Ideas for Gamesalad that would help make high quality games and faster!!

Jake_Russel

I wish gamesalad had presets (or pre-made game elements) for all the major functions that people want (like game controls, HUD display, start/option menu, etc) where you can just use a preset of a character that has all the coding for gravity, back and forth running, jumping, shooting, etc and all you have to do is insert you own animation images in. Just drag-n-drop a preset of already finished elements of popular games and all you would have to do is use your own images (and of course add more features) using only switches and options from pull-down menus to fine tune the details. (Everything should be menu based and actors drag-n-drop with detailed options for each type of common actor for the limited games gamesalad can make).

Examples would be like: If I wanted a side-scrolling car game, there should be an already made floor (with physics and all already set up) then you pull down a car actor (which would have wheels and all the physics needed). Type in how long you want the road, drag-n-drop a pre-made start menu, drag-n-drop a HUD display, and you're done. Drag-n-drop controls for the entire game and set the "gas" and "brakes" and directional buttons to control the car. Drag-n-drop little things like "obstacles", collectable items, etc, all automatically recognized by gamesalad of what their function is. All you do is add your own images (or make it vector based and you just add textures to the shapes) and your done in less than one hour. If this feature was implemented, then Gamesalad would really be a "no programming" game-maker and the top easiest gamemaker in the world for iphone.

I have looked at a lot of games on gamesalad website and everyone is basically making the same cliche games. People would be encouraged to make different and more creative games if they didn't have to focus on reinventing the wheel for every game (literally!) Games would hit a new level of quality from gamesalad instantly.

The focus for gamesalad should not more features in the attributes and behaviors area, but actually streamlining gamesalad so that you almost don't need those (until you need to add advanced things).

CREATORS OF GAMESALAD, READ THIS POST (HINT! HINT!)

All readers of this topic, list all the game types you know that gamesalad is limited to making and see if all of us can agree to controls, elements, and the actors that they use that can be categorized so they can literally be made into a "drag-n-drop" system.

FranzKeller

As said in another thread, I could go for some more "puzzle" oriented tools.

You are an "idealist" like myself! ;-) How I do wish for such features.
but hate to say - (soapbox warning)

You cannot expect to make a hit game in 1 hour*, or 1 day...
with great luck perhaps 1 week? or 1 month, or 1 year. depending on a million factors...
(and far more time afterward fine tuning the concept! Debugging, promoting, updating, making sequels!)

*(though the perfect idea could arrive at any moment! So write those down)

If it's all "templates based on popular games", then some of us WOULD use it to do something new, but most would FLOOD the market with even more uninspired clones of those games.
(have you noticed how many pointless physics based puzzles just suddenly appeared, for example,
as modular physics engines became available?)

Also, computers aren't yet up to "holodeck" levels of AI -
"Computer! Make me an Angry Birds with Street Fighter 2 style characters, and Halo first person view."
"beep beep... your program is ready, Lt. LeForge*"
what SEEMS simple to a game designer can easily become
impossibly complex for a programmer to code
(and even more so when the programer is coding a TOOL to code such a thing)

Game Salad isn't "easy",
but it's certainly easier than the other existing options at this time for iOS games, etc.

I say: Make the best you can with what we have! There is still much untapped potential here
And the more realistic your requests are for future enhancements, the more likely Gendai is to grant them.

(IE Right now, what I want most is iPad VGA output so I can write eye candy apps. 8-)

*j/k, see discussion elsewhere }-)

Jake_Russel

I thought no one was going to respond to this thread.

Okay, I think Gamesalad is doing a little false advertisement. They say you can make a game in around a month after downloading it. Then they say they have testimonies of success. Guess what, these people who supposedly made a game "fast" already had years of game making (or programming) experience. Even the new Gamesalad 0.9 didn't add anything for beginners, all it did was fix bugs. There are people in this world that are skilled in making things but not good at teaching things. People have a harder time thinking more simple than thinking complex. Gamesalad has almost no manual, and even the website that lists the "functions" of attributes and behaviors use the name of the thing they are defining in its own definition. Here is an example from the reference library:

SAVE GAME ATTRIBUTE DEFINITION: "Save the value of an attribute into persistent storage with a custom key name".
-What is a persistent storage?
-What is a key name and why or how is it customized?
-What do you mean by value?
-What is this attribute used for as an example?
-Why do I need a value and a key name?
See how this is very confusing to beginning gamesalad uses? This definition is useless and makes no attempt to make it simple or easy to use.

I'm new to gamesalad and its going to take me a month just to learn how to get a square to jump and land on the ground because theres almost no documentation with deep enough explanation on how to do this. (By the way, I taught myself Modeling and animation programs, Photoshop, flash and music maker programs in a around 2 months each. I consider my self a smart guy but Gamesalad is kicking my butt! I've never been more frustrated with a content creation program before).

Gamesalad has a lot of potential and all it needs to do is focus on making it faster and automatic, rather than more complex. No additional coding for gamesalad is needed. All it needs is to group pre-made game concepts into a drag-n-drop system and make a scene with all the applied physics and collision attributes in place for that category. There is great power in simplicity.

The drag-n-drop system has the following advantages:

-Reduces bugs and fine-tuning because it forces a standard. Having a menu system that tweaks additional settings will not only speed up game making process, but also eliminate using the wrong attributes combinations and expressions that so often plague even the most polished games.

-It would actually make programming for the Gamesalad makers easier, because all they would have to do is update the categories with the drag-n-drop system, not the entire program itself. (Think about it, how do games like Tony Hawk make a game editor within the game that uses a drag-n-drop system and you don't even have to think about applying gravity, friction, vehicles, behaviors, etc. You just drop a road, bridge, ramp, etc. and test it. All the physics and other things are already in place. You don't have to make a skate board from scratch every time you make a custom skate course.).

-Drag-n-drop is like a "wizard" or whatever they call it now, that walks you step by step, adding feature by feature so you won't be overwhelmed by 100's of options, half of them "grayed out" for no explanation. This drag-n-drop system just organizes the common behavior combinations (like game controls for the 4 directions) into lists, you just pick what you want and drop it in.

-Just because its a drag-n-drop system does not mean that the market will be flooded with cookie-cutter cliche games. The reason why there are so many "drop the ball" "shoot the ball at the tower" type games is because people give up trying to put their great ideas into games because a feature like buying and selling in a game (even a 2D game) would take months of programming. So people settle for what I call "baby games" and just make what they can handle. A drag-n-drop system would open doors to new game possibilities like dropping in a character, then drop in a feature where they character can morph into a vehicle, then drop in a feature where the vehicle can launch missiles at a massive robot tower (all this in 2D by the way) and have the vehicle able to morph into a plane too and shoot more at the robot tower. (This is possible in gamesalad of course, but only the experts can make something like this. This is why a drag-n-drop system is needed more than anything).

I can go on and on about the advantages of this system. Imagine combining two templates of popular games and it makes a new game. Like your example of combining a "angry birds" template with a street fighter (2D) character template. This is possible in gamesalad the long way, but why go through all that? Just drop it in and then tweak the rest to fit your game type. Its not about speed, but rather giving complex game mechanics to beginners. Possibilities would be endless. Gamesalad CAN be easy, all it needs is more creative organization, not new coding.

FranzKeller

It's true, it does seem easier before you get into it.
The documentation isn't enough, I was shocked also, but the forum is filled will some smart and helpful people -
Stay positive, read articles and then ask them about your specific issues for the game you want to make

Unless they hire a lot more programmers, such a drastic restructure is impossible, though.
(There are still very basic bugs / missing features that need to be fixed!)

Jake_Russel

Thanks for the encouragement. I am determined to learn gamesalad. After hearing a testimony from another post on how this guy had great hopes of making a game and when he started gamesalad, was crushed to find out his simple idea would take months just to make the very basics. He stuck with it and after over 6 months, he finally released it.

Also, the tutorials and demos on gamesalad forums are good but they only apply to what they are showing. If they make a space ship asteroid game with the tutorial, how can you apply this to, say, a top scrolling game where the ship picks up powerups that upgrade the ships firepower (like the classic arcade games). Now you are back to square one because no one can tell you how to take that tutorial to the next level. (Also, this is when those cookie-cutter games start "flooding the market" because people give up and just use tutorial files (like the one I mentioned) and add their own images and just hit the publish button).

FInally, as I said before, no extra effort or an extra crew of programmers is needed to add a drag-n-drop system. All that is needed is organization of commonly used code into categories. (They can get people from the gamesalad forum to make some templates and code group categories if necessary). Then apply a drag-n-drop for these groups of coding (they already have this set up for behaviors, attributes and actors, so why not groups and templates?).