing interface, but that's mostly about letting you turn the system off for apps that are not destined for the Google App store. For now, it's just on by default.

Cheers!

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android

Changes

• Compile SDK 33, MinSDK 21, TargetSDK 33
• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.3.1.1 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
    • AdColony 4.8.0
    • Amazon 9.8.x
    • AppLovin 11.10.1
    • Facebook / Meta 6.14.0
    • Fyber 8.2.3
    • HyprMX 6.2.0
    • Inmobi 10.1.2
    • Liftoff 1.9.1
    • Maio 1.1.16 (soon option to choose China or Overseas optimization)
    • MyTarget 5.16.5
    • Pangle 4.3.20
    • Smaato 22.0.2
    • SuperAwesome 9.1.0
    • Tapjoy 13.0.1
    • Unity 4.8.0
    • Vungle 6.12.1
    • Yahoo 1.4.0
  • Admob 22.2.0
  • Chartboost 9.3.1
• Google Play Services 23.1.0
• Google Billing Client 6.0.1

iOS

No Change

macOS (updated 2023-09-13)

• Min macOS version is now 10.13
• Fixed bug with display when starting in fullscreen.
• Fixed bug with display when starting in fullscreen on 1x (non-retina) displays (2023-09-15)

Notes

The most important feature of this release is switching to Target SDK 33, which is being required by the Google Play store, hence no update to iOS yet. We should have another RC with an update to iOS soon.

The GameSalad macOS binary has been updated to fix an issue with fullscreen support in Ventura. Basically if you started windowed and jumped to fullscreen, things worked fine. But if you started fullscreen, things look a bit shifted. This has been fixed but with the newest SDK, we have also had to update the minimum supported macOS version to 10.13 (instead of 10.12 previously).

To get these benefits use "Build RC". It doesn't matter which version of GameSalad Creator you publish with as long as it's a version 1.25.x.

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android

Changes

• Compile SDK 31, MinSDK 21, TargetSDK 31
• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.2.6 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
    • Liftoff, Superawesome added.
    • Improved init to avoid sending data before GDRP consent
  • Admob 21.3.0
  • Chartboost 9.1.1
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.
• Google Play Rate App
• GameAnalytics 6.3.4
• Pollfish 6.2.2

iOS

Changes

• Min/Target SDK 12.1, Build SDK iOS16
• IronSrc 7.2.6 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
• Admob 9.13.0
• Chartboost 9.1.0
• GameAnalytics 4.7.2
• Pollfish 6.7.2

Notes

Check here for stuff from the last RC.

More Tweet Sheet Actions!

As before we have implemented new behaviors via TweetSheet highjacking, to avoid forcing users to upgrade Creator versions with new behaviors (as well as save us some development time).

Play Video from URL

"gs:playVideoURL" in the Message

url to the video (mp4) in the Image

For iOS, make sure to include your source video as a Domain Exception during publishing. Since we're using the native video view, I guess anything the platform supports will work, but mp4 is a pretty safe bet cross platform.

Video will play back with no UI and uninterrupted (we'll build in things like full control or just skip and mute later. Figured a default case of unskippable videos works for thinks like cut scenes and training videos for now.

Play Sound

In Message put one of:

gs:playSound - plays sound, stops if behavior is out of scope

gs:playSoundLoop - plays sound on loop, stops if behavior is out of scope

gs:playSoundComplete - plays sound til end, even if behavior goes out of scope

gs:playMusic - starts playing music until track end

gs:playMusicLoop - starts playing music and loops on track end.

In Image put the name of the sound to play with either a literal string or an expression

This will allow you to use expressions to play different audio, avoiding having to use a lot of rules for different audio. By out of scope, I mostly mean "when rule is no longer valid. So for the none *Complete actions, if gs:playSound is in a rule, it wills top playing if the rule condition is no longer true. If Complete is used, then it will finish playing even after the rule condition is no longer true.

Keyboard Capture

I the Keyboard Input behavior if you set the prompt to "gs:captureKeyboard", then the system will show the software keyboard on mobile or start recording input from the physical keyboard on desktop. The Keyboard Input Action will act like a Keyboard Input Behavior. When the user hits Enter, the behavior exists. When the user types, it updates the attribute references in the Change Attribute field of the behavior.

• Image Viewer now has resizer (UI needs some improvement in the future, but should still be handy)
• Nudge the Assignments tab (edu users) so it doesn't overlap the Attributes tab.
• Better handling of custom collision shapes and display of custom collision shapes.
• Slightly faster image loading on first project load
• Attempt to fix an error condition that doesn't break creator, but breaks publishing due to insertion of incomplete behaviors entries.
• Engine update to support gs:playSound*, gs:playMusic*, gs:playVideoURL, and gs:captureKeyboard

To get these benefits use "Build RC". It doesn't matter which version of GameSalad Creator you publish with as long as it's a version 1.25.x.

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android

Changes

• Compile SDK 31, MinSDK 21, TargetSDK 31
• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.2.6 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
    • Liftoff, Superawesome added.
    • Improved init to avoid sending data before GDRP consent
  • Admob 21.3.0
  • Chartboost 9.1.1
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV
• Pollfish 6.2.2
• GameAnalytics 6.3.4
• Google Play Rate App
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.

iOS

Changes

• Min/Target SDK 12.2, Build SDK iOS16.4 (Upgrade to minimum iOS 12.2 removes need for SwiftSupport directories).
• IronSrc 7.3.0 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
• Admob 10.3.0
• Chartboost 9.2.0
• GameAnalytics 4.7.2
• Pollfish 6.4.1

Notes

Check here for stuff from the last RC.

The latest Admob now requires an Admob App ID. This also means builds with IronSource or just Chartboost will need the ID in order to work. We suggest pasting the Google "Test" ID if you are not actually using Admob.

More Tweet Sheet Actions!

As before we have implemented new behaviors via TweetSheet highjacking, to avoid forcing users to upgrade Creator versions with new behaviors (as well as save us some development time).

Play Video from URL

"gs:playVideoURL" in the Message

url to the video (mp4) in the Image

For iOS, make sure to include your source video as a Domain Exception during publishing. Since we're using the native video view, I guess anything the platform supports will work, but mp4 is a pretty safe bet cross platform.

Video will play back with no UI and uninterrupted (we'll build in things like full control or just skip and mute later. Figured a default case of unskippable videos works for thinks like cut scenes and training videos for now.

Play Sound

In Message put one of:

gs:playSound - plays sound, stops if behavior is out of scope

gs:playSoundLoop - plays sound on loop, stops if behavior is out of scope

gs:playSoundComplete - plays sound til end, even if behavior goes out of scope

gs:playMusic - starts playing music until track end

gs:playMusicLoop - starts playing music and loops on track end.

In Image put the name of the sound to play with either a literal string or an expression

This will allow you to use expressions to play different audio, avoiding having to use a lot of rules for different audio. By out of scope, I mostly mean "when rule is no longer valid. So for the none *Complete actions, if gs:playSound is in a rule, it wills top playing if the rule condition is no longer true. If Complete is used, then it will finish playing even after the rule condition is no longer true.

Keyboard Capture

I the Keyboard Input behavior if you set the prompt to "gs:captureKeyboard", then the system will show the software keyboard on mobile or start recording input from the physical keyboard on desktop. The Keyboard Input Action will act like a Keyboard Input Behavior. When the user hits Enter, the behavior exists. When the user types, it updates the attribute references in the Change Attribute field of the behavior.

General Updates:

• Load default fonts from https://fonts.gamesalad.com if they don't exists in the project (instead of https://s3.amazonaws.com/fonts.gamesalad.com)
• HTML5 engine now respects randomSeed attribute. Using https://github.com/davidbau/seedrandom for random numbers unless randomSeed is set to -1, in which case we'll use native Math. random. Native random is more performant, so you'll usually want that. Math.seedrandom is useful if you want to build a game with a predictable random sequence (useful for competitive games).
• Fixed a couple of issues with Custom Shapes. Basically custom shapes were broken if you were using them in an Rule predicate AND they were broken in general if your actor wasn't square. Also, related minor performance optimizations.

Creator 2 Updates:

• Added mp4 as valid audio extension for Creator 2 (we convert it to m4a if you're publishing)
• Added oggmented to support ogg in for Creator 2. Creator 2 can now preview sounds on Safari (useful if you're using Creator 2 on iPad)
• Missing fonts will cause an alert on preview.

There are now new Transport Security Options:

• Allow App To Talk To Any Domain Insecurely
• Allow App To Talk To Any Domain Insecurely for Media Only
• Allow App To Talk To Any Domain Insecurely for Web Views Only

In most case, these should not be used in a production app. If you do use them, you will be asked by Apple to justify usage of these options. Basically everyone wants you to hit domains that use HTTPS. If you don't you need to make an exception in your app. Here's where you would want to use them:

• First Option: Open URL in App, gs:playVideoFromURL, and Network Behaviors access information from http://
• Second Option: gs:playVideoFromURL is accessing a video from http://
• Third Option: Open URL in App is accessing a page with a http:// url.

The preferred option is to use Exception Domains

This will let you explicitly choose which domains where you want to allow your app to access data and what exceptions to the most secure options you need to make.

While this was mostly made in anticipation of the new gs:playVideoFromURL option, this is also useful for OpenURL and Network Behaviors.

Cheers!

New apps uploaded to the Google Play Store are required to be in AAB format. The advantage of the format is smaller download sizes as the Google Play Store will process AABs to extract only parts of the APK required for a particular device.

To build an AAB from your game just click the Build AAB on and Android target of your publishing page.

Your game assets will be bundled in the AABs to use Play Asset Delivery, which means you no longer have to worry about expansion files and the attending loading time costs. If you are familiar with the configurations for PAD, we are using the 'install-time' delivery type, which means your assets will be made available as part of the initial install even if they are downloaded separately.

This release also includes updates to IronSrc to match the most recent release and removes the ability to support multiple full screen ad providers. This multiple ad providers feature was a poor attempt at mediation and has been made redundant with support of ad mediation through IronSrc and Admob (and simplifies our code base).

For now, you will need to sign your own AAB files with jarsigner. You should google "signing aab files command line". For me the top result is: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50560045/sign-android-app-bundle-from-command-line

jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore xample.jks bundle.aab keystoreAlias

Finally, because the AAB process is much more robust, we suggest using it as a basis to getting your APKs instead of our publishing process.

You will need to download bundletool which allows you to extract APKs from your AAB from here: https://github.com/google/bundletool/releases

I just throw the jar file into my android-sdk directory and do the following:

java -jar ~/android-sdk/bundletool-all-1.8.0.jar build-apks --ks=~/keystores/<your>.keystore --ks-key-alias=<your keystore alias> --mode=universal --bundle <path to my aab file> --output=<path to output apks. needs to end in .apks>

This generates a zip file with a signed "universal" apk (which is basically what you're used to working with). If you want to get the apk out of the file without unzipping everything you can use this command (on mac)

unzip -p game.apks universal.apk > my_game.apk

We also have more detailed signing instructions:

Windows: https://help.gamesalad.com/windows-cookbook/publishing/android-publishing/android-app-bundle-aab-command-line-signing/

Mac: https://help.gamesalad.com/gamesalad-cookbook/publishing/4-android-publishing/android-app-bundle-aab-terminal-signing/

If you have been following the RC updates, you'll notice that some of the bug fixes have been removed. Those were fixes to previous RCs and not to the last main release, so we removed them to clarify what this build brings.

Android:

Changes

• Target API 29
• Min API 21
• Upgrade to Google Play Service Base & Basement 17.2.1.
• Use Google Billing Client 3.0.2 instead of deprecated AIDL billing library.
• IronSrc 7.1.0.2 and all mediated networks.
• Admob 19.6.0
• Chartboost 8.2.0
• Support configuration that sets the Child Directed & Maximum Content rating settings.
• Addition of optional location permissions to support some ad networks.

Bug Fixes

• N/A

iOS:

Changes

• Publishing with IronSrc disabled will now exclude IronSrc libraries, making the binary smaller.
• IronSrc Banner Ad Support
• Chartboost Banner Ad Support
• Support configuration that sets the Child Directed & Maximum Content rating settings
• Deployment target of iOS 12.1 with SDK 14.x
• Update to IronSrc 7.1.0.0
• IronSrc now includes all mediated networks except HyprMX
• Update to Chartboost 8.4.0
• Update to Admob 7.69.0
• Enable with the Enable Ad Network Attribution publishing option.
• Support requestTrackingAuthorizationWithCompletionHandler
• Support SKAdNetworkItems / SKAdNetworkIdentifier in publishing.
• Support paymentQueue listener for App Store promotion purchases of IAP (untested).

Fixes

• Improve Game Center. Now when Game Reset behavior is called, the Platform Login behavior will actually correctly reset the Platform Connected Attribute
• Fix landscape loading image issue
• Updated code to avoid potential crashes from background updates from IAP and GameCenter
• Accelerometer updates 1/30 of a second rather than 1/60, to hopefully better march old behavior.

Both:

• Updated Freestick to 0.3.2 allowing for more controller support.
• Removed loading of TIFF, EXR, and RAW images from freeimage
• Consolidated XML parsing to libxml2 (changing the table loader from expat)

Previous release notes: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/96619/gamesalad-publishing-binaries-rc-current-updated-2020-07-06/p1

Thank you for your patiences as we worked out all the issues from such large updates and for being patient as we kept telling you "did you try Build RC?" Also, be sure to take a look at the RC thread for our next exciting update, support for Android Expansion Files among other things!

• Fix visual artifacts and text colors that don't show well in Dark Mode
• Lazy loading screenshots to reduce memory impact during preview
• Force float attributes to use US formatting to enforce decimal places (untested).

While I update the release feed, I thought I'd post the link here too for people who want to try it ASAP:

http://releases.gamesalad.com/creator/GameSalad-1.25.102.dmg

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android

Changes

• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.2.0 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
    • Liftoff, Superawesome added.
    • Improved init to avoid sending data before GDRP consent
  • Admob 20.5.0
  • Chartboost 4.3.8
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV
• Pollfish
• GameAnalytics
• Google Play Rate App
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.

Fixes

• Fix the speed issue on Pixel 4 and other phones that run over 60fps. We're going to lock GameSalad apps to run at a max of 60fps. Since I don't have a Pixel 4 yet, I can't test it, but we'll try to get one and test it before the RC becomes a stable build.

IOS

Changes

• Ad Network Updates
  • IronSrc 7.2.3.1
    • Support for HyprMX, Liftoff, MyTarget, Snap, SuperAwesome, Tencent, Yahoo.
  • Admob 9.6.0
  • Chartboost 8.5.0.1
• GameAnalytics Support
• Pollfish
• Apple Rate App
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.

Bugs

• Fixed issue with ITMS-90901. Added full screen flag in plist.
• Fixed issues with Pollfish crashes and repeated displays.

Notes

RC Build likely requires iOS App Signer to sign the app and not GameSalad, as many of the new updated ad libraries use embedded Frameworks, which the GameSalad Creator signer can't handle yet.

https://dantheman827.github.io/ios-app-signer/

Please, please, PLEASE test your apps before updating / releasing them on the store!

Next up is looking into any issues that have been reported on the Android RC

Since there are no Android changes and there's too much to repeat, just go look here for all of that info.

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98628/android-binary-rc-2022-04-13-ironsource-upgrade-pollfish-google-play-rate-app/p1

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98629/pollfish-rewarded-polls/

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98630/gameanalytics/

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

Android

Changes

• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.2.0 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
    • Liftoff, Superawesome added.
    • Improved init to avoid sending data before GDRP consent
  • Admob 20.5.0
  • Chartboost 4.3.8
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV
• Pollfish
• GameAnalytics
• Google Play Rate App
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.

Fixes

• Fix the speed issue on Pixel 4 and other phones that run over 60fps. We're going to lock GameSalad apps to run at a max of 60fps. Since I don't have a Pixel 4 yet, I can't test it, but we'll try to get one and test it before the RC becomes a stable build.

IOS

Changes

• Ad Network Updates
  • IronSrc 7.2.1.2
    • Support for HyprMX, Liftoff, MyTarget, Snap, Tencent, Yahoo.
  • Admob 9.1.0
  • Chartboost 8.5.0.1
• Pollfish
• Apple Rate App
• Allow enable multiple Full Screen Ad providers to allow for Pollfish + another provider.

Bugs

• Fixed issue with ITMS-90901. Added full screen flag in plist.

Notes

Apple does their app rating widget a bit differently, so you will be able to see it in testing (though it will probably cause an error if you try to rate before your game is on the app store).

We rushed this release out because of the importance of the iOS update, so please, please, PLEASE test your apps before updating / releasing them on the store!

Next up is looking into any issues that have been reported on the Android RC and then integrating GameAnalytics.

Since there are no Android changes and there's too much to repeat, just go look here for all of that info.

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98628/android-binary-rc-2022-04-13-ironsource-upgrade-pollfish-google-play-rate-app/p1

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98629/pollfish-rewarded-polls/

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98630/gameanalytics/

• Table updates from network request actually notifies rule predicates of update.
• Fixes to custom collision shapes.
• Load music into AudioBuffer instead of playing from a Music tag.
• Control music volume through Web Audio API. Also ensures music volume is properly adjusted in safari.
• Run keyup events for all keys that are down when the Keyboard Input is triggered to match behavior in native engine.
• Fix joystick disconnect detection.

Advanced / experimental features.

• device.clock.epochTime: returns number of milliseconds since Unix Epoch. Great for figuring out elapsed time. Available on in HTML5 engine and Creator 2.0 for now, but will make it's way to native engines eventually.
• For send table to URL, process the response's "updated" field to update table (untested).
• Allow for changing table from javascript API like we allow for attributes.
• Allow for changing an asset's image URL so you can dynamically load images into actors.

You can learn more here: 

https://www.pollfish.com/publisher/

and

https://www.pollfish.com/blog/app-monetization/10-facts-about-mobile-rewarded-surveys/

When done right they can be a great way to monetize your app, with eCPM of up to $200 (of course ymmv). With even basic surveys, completed surveys earn you a minimum of $0.30.

Since they take a bit more work from a player than video rewarded ads, we suggest enticing your players by giving them bigger rewards for completing surveys. 

One thing to keep in mind is that polls can have different values. You will be able to set up a mapping between a poll’s “value” on the pollfish side and the corresponding in-game currency in the pollfish interface. Upon poll completion, we will then return the corresponding reward value to the built-in game attribute: game.adReward.value

Pollfish has “ad” display types: OfferWall and Rewarded. 

Rewarded Polls

Rewarded polls are a way to pull up single polls immediately (“Take a poll for a reward”).

Learn more here: https://www.pollfish.com/docs/rewarded-surveys 

In GameSalad, Rewarded Polls are called up just like Rewarded Video / Interstitial ads.

Offerwalls

The Offerwall pulls up a wall of potential polls for users to choose them. (“Choose poll for a reward”). They are often mapped with different  in-app award amounts based on their value. 

Learn more here: https://www.pollfish.com/docs/offerwall

In GameSalad, the Offerwall is called up like a normal Interstitial Ad (though we will still process rewards).

You can use the usual Change Scene behavior to display an ad. But if you want to keep your usual ad network and ALSO include pollfish, you can use the Tweet Sheet behavior to show Polls or Offerwalls.

To show a rewarded poll use the following:

TweetSheet:
Message: gs:showRewardedAd
Image: pollfish

To show a poll offerwall use the following:

TweetSheet
Message: gs:showInterstitialAd
Image: pollfish

When a user completes an ad, their reward will show up in the game.adReward.value attribute.

GameAnalytics is a popular analytics platform that is free for users. They make money when you upgrade to more advanced services, which you’ll likely be able to afford if you get to that point!

For now, we’ve designed the system around how GameAnalytics does things:

• Ad / Impression events.
  • We track the following Ad events automatically:
    • FailedShow
    • Clicked
    • Show
    • RewardReceived
• Progression - These events are used to track user progress through a game as you define it.
  • By default GameSalad tracks scene changes after the scene has successfully changed. This can be turned off at publishing time.
  • You can manually send Progress events with a special TweetSheet call. Read more below.
  • In GameAnalytics code this is equivalent to calling:

GameAnalytics.addProgressionEvent(GAProgressionStatus.Complete, "Game", "Scene", previousSceneName);
GameAnalytics.addProgressionEvent(GAProgressionStatus.Start, "Game", "Scene", nextSceneName);

• Business Events - Events related to IAP’s. More below.
• Resources - Events for tracking in game economy. These could result from IAP, ad rewards, or in game “store” purchases. These are a good way to see if you’re granting too much or too little of a given in-game resource and allow you to tweak how much you give in your game. More below.
• Design events - You can track “Design” events via TweetSheet. More below.

IAPs

An IAP results in two event types. It will always result in a “Business” event and will sometimes result in a “Resource” event.

The first thing you need to set up is the purchase metadata, which for now will be stored in the purchase table’s title field (the first grayed out column). This will contain a colon (:) separated list of strings that define the following:

All IAPs

itemType - A category for the item. Things like: “Gold Packs”, “Weapons”, etc.

Consumable IAPs

consumableType - A category for consumable items. Things like “Gold”, “Jewels”, etc.

consumableQty - A number for the number of the consumable purchased

For instance, if your IAP row is a consumable purchase for 100 coins, you’d set the title column as something like:

Coin Packs:Coins:100

A non-consumable IAP for removing ads you’d just put something like:

Remove Ads

Eventually these will be new columns in the purchase table, but for now just add them as part of the column's title.

When a IAP is completed, the following business event is sent using the itemType

     GameAnalytics.addBusinessEvent(
       currecyCode, amount, itemType, purchaseItemId,
       eventSource, receipt, "google_play", signature);

If the consumableType and consumableQty are defined, then we’ll also track a Resource event as follows:

   GameAnalytics.addResourceEvent(
     GAResourceFlowType.Source,
     consumableType, consumableQty, itemType, purchaseItemId);

iOS (from 2021-08-04):

Changes

• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.1.5.0
  • Admob 8.4.0
  • Chartboost 8.4.1
• Tweeting with "requestIDFA" in the image and the message should bring up the TrackingAuthorizationWithCompletionHandler

Fixes

• requestIDFA now works properly as described above.

Android (2021-10-25)

Changes

• New build system.
• Target SDK: 30
• Min SDK: 21
• Android Billing 4.0.0
• Ad Network updates
  • Admob: 20.3.1
  • Chartboost: 8.2.1
  • IronSrc: 7.1.11 and updates to all mediated network
• Google Play Game Services 20.0.1

Fixes

• Fix issue that sometimes broke 16-bit characters received in network request. It would manifest as a font rendering issue where two "blank block" characters would show where 1 should be.

Notes

I'll spare you a lot of the details, but the general advantages of the new android build system are:

1) Faster build times.

2) Fewer errors from permutations of ad networks.

3) Support for AAB with Asset Delivery (Google's replacement for expansion files).

4) Still supports APK building, now using the same process that builds AABs.

Until we release a new RC after Nov 1, 2021 (today), the RC and the Release versions are the same.

As for other questions. No, we haven't worked out aab signing on the tools yet, and we've hit a roadblock with the new 'all-in-one' signing tool approach we were looking into. We'll continue to research the best way to get app signing for both APKs and AABs in your hands and will let you know when we figure out the approach we want to take.

For now, you will need to sign your own AAB files with jarsigner. You should google "signing aab files command line". For me the top result is: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50560045/sign-android-app-bundle-from-command-line

jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore xample.jks bundle.aab keystoreAlias

-sigalg SHA1withRSA should be adjusted to match the algorithm of your actual keys in your keystore. SHA1withRSA and SHA1withDSA are most common, but MD5withRSA and MD2withRSA are also possible.

-keystore xample.jks , xample.jks should be replaced with the actual path to your keystore

bundle.aab should be the path to your aab file.

keystoreAlias should be the alias you used when adding your signature key to the keystore.

More details on manual signing can be found here:

Windows: https://help.gamesalad.com/windows-cookbook/publishing/android-publishing/android-app-bundle-aab-command-line-signing/

macOS: https://help.gamesalad.com/gamesalad-cookbook/publishing/4-android-publishing/android-app-bundle-aab-terminal-signing/

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

This build is focused on upgrading to Android API 30 to allow app store submissions to continue.

Android

Changes

• Android targets have been compiled agains API 30.
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV
• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.1.7 (and matching updates for mediated networks)
  • Admob 20.2.0
  • Chartboost 4.3.6
  • Does not apply to not Kindle or FireTV

Fixes

New build system has pulled in a large number of missed dependencies for ad networks, so you may see better ad network performance for mediated ads.

Other

• No change

Notes

With our new build system we were able to relatively quickly update ad networks (though there was a significant code update for Admob that took some time).

Speaking of Admob, if you use admob, you will need to set a valid Admob App ID or the app WILL crash. You will likely also need to set it if you use IronSrc as well (we still need to test that).

We've only updated the Android targets because the issue affects people submitting to Google Play. In our next RC we will deprecate FireTV and Kindle as separate targets. These targets were only created to enforce a limit on the APKs so that they ONLY work on the target devices. This is not really necessary and we mostly did it because for a short time Amazon sponsored FireTV and Kindle targets for the old "free" tier.

Unless major issue crop up, this will be the last build using this version of the publishing build system. We'll be moving to an improved build system that will allow for aab and apks to be generated from the same publishing process.

Hopefully there aren't any big issues with this release and we'll be able to work on the aab release next as that will be the Google Play store's next big requirement.

UPDATE 2021-08-05 18:18 CDT

Publishing has been updated to include your Admob App ID if you use IronSrc. If your app has never used Admob, but you do have Admob mediation enabled in IronSource, then you NEED to add your Admob App Id in the Admob Service Config.

Also, we added switches for two new mediated networks on IronSource on Android: Smaato and MyTarget

Release Notes: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98386/app-binary-rc-1-25-20210510-updated-ios-ad-networks-fix-collision-shape-loading-on-exp-files/p1

For people used to the old RC thread, I will be repeating features that are not present in the regular "Generate" build, so you know in total what you are getting with this RC. New fixes since the last RC will be in bold.

This build fixes an issue Android IAP and updates Ad Networks versions.

Android:

Changes

• APK Expansion File Support
• Game project loading tweaks to improve performance (smaller memory footprint, faster loading on really large files).
• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.1.0.2
  • Admob 19.6.0
  • Chartboost 8.2.0
• Support Android Social Share with Tweet Sheet Behavior
  • To get this out quickly for now: sharing an image URL does not download the image and embed it, it just appends the image URL to the message.

Fixes

• Fixed bug where FireTV would pause on launch leading to app reviewers to think the game has frozen (again).
• Fixed bug that shows up when a scene instantly moves to another scene but takes long to load.
• Fix bug where expansion file loading froze the game due to excess files handles held open.
• Increase buffer size to improve loading performance from expansion files. It is still about 25% slower than loading from in APK, but should be better than the last release.
• Fix loading of custom collision shapes in expansion files.

iOS:

Changes

• Ad Network Updates:
  • IronSrc 7.1.5.0
  • Admob 8.4.0
  • Chartboost 8.4.1
• Tweeting with "requestIDFA" in the image and the message should bring up the TrackingAuthorizationWithCompletionHandler

Fixes

• requestIDFA now works properly as described above.

macOS:

Fixes

• Fix Start in Full Screen mode having content offset.
• Fix full screen mode staying as stretched.
• Possibly Fix full loading on macOS versions older than 11

All:

• Fixed loading bug for project files larger than 5k.

Previous update: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98361/app-binary-rc-1-25-20210420-corrected-ios-app-track-social-sharing-on-android#latest

Commentary

Tracking Authorization

Ability to show tracking authorization request by using the Twitter behavior. You will need to put requestIDFA as both the message and image for that to happen.

This will allow ad networks to send a device wide device identifier, which is required in order to server personalized ads (which end up paying more than generic ads).

APK Expansion File Support

Long awaited support for APK expansion files is here! We'll be documenting things better soon, but basically there's a checkbox in publishing.

Check it and we'll generate an APK and a OBB file.

The APK should be signed as normal. The OBB file should be uploaded as your expansion file!

Some notes.

• Expansion files are only supported on Google Play. Amazon lets you upload big APKs.
• There's a bug in the Google Play console that prevents you from uploading an expansion file as part of your first release. So you'll need to regenerate (to increment the version code) and upload the apk again for the expansion file menu item to show.
• No patch file support, you'll need to do a new release every time.
• If the expansion file is not downloaded during first install, the game will just show the loading screen and the loading wheel while it waits for the download to finish.
• We didn't add any error checking for the general release. So if you check "Expansion Files" and hit Generate you'll get an APK with no game in it, but won't be able to load the expansion file.

As usual, if you see any issues specific to this release, let us know!