Teaching with GameSalad - experiences so far.
tellard
Member Posts: 11
To a certain extent this is feedback owed to Gendai, who were nice enough to let me buy a single membership so I could teach a game design course.
I must admit that I picked GameSalad because we are Mac based and I figured that Unity3D would be too hard for an Intro course. (The other thing Unity has done wrong is try to lock their software to individual machines, That makes it really unpopular with support staff with many hundreds of machines - they can't build it into an image.)
Choices for game software on Mac are pretty slim. But I am happy with GS having compared it to a number of competing choices: ClickTeam, GameMaker etc.
The students are not that happy. Most students with an interest in game design work with PCs outside of the college and want cross platform support much before any other tweak. Just being able to show the game on a PC or in Firefox would have them impressed. Those students with Macs are OK except...
At a university you can't get a rebuild of the image very often. The version of GS on the system is .83 but most of us (including myself) are too quick to say yes to upgrades on our laptops. So games written at home won't load on the university machines. OK, so this can be managed but it's a pest that comes from beta status I guess.
We're also having a bit of problems with positioning actors. Some of the students want more precision - they're graphic designers, so they get fussy when trying to place things just so. The maths guys are missing arrays. I show them 'state machines' but they are learning coding elsewhere and they want to apply what they are learning.
Interestingly we're at odds with most people here - we have no interest in iPhones or iPads and are far more interested in the _range_ of platforms that we could reach. They want to show off their games to many people not just iPhone owners. Generally they're more interested in Flash and there was very little sympathy with Apple over the last tussle. I note that ClickTeam now have a SWF exporter and I'll have to look into that for next year.
And that basically is the situation - cross platform playback has come up as the biggest issue for us. Next up is versioning. Slowdowns and crashes are much the same for us as everyone else.
Thanks for listening.
I must admit that I picked GameSalad because we are Mac based and I figured that Unity3D would be too hard for an Intro course. (The other thing Unity has done wrong is try to lock their software to individual machines, That makes it really unpopular with support staff with many hundreds of machines - they can't build it into an image.)
Choices for game software on Mac are pretty slim. But I am happy with GS having compared it to a number of competing choices: ClickTeam, GameMaker etc.
The students are not that happy. Most students with an interest in game design work with PCs outside of the college and want cross platform support much before any other tweak. Just being able to show the game on a PC or in Firefox would have them impressed. Those students with Macs are OK except...
At a university you can't get a rebuild of the image very often. The version of GS on the system is .83 but most of us (including myself) are too quick to say yes to upgrades on our laptops. So games written at home won't load on the university machines. OK, so this can be managed but it's a pest that comes from beta status I guess.
We're also having a bit of problems with positioning actors. Some of the students want more precision - they're graphic designers, so they get fussy when trying to place things just so. The maths guys are missing arrays. I show them 'state machines' but they are learning coding elsewhere and they want to apply what they are learning.
Interestingly we're at odds with most people here - we have no interest in iPhones or iPads and are far more interested in the _range_ of platforms that we could reach. They want to show off their games to many people not just iPhone owners. Generally they're more interested in Flash and there was very little sympathy with Apple over the last tussle. I note that ClickTeam now have a SWF exporter and I'll have to look into that for next year.
And that basically is the situation - cross platform playback has come up as the biggest issue for us. Next up is versioning. Slowdowns and crashes are much the same for us as everyone else.
Thanks for listening.
Comments
That said, I think they are working hard to do what they can to meet the interests of most users, which I feel confident... but I'm not sure... would be IPhone developers. But who knows, by the time GS is out of beta, it might do everything!
I think GS is a great game creation tool for education even if it could only publish to the web. All key gaming creation concepts are addressed and can be explored in relative ease. Yes there are other software titles with greater functionality, but none are as accessible as GS.
And it's this accessibility that opens up the opportunity to teach the higher more creative game concepts. Without being bogged down with syntax, debugging, and reinventing behaviours. GS is probably one of the most creative tools out there, And thus students should concentrate on creativity.
I'm a designer, and know that worrying about pixel perfect placement and such, doesn't matter a jot if you haven't got the killer idea.
As far a arrays for the maths boys, you can tell them from me, you can create functioning arrays. I did it this morning
I'm a huge fan of what you are trying to achieve, and wish you all the success in the world.
Definitely Gendai have to find their income stream from somewhere and I guess for now that's aspiring iPeople. I wouldn't expect education to a goal short term but maybe I can give some feedback that can be tucked away for the long term. I suspect that Apple would not be as friendly if they changed their model: I have a small bet riding on their acquisition anyway (like Quartz Composer).
Uploading to the web is fine but Safari for Mac is about 5% of the browsers in use from the last report I got. Their friends and parents won't see their game. This is crucial. I compiled some applications for them all at least.
If you want to start such a course the big issue is the mix of students that range from architecture to fine arts. There's no common ground and one side or other will get bored quickly. Like yesterday I showed how to walk a 3D character around an isometric space. Very simple pre-rendered stuff, but to make the assets you had to know 3D, the media guys know Maya, the architects know Max and the painters are bewildered. But if I don't show this then respect is lost because of all the isometric games they have seen praised in the lecture.
The advanced game design courses here are based around Virtools, students are overwhelmed getting up to speed on that so as you say the conceptual basis needs more care.
I have to mention I have been playing with the release candidate of Game Maker for OSX. A bit rough, crashes on media, but so long as you keep to version 7 files it's cross platform. And they have a PSP version ... player? I don't know. Final some time in May.