State of GameSalad 8-25-2016

ForumNinja

Here's a little post to give you guys some insight as to what's coming / being worked on.

Next update (1.25.x)

The next release is getting very close to ready, and here's a short list of some of the included features:

• Memory leaks inside GameSalad improved
• GameSalad remembers what you were doing when navigating between screens to save development time
• Undo added back in
• Gesture zoom added (this means you can zoom in/out while in the scene editor by using the shortcuts on your trackpad i.e pinching).
• A couple extra zoom options during Preview were added. 90% and 75%.
• You can change the Preview zoom with hotkeys, command + 1 for 100%, command + 2 for 90%, etc
• Pressing escape now deselects actors

The two bolded additions above are what have been holding up this build, as they effect tons of areas inside GameSalad.

Teacher Dashboard & Curriculum

More on the education side of things, we have been working on implementing a teacher dashboard that will make assignment submission a snap.

Work has been going on creating a new GameSalad curriculum. Currently 4 Units (out of the planned 8). There's loads of resources, from student and teacher written guides, to videos demonstrating how to build each unit's game (broken into parts). It's pretty awesome.

Potential Quick Fixes

Back to the developer side of things. One of the devs is going to try and add some quick fixes for you guys in their free time (ha, free time). I'm putting together a list of issues with potentially quick fixes for them to look at that I've seen reported, so if you have requests write them below. (I already have the loading wheel one).

If you want to check out the build that's currently in testing, just shoot me a PM and I can send one your way.

BBEnk

Cool

Clock

Features:

Memory leaks inside GameSalad improved

GameSalad remembers what you were doing when navigating between screens to save development time

======================================================
Basic:

Undo added back in

Gesture zoom added (this means you can zoom in/out while in the scene editor by using the shortcuts on your trackpad i.e pinching).

A couple extra zoom options during Preview were added. 90% and 75%.

You can change the Preview zoom with hotkeys, command + 1 for 100%, command + 2 for 90%, etc

Pressing escape now deselects actors

AlchimiaStudios

@ForumNinja Thanks for the status update. You da man.

Icebox

Look into android's stuttering/slow down issues please , im sure codewizard knows about it , developing for android with GS is painful alot of optimization required compared to iOS and yet the results are not always great (my only issue now) other than that , this is awesome , all new features are great. Thanks for the update

birdboy

Finally some official news! Sounds fantastic, thanks for taking the time to give us some information.

@Icebox said:
Look into android's stuttering/slow down issues please

+1

Also please look into the screen misalignment after tabbing out of an app and then returning to it on Android. There's a workaround but even with this the screen is still misaligned for fractions of a second which looks really terrible.
The splash screen on Android had a similar problem (wrong alignment) which made me stop using it. Don't know if this has been fixed by now but if it hasn't it's highly worth looking into too.

freneticz

@Hoodloc said:
Finally some official news! Sounds fantastic, thanks for taking the time to give us some information.

@Icebox said:
Look into android's stuttering/slow down issues please

+1

Also please look into the screen misalignment after tabbing out of an app and then returning to it on Android. There's a workaround but even with this the screen is still misaligned for fractions of a second which looks really terrible.
The splash screen on Android had a similar problem (wrong alignment) which made me stop using it. Don't know if this has been fixed by now but if it hasn't it's highly worth looking into too.

What workaround works for the misalign?

mhedges

@ForumNinja ,

Thanks for the info. Any plans on hiring more personnel on the programming/technical side?

birdboy

@freneticz said:
What workaround works for the misalign?

Click the word 'workaround'. It's a link to the workaround.

ForumNinja

@Icebox @Hoodloc

Is there a bug report for the slow down with an example project?

Icebox

@ForumNinja I sent an example project as requested from @codewizard a while back , here is the page

http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/91905/stable-release-1-25-is-available/p3

Since he mentioned that he will look into it after i sent him the project I didn't report the bug. But I will now if thats the case.

Armelline

@Icebox Always report the bug

Icebox

@Armelline said:
@Icebox Always report the bug

Come on he said he would look into it lol I will now

Icebox

@ForumNinja

http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1790

Here is the bug report and example project attached , thanks!

xJadonx

:')

I'm a happy person.

Two.E

I was just thinking, when building my current game, how much time I would have saved if I didn't have to scroll and find my actors on scene after every edit.
Nice work and very excited to see changes like that being added!

chaosmasterro

Boosting Android performance is so critical to me. Small bugs that I noticed. 1) The Quit function on Android doesn't work 100% of the time. 2) When a sound effect is played through bluetooth speakers the audio messes up. (I have a sound effect that goes for about 30 seconds, just because I can get a good loop from it and it definitely messes up on bluetooth.)
A small thing that would be great. (I have about 200+ game attributes in my game and having a quick find for them would be great. This is coming from Gamesalad PC.

Toque

@Two.E said:
I was just thinking, when building my current game, how much time I would have saved if I didn't have to scroll and find my actors on scene after every edit.
Nice work and very excited to see changes like that being added!

It helps but a search function would help more. Type "player" and it finds and scrolls to that actor.

Two.E

@Toque

Different functions for different purpose.
Having GS remember your position means you can work on a lot of actors in a single area (Such as a grid of actors) without having to keep scrolling back and forth.

A search would be useful if you need a quick find an actor that is in a different position that you are working in. Personally I would never use a search function because it will take just as long to type it out then to scroll.
Either way, I am all for any functions that increases productivity!

Toque

@Two.E said:
@Toque

Different functions for different purpose.
Having GS remember your position means you can work on a lot of actors in a single area (Such as a grid of actors) without having to keep scrolling back and forth.

A search would be useful if you need a quick find an actor that is in a different position that you are working in. Personally I would never use a search function because it will take just as long to type it out then to scroll.
Either way, I am all for any functions that increases productivity!

You are correct.

Remembering where one is on the scene will be very handy!!!!!!!!!! Thank you GS.

If you have hundreds of actors scrolling to them trying to find them is unproductive. (Especially if you have a lot of alpha 0 actors).

PhilipCC

@ForumNinja Any news from GS is good news, but this is really great news.

apptrap22

Finally some updates. Looks cool great job

Braydon_SFX

Woohoo!!

RossmanBrothersGames

thanks @ForumNinja ! sounds like a cool build. Honestly I think things like finishing the Reward Video Ad System (being able to check for a internet connection, or for if a video is ready) is much more important that the loading wheel (which my guess is doesn't bother most people though would be a nice change if it is simple to do). There are still some great features in game salad that have only been 80% percent completed!

Reward Ads
Steam
HTML 5
Controller Support (Mifi)

Any support that can be put towards developer needs I think should go straight to stuff like that.

All that stuff is going to make our games more competitive, and Gamesalad more competitive. Honestly, if people could make games for steam AND mobile with gamesalad I think you guys would be blowing up with costumers. Especially after some of the high quality gamesalad games got put on steam.

MentalDonkeyGames

Great news!

One thing i´d like to see is access to actors attributes without opening the actor. Like in the Windows version. I doubt it will be a "quick fix", but that would be an extremely useful feature.

freneticz

auto code-optimizer would be cool

KevinCross

Quick fix:

Keyboard Input "Done" button is barely visible on iOS.

http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1780
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/92898/keyboard-input-done-button

jonmulcahy

You could use the network send/receive behaviors to cobble together a check for an Internet connection.

Socks

@ForumNinja said:
Back to the developer side of things. One of the devs is going to try and add some quick fixes for you guys in their free time (ha, free time). I'm putting together a list of issues with potentially quick fixes for them to look at that I've seen reported, so if you have requests write them below. (I already have the loading wheel one).

Thanks for the update, much appreciated !

Quick fix (I hope!) A 200% Preview zoom (along with the new 90% and 75% options) would be really useful for people wanting to check their Retina projects 1:1 on screen. At the moment the process (using Custom Resolution) is pretty laborious, and you have to do it every time you Preview (I know you've said the custom resolutions now stay around - at least while the project is up - but this would still be useful as a default option if it's a quick fix).

BigDave

GameSalad remembers what you were doing when navigating between screens to save development time
OOOhhh yeah

Excited! Mostly by the amount of optimism that swings with it.

Socks

Gesture zoom added (this means you can zoom in/out while in the scene editor by using the shortcuts on your trackpad i.e pinching).

For all those who haven't got a trackpad, but still want to be able to zoom in/out while editing a scene . . . you can use your iPhone/iPad as a Trackpad with Remote Lite (free).

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/remote-lite-mac-wireless-remote/id629019487?mt=8