GameSalad 0.8.6 Beta Now Available!

Yodapollo

Stability Fixes, Sound Controls, & New Gravity Features - Oh My!


Hey, everbody!

The latest beta release of GameSalad is here and available now for download!

The new edition is version 0.8.6, and like I said in last month's 'Big Picture' update, our main focus this development cycle has been on stability. Of course, there are a slew of awesome and helpful features we want to implement, but for this run we wanted to make sure you had the most reliable tool we could offer in your hands, so you can keep building fantastic and innovative games and apps.

So, what did we add to 0.8.6? What issues did we fix? Well, let's take a look:

GameSalad Creation Tool

Features

• Loading Wheel Indicator while Preview Player loads.
• Separate global controls for sound and music volumes, allowing developers to offer more control to users by letting them control music and sound volume separately.
• Gravity As A Vector - Gravity now actively controlled through a vector system, allowing for alterations in direction and magnitude based on 'x' and 'y' gravity values.

Fixes

• Resolved graphics card compatibility issues.
• Improved physics stability by implementing Box2D version 2.1.0.
• Continuation of sounds after actor destruction or scene change. This should alleviate the issue of sounds cutting off due to 'Destroy Actor' or 'Change Scene' behaviors.
• 'Play Sound' behavior's 'Positional Sound' option fixed for different device resolutions.
• 1280x720(HD) Target Display option corrected from 1080x720 resolution.
GameSalad Viewer for iPhone

Fixes

• GameSalad Viewer rotating for both landscape views.
• 'Play Sound' behavior's 'Positional Sound' option fixed for different device resolutions.
• Sound completion after actor destruction or scene change. This should alleviate the issue of sounds cutting off due to 'Destroy Actor' or 'Change Scene' behaviors.

GameSalad Viewer for iPad

Fixes

• GameSalad Viewer rotating for both landscape views.
• 'Play Sound' behavior's 'Positional Sound' option fixed for different device resolutions.
• Sound completion after actor destruction or scene change. This should alleviate the issue of sounds cutting off due to 'Destroy Actor' or 'Change Scene' behaviors.

GameSalad Web Plugin

Fixes

• 'Play Sound' behavior's 'Positional Sound' option fixed for different device resolutions.
• Sound completion after actor destruction or scene change. This should alleviate the issue of sounds cutting off due to 'Destroy Actor' or 'Change Scene' behaviors.

As we said earlier, we really wanted to push stability in this development cycle, and 0.8.6 should fix many of the issues people have been having.

NOTE: Always make sure to download and install the viewers you will be using in addition to the new version of the Creator Tool.

• Get the new version of GameSalad!
• Check out our updated iPhone & iPad Games Pages!
• Discuss this new version of GS on our forums!

--Yodapollo

beefy_clyro

Thanks Yoda, woo

JackBQuick

Thanks, Yodapollo and the GameSalad team! We appreciate the updates.

Chaser

Thanks!

izam

Thank you very much! Hope the updated box 2D will do good for my games!

JonTiStudios

Hmm... I'm noticing some serious issues with my game now. Now when colliding with the ground the movement gets very jerky. It's less noticeable on a 3GS, but on a 3G device it's extremely jerky. Oddly enough though it's not frame-rate. I'm getting the same FPS as before but it's visually having issues when on the ground.

Any suggestions GS team? I'm trying to get an update out tomorrow!

Crazybreadman

@JonTi- Ditto. I just tried on a 1G and I see the same issues. Maybe something in the new version of box 2d is causing this?

JonTiStudios

I'm pretty distraught here. I was going to have a good bit of new content done tomorrow to update...

Is there a way I can roll back to 8.5 and publish using 8.5 or will it still be 8.6 when I get the file back from GameSalad?

Vmlweb

Has anyone noticed any memory leak fixes yet?

@JonTiStudios
Unless they fixes this in the newer updates you can't publish a game with an previous release of GameSalad. I've done this before and submitted it, Apple replied saying there was a licensing error with GameSalad
What you can try and do is fiddle around with some things to make it work, that's what I had to do

ck

My stable app is now quite crashy on the iPhone. Hmmm.

Anyone know where I can find the new viewer (I seem to have lost the plot)?

Vmlweb

ck said:
My stable app is now quite crashy on the iPhone. Hmmm.

Anyone know where I can find the new viewer (I seem to have lost the plot)?

If you don't update the viewer you will experience more crashes and problems than usual

To get the new viewer go to the "Manage Portfolio" page and in the bottom right is a box where you can download all the viewer versions
Make sure you download the one called "GameSalad iPhone Viewer 0.8.6"

ck

Thanks VML

I've now tested extensively in the new viewer and on the 3g. Definitely crashy (in viewer and on iPhone, but not GS), where it wasn't yesterday.

I believe it is related to sound. I'm using mono 11k caf, no longer than 4 sec in any case - running music simultaneously. Some sounds (consistently) crash the game, some (consistently) don't.

I'll post this outside the thread as well. Otherwise, I'm waiting for a fix, rather than bang my head against this.

bladeolson

how is the slowdown of the editor issue feeling? Still need to re-start every few minutes?

giacomopoppi

thanks GS!

Rob2

Thanks for the stability all seems very much improved, sorry I have been so rude and grumpy about your baby but kps and slow down were killing my flow

vegasmike1

I am having several problems, I have a game that uses a larger screen in portrait, 960 by 320, now when I preview the game in GS, it does some weird thing with the screen. I am not happy with this rev its got other issues as well, the Physics seem slower and less responsive so whatever they put in, is not very good. It seems like no one ever tested this rev before they released it. I like this software and in general its cool, but its like we are dealing with a development group that does something else for a real job. Not trying to be mean but this rev is not good. I had lots of issues with 8.5 but I got around them, this rev does not like games made in rev 8.5. Hopefully someone on GS end is listening. I know its beta, but beta upgrade should be smoother not create another set of problems.
Just my 2 cents.
Mike

Yodapollo

Hey, everybody!

Just wanted to let you all know that we're aware of the issues people have having with the new build and we're hard at work trying to resolve them ASAP.

Thank you for your patience and we hope to have some answers for you shortly.

--Yodapollo

carlos.varela.com

Inverse direction on accelerometer, 3g, iphone os 3.1.2
And the player hang too, means more fast, but hang / crash, or white screen too. same on editor some times.
Please, where is a complete list of all releases? on my portfolio just see since 0.8.4, where can I download other older version, please?

JonTiStudios

Yodapollo said:
Hey, everybody!

Just wanted to let you all know that we're aware of the issues people have having with the new build and we're hard at work trying to resolve them ASAP.

Thank you for your patience and we hope to have some answers for you shortly.

--Yodapollo

Thanks for the heads up. We really appreciate the quick action, hopefully a solution is equally is quick.

Peter_Olafson

All of my graphics and icons just became blank. Scene selection icons are blank, the stage is black, previewing on the computer results in a black screen but previewing on the iphone shows the graphics. Hoping I can roll back. Can't do anything if I can't see anything.

Peter_Olafson

Reimporting the graphics fixed the issue. Fortunately I'm still early in the game.

alnkhailan

Dear GameSalad Creators,

Since i've upgraded to 8.6, my Portrait App works fine with the GameSalad Creator Preview function.

However, when i create a Development version of my App and install it on my 16GB 3GS ... the game ALWAYS gets displayed LANDSCAPE on the THIRD SCENE in a view that is supposed to be PORTRAIT !!

I Do not understand how this would happen ... it Previews fine .. but when tested on the iPhone .. it changes orientation by itself to landscape althought i setup everything to be in Portrait ... !!

This is really disturbing me as I want to Submit this App ASAP.

I hope that you fix this issue ASAP .. or just return us back to 8.5.

Thanks

quantumsheep

Two things I've noticed:

I made four blank actors in a new project. No graphics, just white squares. When I copy and paste an actor, all actors disappear. Randomly double clicking on the empty white space where I *think* the actors should be will open up that actor, and pressing the back button will fix the issue.

Yesterday, in an older game of mine, I removed all rules from a spawner actor to stop certain enemies spawning. This worked fine in preview, but on the viewer the enemies still appeared as though the rules were still in place.
Double checking the spawner, it was definitely empty. I tried preview again - enemies don't spawn, as expected. On the Viewer though, they re-appear as if by magic!

I resolved the issue by completely deleting the spawner actor from the scene. You know, the EMPTY spawner actor...

Was totally weird :O

Rob2

more kernel panics

iDeveloperz

Imagine a world with bugs *Sinks back into chair, grinning.

Rob2

update on next build???

alnkhailan

Ahhhh ... this is really funny and crazy at the same time ... no matter what i do ... if i create a Portrait Game with more than 3 Scenes ... it previews fine ... however ... when i install a development copy of it on my iPhone ... IT ALWAYS BECOMES LANDSCAPE on the THRID SCENE ... first two scenes are always fine and staying Portrait ...

I know how much time you guys spend on improving GameSalad .. but this is just crazy :X

rebump

@alnkhailan: Are you sure the newer version is being delivered to the device? If using the GS Viewer, you installed the newer 0.8.6 version of the viewer on the device?

rebump

@QS: Yeah, I get the disappearing actor thing when I try to add an actor...I think both times I was trying to add a fifth actor (a new one, not a copy). After that, I restarted GS and things were fine...but when I passed the game on to someone else, the (only) scene didn't run for the other person but still ran fine for me. They had to delete and re-create the scene for the scene to work. Luckily the actors were the "just drop them in" type.

NexusGameStudio

So after upgrading to 0.8.6, I have had nothing but issues, mainly the viewer. I was working with 0.8.6 earlier and everything was running fine, later on for no reason, all my graphics changed to white squares and the builds constantly crash, plus I can no longer load the main game. I delete the initial scenes where the menus and logos would be, and in the viewer, the screen stays black with the loading icon spinning.

An issue I encountered, but went away, when I hit + to add a new scene, it deleted all scenes instead of adding a new one, took several restarts for it to fix itself O_o

JonTiStudios

Sorry, I asked this in a different thread but this is probably a bit more appropriate of an area:

Can we get an update on the fixes time frame please, a rough estimate would be fine. Is this going to be fixed as soon as possible, or is it on the back-burner until the next release off in the future? A few days, weeks, who knows?

There's been a lot of problems with this build, and I'm sure a lot of people are anxiously awaiting a fix. If it's something that's a ways off still can we have the option of publishing with 8.5 in the meantime? I'm sitting on a completed update just waiting for fixes. If we can allow publishing with 8.5 that would solve it temporarily for some of us at least, but if there's a fix about to come out we'd really like to know.

Thank you.