GS export platforms, the future, and a little bit of philosophy.

CasualEvolution

I've been a user of GS for years and have been paying the annual subscription even though I haven't been using it. This year, I hesitated to pay for it but it ended up debiting another year from my credit card... no problem... I pay for two reasons: firstly, I believe it's a way to support the GS team to finally push forward with this wonderful tool that unfortunately has fallen behind. Secondly, I have a couple of projects that only need a little more work to finish, and I'd like to complete them before moving on from the tool.

Today, similar tools are generally free or much less expensive than GS. For example, compared to Construct 3, GS's price is four times higher, and the former is a tool that allows exporting to more platforms, particularly Steam (Windows, MacOS, and Linux), which is the most important non-mobile gaming platform. We all know that it's becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for mobile platform projects to generate profits.

I tried to see the process of exporting to Steam, and honestly, the process is a nightmare and very manual. My games are in Creator Mac, and when trying to convert them to HTML5 engine, it ends up in an endless list of errors. And even if that is overcome, the process of packaging that HTML5 into an exe is left to the users, with precarious procedures that discourage them.

I wonder, since the engine in Mac is developed in Lua, is it very difficult to export from Lua to exe directly? Providing this convenience to users and opening the Steam platform to us developers? If it's honestly impossible and must go through HTML5, can't there be a greater effort to make the project in the web engine more compatible? And most importantly, once there, couldn't there be a solution to export directly to exe, instead of leaving it to users to figure out? Perhaps Construct is a good example of this - they are an HTML5 platform, and initially, exporting to exe went through external tools... now they give the user this resolved.

I'm not making this as a destructive criticism, on the contrary... I think it would be an excellent way to support the users and if the developers do well, the engine does well.

Undoubtedly, having an engine on Mac and another one online is a big problem, I've seen many tools fail when they never finish migrating from one format to another... I suppose that from an educational point of view, having an online tool can be an advantage... but for developers who are serious, it's difficult for such a tool to be more productive... However, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that, as important as features are (which we all know there are almost no new features or very few in recent years), it's very important to make an effort to make the tool useful, and that's why it's vital to support the best-selling platforms.

I am an engineer and have a video game development company that's been running for 18 years. Initially, we built our own engine, developed in C++, but about 6 years ago, we moved to Unity... why? For the very reason I'm explaining... the need to export to selling platforms that keep changing with time, something that was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with, as the market moves quickly and that's when a tool like Unity, which "takes care" of platforms, becomes useful... today, we have games on Steam (all platforms), Switch, Apple Arcade, iOS, and Android... soon we'll add Xbox and PlayStation...

BUT, even though my company does this, at home and to encourage my son in these matters, I use or used GS at a "home level", so to speak... and even though it's on a different scale, what I propose above would be a real win-win for both you and us.

I feel that the glory years of GS are behind us and that's a shame... and it seems to me that if you continue down this path, things will only get worse... as I said at the beginning, I contribute by supporting with the subscription, and if you think that having the opinion or perspective of those of us on the other side can help to define a strategy that will take you forward, it would be a pleasure to contribute from our experience.

Thank you and sorry for the length of the email... I promise not to write this much again until another year ;)

Toque

Wow no one can blame you for not being loyal.

pinkio75

Hi,

I support Your point of view regarding the .exe export directed by GS, I think it has been requested here since I got on board, now way back in 2011, unfortunately until today except for a few tricks with the wrap from html5 to export into the exe there is nothing more.

About html5 games they are not as performing as those of other more famous engines, in short, a lot of little things are lacking here.

I personally consider GS a great tool that has allowed me to do unthinkable things in these years but in fact today would be the time to make a leap in quality that is missing, not to surpass it, but to align itself with other powerful engines like Construct 3 etc...

I also pay the subscription month to month on time and support this cause but I don't think this feature can really be done.

But anyway I'm always here hoping that something will change :)

adam36021

I've also been using GS for years on and off.. maybe 7-10 years at this point.

I think it's just about coming to terms with what the tool will do for you. It's very good for rapid prototyping. It's good for learning computational thinking / logic. It's good for no-code, straight to HTML5 or target device publishing. It's more flexible than people give it credit for -- you can bend it to do things with some creativity.

It's not going to compete with the bigger tools. But I can prototype a concept in a matter of days or weeks, and get people playing it / deployed very quickly. Rapid iteration / development, especially for simple iOS apps.

I've migrated over to creator 2 entirely, and I don't have issues with my packaged or wrapped binary files. I haven't tried releasing on steam, I am sure that would be a can of worms.

good luck to all! i hope GS stays as an accessible tool for a long time.

CasualEvolution

Hello, a couple of months have passed since this post... and I'm surprised that the 'shake-up' hasn't happened yet... Prototyping is fine, but we're talking about a tool that has the real potential to publish games, and being able to do so in sustainable markets should be a priority... Otherwise, it's just resigning ourselves to the idea that its time has passed, and that's a shame.

Trying to draw out a concrete issue here, @adent42 and your team, how do you see this issue? How distant and/or difficult do you see the possibility of being able to build directly for PC windows, just like other Lua-based engines do ( Löve, Corona, Defold ), in order to publish on Steam.

The 'solution' of packaging HTML5 into an .exe is not only something the industry does not accept, but in the case of Game Salad, it is not part of an official solution, which leaves us in limbo, where there is little information leading to clear and reliable results.

Thanks in advance, and for the time being, we are here, not willing to give up!"

smurfted

So sad this has been put out to pasture. These are again good points from loyal people..

uptimistik

https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/620111#Comment_620111

We have simple export to Windows (to be able to publish to Steam for example) https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/99024/gs-tauri-boilerplate-project#latest