upgrade later? /retina / ipad? (3 questions)

QbAnYtO

i'm using 0.8.4 (i think) bcuz i don't have snow leopard yet. however for my bday on january my wife is getting me an i7 imac.

when i upgrade to 0.9 and reopen my files into 0.9 will anything mess up? should i look out for anything?

also how can i optimize my game for retina display? i read that i must make my actor bigger?
and for ipad.. how can i make it so that its also compatible with the ipad? (hd versions of my game). i know i have to enlarge the actors and what not but how much?

last question,is it easier to to make ipad versions first then make the iphone versions? (shrinking easier than growing?

thanks guys!

Photics

QbAnYtO said:
when i upgrade to 0.9 and reopen my files into 0.9 will anything mess up? should i look out for anything?

I think 0.9.0 messed up Commove. The energy gauge goes to empty much faster than before. I think each move is using double energy. I was too busy to figure out why. Also, the movement with Game #1 of Arcade Action was changed. It didn't work the same as 0.8.9, so I changed it from an Interpolate to a Constrain. It seemed to work better.

Basically... you might have to look out for issues. If I'm finding minor errors with 0.8.9 to 0.9.0... I'm thinking there could be greater issues with a jump from 0.8.4... that's a big upgrade.

QbAnYtO said:also how can i optimize my game for retina display? i read that i must make my actor bigger?

Nope, the actor stays the same size. It's the image that gets bigger.

QbAnYtO said:
and for ipad.. how can i make it so that its also compatible with the ipad? (hd versions of my game). i know i have to enlarge the actors and what not but how much?

GameSalad doesn't support universal binaries yet. Basically, it's a matter of copying your project... changing it to an iPad app... and then move stuff around. You might have to change a lot of things, but it depends on your game design.

QbAnYtO said:
last question,is it easier to to make ipad versions first then make the iphone versions? (shrinking easier than growing?

Apple gets grumpy if you make pretty much the same game for iPad and iPod Touch / iPhone. So, I don't think it's just think about expanding or contracting actor sizes. A game plays differently on a bigger screen. With 1024x768... that can dramatically change a game design.

I find it harder to design for the small screen. I think it's a good idea to work with larger graphics... iPad and Retina Display... then let GameSalad downsize the images.

With Arcade Action, I didn't even use the "Resolution independence" option. I just let iOS draw the smaller graphics from the larger image files. I found this is the best way to ensure quality, but it can be really tough on performance. If I tried that with Annoyed Tomatoes, it would likely crash older iOS devices.

Basically... heh... it seems that you missed a lot and 0.9.0 will likely require some catching up.

MotherHoose

Photics answered all your questions ... so beautifully!!!

I will just add... zip up your GS 0.8 and port it to your new Mac... it works beautifully in SnowLeopard....
that way if you have any problems with projects in 9.0 ... you will have the content of the the original to review/pull gfx etc. from.

the only problem I had with an 0.8 project in 0.9 is the speed required me to put some timers in to slow things down... used to just put the revert changeAttribute to 0 at the end of the lines of actions... now to allow the events time to happen, I put a timer with after 0.01 sec then change to 0...

MH

QbAnYtO

thanks photics.. u see, i'm making a game (sidescroller) and i wanna make sure it looks good on both devices. i guess i can always edit the pngs in my photo software before sending it to ipad huh