Question about the June 3rd webinar from the gamesald team.

osakamitsu

Sorry if this is the wrong place to put this discussion. I saw GShelper's discussion about his webinar and thought it was OK. I will be attending this Sat and I am very excited. Thank you for doing this!

I was very excited to sign up for the June 3rd lecture. However when I got there I realized it was $1000. Since I don't make much money, I am the only income in the entire house and I support more than just myself there is absolutely no way I would ever be able to go with that price tag. Not even if Hell froze over and pigs started flying. I realize it's for certification. I didn't know that when I headed over to sign up though. I do not work in the games industry, I'm not a business or an educator. I just want to make them for myself. So a certification is the last thing that I am concerned about. But a 4 hour lecture on building a side scroller?? I couldn't have been more excited. So I'm pretty depressed about the price tag. My question is will this be available later? For people that do not care about getting certified? Or what if you guys recorded it and sold the training without certification for a reasonable price with the resources later? This sounds like the ultimate tutorial for me. Especially since there still are no good books to learn from. And yes, sadly I do own and am very disappointed in the official guide that just game out. So please any info on this situation would be incredible!

ShmirlyWhirl

Websites like gshelper.com and tshirtbooth's youtube tutorials should be more than enough to get you started. I think you can even find a series that will take you through the whole process of making a game.

I'm fairly confident that certification was geared towards educators.

osakamitsu

True, GShelper has some great stuff but I run into too many of their tutorials that expect you to already know what you are doing in another aspect. One example, I was watching a tutorial that required you to enter a bunch of stuff in the equation editor but then he said it would take too long too explain that. I was lost at that point because if I dont know the hows and whys then I just dont get it. Most if their tutorials are too vague for me at the moment. Its just how I learn. Many of their tutorials have had similar instances. So when I need to learn something they are not usually the first place I go. I am hoping something is different with the lecture on Saturday and things click.

As for tutorials that show how to make a game from start to finish I can't think of very many. I know the bee game is available on youtube. But many of them are incomplete and the authors havent made a follow up video to them is a very long time. If you know of any please point them out.

As for the books? The official book that just came out hardly teaches you anything about gamesald weirdly. Seems like more of a history of gaming and how people are using gamesald now. Was a waste of money to me. Just a handful of very very small tutorials that are very specific and dont really apply to anything unless you are looking for that exact thing. The other two books you can buy on amazon were not much better. One of them skipped over too many steps in the very beginning of the book and didnt explain things properly. I think the reviews are pretty accurate on it.

I dont think like a programmer yet. So this doesnt come as easy to me as many others. I understand it was meant for educators but I dont see how they cant make it available to everyone and then charge the educators for the certification. After all there has to be more people trying to learn the program than there are educators. And by making it available to more people they increase their knowledgable user base which in turn creates more gamesald users and pro users. But it seems to me that putting such a large price tag on it would limit the number of people that could use it. You could make more money with a lower price and more buyers than a high price and a low number of buyers. Or at least create these kind of these for the community instead of having the community rely on forums, youtube video from people on forums, and poorly written books.

It was just a question, wether or not it was going to be available any other way at a later date.

tatiang

The educational certification is a specific product for a specific audience: teachers who need to be able to teach a class using GameSalad and who need/want to be certified, which some employers require.

In your case, it sounds like you need someone to hold your hand through the initial stages of using GameSalad. There are people on the forums who offer Skype assistance (including folks at GSHelper.com).

I myself am a teacher and have provided video tutorials that I actually think you might find useful. The link is in my signature below and it takes you to a playlist that will show you step-by-step how to make a simple vertical shooter. We all learn in different ways, so perhaps it still won't be what you're looking for but if it is then all the more power to you!

Edit: in case my signature isn't displaying, here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/GameSaladTutorials

osakamitsu

Thanks for the info and link. I will check them out.

jamie_c

There are some 'step-step' tutorials at my site, http://www.jamie-cross.net, including links to a couple full game creation screencasts I've done for tutplus.com.

finalcutbob

I think Jamie meant to spell his name like this: http://www.jamie-cross.net

jamie_c

how could I mess that up!? lol. thanks for catching that!! . It's now fixed.