Q2 2019 - Spring has Sprung and Summer Is Coming
adent42
Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO Posts: 3,172
Hey everyone, it's been a while and I guess I owe you all an update and roadmap.
We've been working hard on fundraising and a few business opportunities during Q1, so that's slowed down work on the tech some. But we finally have something for you and work should be speeding up again:
Android
On Monday morning 2019-04-28 (CDT), we'll finally be putting out a new android build to RC.
While you can also get this from the release notes thread later, here's what we're releasing:
- Upgrade to Android API 28 android libraries
IronSource Support for a subset of ad networks
- AdColony
- Admob
- AppLovin
- Chartboost
- InMobi
- TapJoy
- Unity
- Vungle
Some publishing updates to dynamically remove code that accesses leaderboards or achievements. This should help get past Google Play static analyzers that block games using only one of those services.
I'm waiting until Monday morning, so if someone finds any issues that we missed in testing, I'll be around to roll it back and you won't have to wait 8 hrs.
Creator 2
We're continuing work on getting Creator 2 in shape to replace the existing tools, we're not there yet so we'll still be making updates to Mac and Windows Creator as needed, but progress is being made. I'm hoping we'll have a performance / resource improvement in the next build.
HTML5 Engine
We're doing a bit of work on the font rendering system to hopefully finally fix those issues people see with mis-aligned text and dangling bits of other characters.
Roadmap
As always, the roadmap is subject to change, but here's the general order of what's to come.
- Mac Creator on Mojave . We've heard of some issues with Mojave. We did some test early on and didn't find anything, but we've been able to confirm bugs caused by Mojave that aren't in High Sierra. So we're going to spend some time tracking that down.
- Iron Source for iOS. Pretty self explanatory.
- HTML5 text rendering. With the Mojave issue, I think we'll put the brakes on HTML5 text rendering for the time being, but that's something I'd like to get done before the end of the summer.
- Retooling our build system. For both iOS and Android, our build system is showing it's age. For iOS, I have to do a lot of manual steps every time I start a new project. For Android, we hit a limit on the number of classes that we can support in an APK. That's why we don't have full IronSrc support for all ad networks, our app has too many classes between Ad Networks, our Engine, and all the Google Libraries. Android has a way around this issue, but it requires me moving to the most current build system. It's a bit of a time hit, but it will make future work go so much faster and allow us to run builds on cloud servers to speed up our testing cycle.
- Fixing collision differences in the HTML5 engine.
Sorry it's taken so long to get IronSource out the door. You should see things moving faster again, and I'm gonna need to pour through the forums to look for what other issues are hot on everyone's mind.
Cheers!
Update 2019-04-29 08:25 CDT
RC Deployed. Doing internal testing, feel free to try it and report anything.
Comments
Excited to test out IronSource, thanks for the update @adent42 !!!
No need... let me do that for you lol >:)
Gamesalad is much closer to a real developer tool now since,
1 the horrific loading time is now compensated by faster devices
2 we have Google Play Implementation,
3 we have Ad mediation thru IronSource for android and hopefully soon for IOS.
Ads are there for us make money, however how can we make money if no one sees the ads we push and if nobody is aware that our games exist???!!
So I feel the time is right to make a Critical List of elements missing for developer to stand a chance :
I realize education users and hobbyists might not have much use for these, but developer do not stand a chance without the implementations listed below.
As we all know, successful games would bring more users (developers and educators alike ), awareness, hence more opportunities for GameSalad to prosper.
We NEED at least the minimum set of tools used for viral looping, user acquisition and retentions that all other game engine have.
1 DEVICE NATIVE SHARE SCREEN INTEGRATION
So users have more sharing option to choose from, based on their social media platform of choice…
2 FACEBOOK CONNECT
share score and play or challenge facebook friends, facebook leader board etc….
This is one of the most effective way of growing install base
3 PUSH NOTIFICATION
For user retention.
Sure, we all want many others things, so do I, (like IOS haptic feedback that all games use these days
).... but the short list above is universally needed for any game to thrive,
Whether they are aware of it or not, all developers and dreamers who actually want to survive, grow, compete and thrive in the game business need these, (alongside a great game, marketing and analytics,,,)!
GameSalad, you give us these 3 things , I am persuade you’ll get it back a hundredfold.
@adent42 exciting updates. Sorry we are all so anxious to see what next, and if things can be further updated and bugs fixed (and I am still waiting for the online creator "change table attribute", ok on preview, but not ok on mobile issue to be resolved).
I agree with @blob on his points as well.
Appreciated all your works and look forward that we can fully utilize the Creator 2.0. That's what I wanted as well. And we do wanted to make money off our game with better exposure.
I will also post my list of bugs/ features noted for the current creator so you may review them at once.
Thanks for the roadmap @adent42 .
Could I just be cheeky and ask for one thing to be fixed as it causes me frustration every day!
Please (if it's relatively straightforward) could you make Mac Creator remember the custom resolution setting during preview. I have to enter it repeatedly many, many times per day. Very frustrating.
Thanks.
Awesome news. Thanks @adent42
There's a big issue with Android and camera placement/data reporting on Android devices running Android 7 (seems to be specifically 7). I can provide more info as needed, but the camera gets offset from the desired position. This affects Generate AND Build RC, and it affects Letterbox, Overscan and Stretch modes. I have not tested yet with API 28, but will do this evening.
This is only true with the very latest macOS point update, released a couple of weeks ago. On Mojave's initial release it was fine. The macOS update only seems to affect Creator Preview, the Creator itself is fine. 10.14.4 specifically.
I can provide a list of the other bugs I'd class as "extremely serious" that have been hanging around a long time, if desired. They've been mentioned on the forums but not recently. Some are iOS/Android related, some are HTML5 related.
Thanks for the update though!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Oh yes please. Or at a mimimum add iPhone X aspect ratio to the dropdown. Testing for iPhone X makes my plums ache.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
@Armelline yep it's testing for the iPhoneX and long Galaxy screens which is the issue.
I have added the IronSource AppKey in the services tab, but it won't let select the ad networks. @adent42
@gizzi93 try now.
@Armelline / @strag I'll see if it's not to hard to fit into the Mojave look/see.
@Armelline - Let me know what you see on the camera stuff.
@blob
For your points I would actually order it as:
1) OS native Social Sharing
2) Optional Analytics (Google, Flurry, Amazon, etc). Important to measure the effects of the next one.
3) Push notifications (engagement & async multiplayer)
4) fb support
For fb, I want to do it, but it's a bit lower priority if we get native sharing in, since that takes care of some of what you need.
I completely agree!!
I didn't dare to ask for Analytics!! (partially due to Appformative kinda fulfilling that role in the past), I don't think Roland is still active with it though.
Regardless, a complete Analytics platform would make the package a true contender!!!!
I strongly suggest GameAnalytics (the tool of choice for Voodoo, Ketchapp, Ubisoft ...) like Flurry, it's entirely free
You can benchmark your game to see how it's doing compared to all other games using the platform. Extremely valuable insight that others services just don't have since they're not using the SDK!!
https://gameanalytics.com
@blob Appformative is still going strong!
@adent42 I'll send you a message tonight with my findings. I'd been relying on a client's reports from one of their students and Google's testing results, but managed to get hold of an affected phone today so I can be a bit more thorough in my report.
Edit: Sent as detailed a report on the issue as I could. Will update with more info as needed.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Thanks for the update, Team!
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Hi all,
Since the update, I'm getting this error on my app after installing, and the app crashes.
Do you have any idea why?
@kjurchievski odd. Can you PM me a publishing link (https://publish.gamesalad.com/game/#####/edit), I can check on debug logs. It's probably a combination of stuff that's disabled / enabled that we didn't test.
@adent42 Mac Creator (version 1.25.96) on the latest Mojave 10.14.5 appears to be unresponsive (wheel of death after every click ) with heavy scenes and large projects.
Scenes not requiring user input seem to be ok, however, user inputs of any kind trigger the loading wheel or no reaction at all, rendering GS completely unusable
(I updated Mojave from 10.14.3 due to the "zombie load" intel processor hack)
Thanks for details. The more details I get the faster we can track this stuff down!
It just crashes an awful lot on mac.
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@adent can you have a look at this thread, we are very confused about which direction the creator 2 is going and how it will affect our future use of GS.
https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/97362/will-the-creator-be-removed-once-the-online-tool-is-ready#latest
I have left Unity and came back to GS and realize once the creator 2 is out windows and mac creator will be disbanded.
GS creator is very powerful and putting everything online will be troublesome for us. We do not want another construct 3 or stensyl. GS is unique in its own way.
Help us out there, please.
@adent42 any idea when users on the latest mojave will be able to use GameSalad again?
Thank you
I received an email from Google Play about 64 bit version of apps required starting 1 August 2019, any idea what is it about? The email says all my apps built with GS are affected by this.
@indra.aziz we're aware of the 64-bit issue and are working on it.
@adent42
Any idea when users on the latest mojave will be able to use GameSalad again?
Creator Preview is unresponsive on Big projects we can not do anything if we can test what we are doing... It's been a month!
Thank you
something similar to this has happened before. from memory, as a bandaid fix, we were provided a link to a most recent stable version to use while the issue was fixed (.85 i think it was).
@bob loblaw unfortunately this time is a bit different as the most recent version is the "good" version. Something changed between Mojave and Mojave .5 that broke things. Still working on it.
@adent42 keep us updated with the situation...even if it 's not resolved, it still helps a lot with troop morale
Ganbattekudasai, @adent42
@adent42
Any idea when users on the latest mojave will be able to use GameSalad again?
And why no sticky warning or email to give heads up to paying users who are about to upgrade to the latest mojave? it would have been nice to know that creator is not compatible, just about every other SAS company does this, it's common courtesy.
I'd like to know this as well. I'm almost finished with a game and my subscription expired. Since already updated my Mac I don't want to re-subscribe until I'm actually able to use the product. Hope it's soon.
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@blob good idea on the sticky, something should go up soon.
Still working on the Mojave issue. There's something about our Expression Editor interface builder file that makes it so it won't compile under the latest Xcode.
I've had to go back to Xcode 7 and slowly make my way up, so I'm still working on the issue.