Is GameSalad back on its feet?
Hi guys,
I've been away from game development for quite a while, but I've got a new idea for a game I'm excited to get started on.
Before I took a break there was a lot of negativity about the state of gamesalad, a lot of the forums long standing members had left or were leaving.
The tool its self had become stagnant, broken for weeks on end, and there seemed to be only one person working on dev/ issues.
Can anyone sum up the state of things for me now?
I want to be sure I'm not about to start work in a tool that's on its last legs so to speak.
This isn't intended to be negative or start an argument, I'd just like to know the overall consensus without reading the 100s of posts I've missed.
Thanks
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Comments
"readingredients"
I like that. Sorta' word salad
Haha not even sure if can blame that one on predictive text
Creator is snappy and hardly crashes now. People have been proclaiming GS demise for years.......Still around.
"Overall consensus" Good luck with that.......
"Overall consensus"
Like Toque suggests opinion ranges from 'the promised land lays ahead' to 'the ship's doomed captain' . . . nobody knows for sure, the best you'll get is opinion (and maybe some memes).
Opinions differ, but it would take a brave soul to say the future is bright (outside of Education).
... The future is Bright! ...
GSLearn.com | Templates | Free Demos | Udemy Course
Braver than me
Ah so probably don't start any long term projects then, any good alternatives out there anyone has used? Looking at purely 2d
@Bowhill Games GameSalad is still the best engine if you can make a game, get it approved, promote it, get it featured and reviewed all in a week... then go for it! >:)
At least Sierra just came out so the residual income will be fine until Apple update the MacOS again.
Anyway, the drama and sense of humour of this community is worth the admission fee.
@Bowhill Games TBH, Its fine. If you want to use the existing features then go ahead even for a longtime idea. IF you want more than the existing feature set then dont since new features are at least 8 months away (enough time for the webtool development to finish and then start addition of new tools). And to calm you even further, financially GS is in better position (but had to realign a few things to do so which annoys some people because new features aren't a priority as a result). So, if happy with what GS is then go for it.
@fmakawa @PhilipCC
Thanks guys, I don't require any new features all the functionality is needed was there the may of 2016 so as long as it's not lost any I should be good.
You say that new features aren't on the plan any time soon but I asume bug fixes and support for existing features are still a priority?
For example if Google adsence or IAP change their framework and GS apps stop working. I asume that there would be an update?
Hi guys,
I was doing some looking around at other tools during this discussion and found a tool called stencyl, I've played around with it for a couple of hours and it's basically identical to GS with the benefit of tones more features.
It have a very similar rules engine with the added benefit of being able to script as well, and also has snap to grip and proper tileset support.
@Bowhill Games I just searched the Forum and quite a few people here have mentioned Stencyl in the last year or two. Maybe PM them and ask what their experience with them has been like?
Good idea @PhilipCC I've been using it for a few hours now in terms of a rules engine it's very much like game salad with drag and drop behaviours, which the benefit of being able to also custom code you own but there are so many unless your after something super unique I doubt you'll need to.
it does seems to have a lot more options/ features by this i mean you can achieve with a few rules in stencyl what it would take in GS alot more, so it will be quicker from a coding prospective.
The scene layout is also basically the same with added benefit of snap to grid, zoom, and ability to use proper tileset sets, obviously making level design quicker.
The one major difference which people may take a bit of getting use to is how you define rules, you need to think a bit more.
In GS you open you actor and asign rules directly. In Stencyl you create a Rule group eg. Movement, define your logic and assign this Rule Group to a actor, the defined attributes e.g. speed can then be edited directly against the actor very much like unity, when assigning a script to an object.
I like this method as you can make rule groups global against all projects so you don'the need to recreate logic or copy from one project to another.
Other thing is the price, while its free to use and publish to pc or Mac, IOS Android and HTML5 require you have a membership of $199 a year not to bad considering I done think GS even has a free version anymore.
@Bowhill Games - Good info, thanks.
I took a brief look at Stencyl as a GS alternative in the run up to xmas, though I only read the forum / user guides etc. without actually downloading the software. Overall it does look very good, has a very active forum and people are producing some very impressive games with it.
The one thing it appears to be missing is tables (unless I'm mistaken)? Although I think I read it uses 'lists' instead which I believe are just single column alternatives.
Your right lists are one option it also has maps which is for large collections of data though I've not used themy yet this sounds more in line with what a GS table is usually used for
Stencyl is nice , I re created my games with it but it has its issues too , even though i recommended to few users before but after using it for quite some time i realised GS is much better for me. Its not the features its the annoying process and bugs. Here are the reasons that made me switch back to GS.
The most annoying part is the multi-touch , just to build a platform game i had to go through 8 hours figuring out how to make on screen touch buttons you will need to figure out what touch id your on and add attributes to check if its inside or outside and figure out how to handle each id when it is touched , released or dragged.
Open Fl bug that draws a line on top and bottom of each animation frame, you have to edit and add transparent border.
Camera jittering when you try to make a smooth motion , the whole background jitters and shakes.
You have to upload different sound formats for mobile and flash games, and at a specific rate , so you will have to edit it on audacity.
The way it displays the images is quite annoying too. In GS everything is clear and nice , there it becomes blurry.
You cant flip the image horizontally you must scale it to a negative value which will cause more issues when programming .
Rules with conditions are really annoying especially when you want to do something like
if overlaps or collides with something do something once , with gamesalad its simple you just place a change attribute , but with stencyl you will have to go through a long process , adding timers and stuff.
The change fade scene sometimes doesnt cover the whole screen and leaves the edge of the screen open in some devices.
Parallax scrolling is really annoying , the one that comes with stencyl is hard to handle and makes level design harder. Custom parallax scrolling causes the camera to jitter , i made my own , the same one i use in GS , it works but it jitter and stutters and causes the screen to shake , even when i tried using the custom ones they have in stencylforge had the same issue. There must be a way but i couldnt find it.
The block system is tough to handle when you have long lines of code it gets really confusing and you have to scroll your way through.
You dont have this rule if - collide - otherwise , so if you want to say change attribute to true when collided otherwise false you will have to do it another way which requires timer.
Lists are less powerful than tables. They are not organized.
If you want to do something complicated you have to learn how to code , unlike GS you wont have the awesome expression editor, stuff like vector to angle will require you to create it by your own ( doesnt require code but takes more time to make)
Testing on your device or on stencyl it self takes ages to load compared with gs , it is not instant . This is something GS does really well.
You dont have scrollable and non scrollable layers , you have to anchor your ui and using anchor will push everything to front.
Ads like chartboost are supported with extensions and i hate relying on extensions cause I don't know if it will be updated or not.
While you can use custom ttf fonts and bitmap fonts , stencyl recommend bitmap fonts and you will need hours and hours to just implement them . ttf fonts can cause performance issues.
The scaling system it has is great but limited to how they scale it to each device , with GS i can code it to fit any device and show more screen space at the top only which makes things easier , but on stencyl it shows more screen space from the sides and you cant control it with visual coding, you will need to code it yourself.
The forums dont always answer your questions and bugs , unlike GS where you have many members just waiting for you to ask
I need gs forums drama in my life
helps me push things forward
But I can also add a greater list with all the pros it has , so it will depend on you in the end
I played with stencyl before Christmas. I came to the same conclusion. Mostly bias beacause my brain thinks like GS.
There are lots of things that GS does easily that stencyl users are envious of.
I really just want GS with a few UI changes and bug fix.
It's great otherwise.
@Bowhill Games , @Icebox and @Toque Thanks for the info on Stencyl. I barely have enough time to use GS as much as I would like to, so it would take me ages to review another game engine... unless there was some immediate urgency because of some unforeseen disaster!
However, the horizon looks clear for now.
clear, if a little barren..
Clear of all things