State of GameSalad on 6-12-2013

CodeWizard

Hello! It's that time again... time for another weekly state of GameSalad post.

Estimated Stable Build Schedule

We’re still holding off on releasing any new stable builds. More bug fixes and optimizations are in progress in the nightly builds. Head over to the “PRO - Working With GameSalad” forum for more info.

What’s New This Week?

1. We’re still fixing bugs and optimizing code this week. Specifically we implemented a few general Lua optimizations and fixed a bug with the nightly build that caused unconstrained memory growth in some cases. This seemed to be caused by a misconfiguration of our nightly build scripts. Neato.

2. We’re still looking into the font bug with Zapfino this week. Put it on the backburner a bit because it was driving us crazy. Will pick it up again any day now.

3, Implementation of asynchronous multiplayer support has begun.

4. We’re still making progress on interviewing and hiring more top-tier engineering talent. We’re talking to one engineer that has 20 years of game engine design and development experience. Are you a skilled developer or do you know of one in Austin, TX? Send them to http://www.gamesalad.com/jobs

Let’s Talk About Async Multiplayer

We’ve completed an initial design pass on async multiplayer support and have begun implementing it. Here’s the highlights of how it works and some answers to common questions about it:

1. It is cross platform.

2. It supports your users creating accounts and logging into your game via email.

3. You’ll have the option of turning on async multiplayer support for your game. This will enable more options in Creator and add new tables that contain your game’s multiplayer state.

4. There will be ten new tables created automatically for you when you enable multiplayer support: one table holds game-wide state, one table holds a list of games that your user is engaged in and eight tables hold player-specific state for the currently active game.

5. Yes, that means there’s a maximum of eight players in async multiplayer games.

6. Several new behaviors are being created: NetworkRegisterPlayer, NetworkLoginPlayer, NetworkLogoutPlayer, NetworkCreateGame, NetworkGetAvailableGames, NetworkGetMyGames, NetworkJoinGame, NetworkEndGame, NetworkQuitGame, NetworkPersistPlayerData, NetworkLoadPlayerData, NetworkPersistGameData, NetworkLoadGameData.

We’ll release more details as we make implementation progress. Exciting times!

beefy_clyro

Sweet .. The optimisations your doing, are you expecting small improvements or any significant improvements?

Fajlajp

Will the async multiplayer only be for PRO?

921creative

Nice! Looking forward to multiplayer!

CodeWizard

@beefy_clyro
Mostly small improvements but it's getting better. Won't get some of the bigger ones until we bite off some bigger features (i.e. sprite sheets, batching, etc.)

CodeWizard

@Fajlajp
I don't know the answer to that yet.

DeadlySeriousMedia

WOOOOOOOOOOOOW!

Braydon_SFX

Awesome stuff! Loving it! Great job guys - looking forward to next weeks post!

Hopscotch

NICE!

Socks

Great stuff, keep it coming . . >-

SnapFireStudios

Sounds like most of the engineers are busy working on multiplayer, which is awesome!

@CodeWizard - Any general timeframe for when multiplayer or the next stable release will be out?
- Thomas

P.S. Cross Platform as in which platforms exactly?

jonmulcahy

time to start drawing up design docs of async multiplayer games

beefy_clyro

@CodeWizard Any news on the stretch feature for Universal Builds? With Apple no longer accepting letterboxing this is really important!

Fajlajp

Please don't make it PRO...

iamcartez

Time to start the async multiplayer game planning. This is great news. Late 2013/Early 2014 GS developers will RULE the app stores!

The_Gamesalad_Guru

@codewizard make sure you sticky this thread...

I would suspect this may become a pro feature as GS is a company after all and they if they make more money they can hire more people.

Team6Labs

Two questions.
1) Any ETA?
2) What do you mean by state? I'm confused on how we will be using the tables aspect of multiplayer.

SingleSparq

@codewizard can you increase the number of tables we can make then? It's currently restricted to 50.

jamies15-3

@codewizard with the multiplayer login etc can the design / interface for it be as open as possible for us to merge into our designs. I.e we can create an actor that is the text input field for pass and user meaning that we can actively change the design and size? basically i don't want something as awesome as multiplayer being held back / not being used as much because it doesn't look good in the game.
Cheers,

The_Gamesalad_Guru

@poisenden state I would suspect means the conditions of objects and such on the scene. You don't use those tables that info would be written there by the game engine.

DeadlySeriousMedia

@codewizard could this be used to ping data from a server to update game states by any chance?

PBEmpire

Sticky this please!
Now make this non-pro or i may have to empty my wallet!

JarrenH

Sounds great! Interesting that you guys are going a custom route for multiplayer. Care to elaborate on that decision instead of going for the standard of Game Center?

ironDan

Build 00.37 has been at this point the BIGGEST improvement to ME and has almost instantly made many of the 100+ game projects that I started over almost 3 years with Gamesalad and stopped because of performance issues and shortcomings due to too many attribute work arounds and lack of functions rise from the dead. I have spent very little time over the past few days with the Loop, Loop Table and Expression To Expression Behaviors to shoot past the hurdles that have left me in the past a frustrated mess with no way to get pass. I cant thank the GS Team enough but ask @codewizard to spread my appreciation for the hard work and dedication they have been doing to make GS a tool that can make a developers visions a reality. I look forward to asynchronous multiplayer in the near future and any improvements to the engine that are made. IronDanGames is looking to graduate Kindergarden and shoot strait thru to a Masters Degree in the near future....Thanks Again!

Dan

SnapFireStudios

Sounds great! Interesting that you guys are going a custom route for multiplayer. Care to elaborate on that decision instead of going for the standard of Game Center?

So that it could be cross platform.
- Thomas

SnapFireStudios

Two questions.
1) Any ETA?
2) What do you mean by state? I'm confused on how we will be using the tables aspect of multiplayer.

You would transfer data between users via tables that are synced across the apps.
- Thomas

guilleface

multiplayer will be great, really like the hard work from the gs team, which comes to mind that as far as i know the real coding is about lines of codes made of letters of course, so i wonder how many lines does gs have?

Chakku

Now make this non-pro or i may have to empty my wallet!

No, no, no @PBEmpire...is this how you convince a product owner to make it free?
Make it free or I'll have to pay 8-}

How about we try something a little different, eh?

@CodeWizard I own an orphanage and have 55 mouths to feed, oh please consider the children. Make Async Multi for everyone so I won't have to empty my savings account and starve the kids. Oh please CodeWizard, do it for the children... :o3

Sincerely,
PBEmpire
Caregiver (desperate and near bankruptcy)
PB&J's Orphanage

Wboko

Can't wait to see it work!!!

wolala123

awesome!!!

tenrdrmer

Awesome as ussual!!

Hello! It's that time again... time for another weekly state of GameSalad post.


2. It supports your users creating accounts and logging into your game either via email or Facebook.

@codewizard

One major request?!?!?!

Please make it so if I'm not using a Facebook Login (you know cause I despise Facebook)
That my games with people who mostly use Facebook logins are not hidden from them. Cause that is really annoying to be brushed aside like a no body just because I refuse to use such an awful society destroying service such as Facebook.

Thanks