How do games like Cut the Rope...

DenimShark

...and Angry Birds and so on achieve such quick load times between changing scenes even though they have 100's of levels, and tons of actors. Is this due to gamesalad, and if so should I ever expect better load times, or should I start learning some code.

UtopianGames

It's because they're developed with a different engine...gs load times are getting better and better but i'm not sure if they will ever be that fast.

Darren.

part12studios

yea if you want that kind of performance and control better learn Objective C and maybe the cocoa 2d stuff.. because those games were written on a much lower level..

game salad gives us tons of pre-made behaviors and even allows us to not have to write / learn code.. but these behaviors are general, so they tend to have more broad usage which often means they might not perform as fast because they were not optimized to do one task only..

the trade off is optimization.. those games were programmed from the ground up to do just what they do.. this means that they can strip out any other possible activities that might cause lag or functions that do more than is absolutely needed... after awhile of making a game engine for a specific game/mechanic.. all those little optimizations = freeing up considerable frame rates.

BlackbirdStudios

RKS said:
...so you could use Box2D or something.

They were talking about adding Box2D in the old GS roadmap. But it will probably be a while now with the new roadmap...

JohnPapiomitis

Gamesalad already uses box2d. The roadmap stuff was improvments to it

JohnPapiomitis

RKS said:
Really? Box 2D is faster then GS load times. I am a little confused???
_______
http://rksgames.tk http://gsbar.tk Cheers, RKS! :] Please sign up to GSBar! Need more members!

I think your confused about what box2d is. Its not a sdk like gamesalad its a physics engine and is the underlying physics engine for gamesalad.

tenrdrmer

haha yeah box2D is just what runs the Physics. So when we get joints its will likely be an added box2D feature. Etc… Its not an SDK you can use to make games its something you have to integrate into your game using an SDK. With GameSalad. Its pre integrated for us.

JohnPapiomitis

RKS said:
I know what it is, but why is GS so slow if the physics engine is fast? Is it maybe non-physics parts of GS? (e.g. text boxes, attributes)

memory managment, garbage collection..

Rob2

Because GS apps are basically XML files which are parsed/interpreted at runtime.

DenimShark

ya I was afraid that was the case. It bothers me that I may spend a great deal of time and effort to make a good game, only to have it unplayable or just not on the level of other great title.