Release Candidate 0.13.7 - FireTV Fixes

BlackCloakGS

Release Candidate 0.13.7

Features:

• Added an option at publishing to control whether or not the Back button exits the app on Android devices. For Kindle and Fire TV apps, the back button is disabled.

Fixes:

• Fixed the Hibernate event not pausing audio on device sleep or screen saver activation.

• Fixed loading wheels not showing up on iOS 8.0+ devices.

• Reverted the Change Scene fix from 0.13.4RC since it was causing issues with some user projects. If you plan on using gamepad button presses to change scenes, it is recommended that you wait for the button to return back to false before you change the scene.

NOTE:

This build is based off the current stable build 0.12.20 it does NOT have any of the nightly build 0.13.2 features or fixes. The nightly build is being reversion to 0.14.

We have partnered with Amazon to make joystick support and publishing on Fire TV available to all non-PRO members for a limited time. PRO members always have access to joystick support and Fire TV publishing.

Report Any Bugs
If you find bugs in the Release Candidate, let us know! We'll be watching the forums, support tickets and bug database for info on this. Once we're all happy with the state of the build then we'll make it stable.

Take a moment to review the "known issues" section of the release notes before reporting any bugs. No need to duplicate reports on what we already know, right?

Thanks for your help!

Go Get It!

See the release notes here:

http://gamesalad.com/download/releaseNotes/creator/rc

Download the release candidate here:

http://gamesalad.com/download/releases

Scroll down until you see "Release Candidates

Hopscotch

Thank you @BlackCloakGS ! Great stuff.

jonmulcahy

so @BlackCloakGS we should have a hibernate event in each scene to control that? is that best practice?

BlackCloakGS

We pause the engine but the hibernate events give you more control.

jonmulcahy

@BlackCloakGS said:
We pause the engine but the hibernate events give you more control.

cool

to be safe i added a rule in every scene that says

if hibernate is true
pause music
otherwise
resume music (loop)

I'm going to be testing it tonight when feeding my son, so I'll report back

kirafu

Thank you very much GS TEAM has heard the voice of the people
Thank you @BlackCloakGS !

luke2125

Hi BlackCloakGS,

Thanks for the update.....Do you think we could have .exe export with the current Game Creator, or is this a feature that will be added to Graphene SDK? Thanks....God Bless....

Sincerely,

Sunday

dgackey

@Luke2125:

It's on the agenda for Creator. No firm ETA but Windows is a priority.

jonmulcahy

@jonmulcahy said:
I'm going to be testing it tonight when feeding my son, so I'll report back

it worked perfectly.

i have the hibernate rule as above, and the screensaver kicks on after a few min, music is paused. the game resumes, the music resumes. it's perfect.

I played through the first 10 levels of A Long Way Home using the remote tonight, and apart from a single double action (close dialog and jump at same time, a logic mistake on my part), it worked PERFECTLY. It looks stunning on the TV, sounds beautiful coming out of the real stereo speakers.

I just have to fix the logic in that problem scene, and redo my end of stage screen, then go ahead and update all my achievements for GameCircle.

absolutely loving this update.

I'm going to start a thread on my conversion process tomorrow

dgackey

Love to hear this, Jon.

This is a really big deal for the GS community -- thinking beyond tiny screens and tap/swipe mechanics opens up so many really interesting opportunities.

jonmulcahy

@dgackey said:
Love to hear this, Jon.

This is a really big deal for the GS community -- thinking beyond tiny screens and tap/swipe mechanics opens up so many really interesting opportunities.

it really is, and I hope more people realize the potential. Having to rethink 6 years of mobile interface design to fit the '10 foot interface' is a challenge, but a fun one. It's nice to have a screen free from touch controls too. It really increases the immersion in the game.

dgackey

@jonmulcahy said:
it really is, and I hope more people realize the potential.

I can't stress it enough -- the more great controller-friendly games we have in the community, the easier it will be to go after even more ambitious platforms And on a personal note, I really, really dig the FireTV and Stick as a platform. It's super responsive, slick, and "just works". I probably use it more than my Roku at home now.

About the only thing I wish they did different was follow Roku's lead with the pack-in controller and make it double as a "NES-style" controller when held sideways.

jonmulcahy

I was broswing the amazon developer pages and I came across this. It's important for anyone implementing game circle into their firetv apps. Just something to be aware of.

The GameCircle overlay does not appear if you have sideloaded your game onto a Fire TV device for testing. You can test your GameCircle implementation in your app before submitting it with Live App Testing.

Something else to be aware of:

Fire TV Stick supports textures up to 2048x2048

GS currently limits images to 2048x2048, but again, something to keep in mind for the future

Finally, everyone should read this: 10 Tips for Remote and Controller
Most of it is dealing with the back end stuff, but there is important information on the user interface side of things

freneticz

Can you make a co op game and play it with a friend on the Fire TV

BlackCloakGS

yes local co op. We support up to 8 players.

freneticz

thats amazing....i have many ideas, this can be fun

Socks

So . . . 0.13.7 is based off the current stable build 0.12.20 and does not have any of the nightly build 0.13.2 features or fixes, this nightly build is now being revised to 0.14.

What ?!?

What version of GameSalad will the new faster rending engine be in ?

Armelline

As someone who uses GameSalad for hours every day, I love seeing these new features. But I grow increasingly frustrated by the severe - almost crippling - workflow problems that persist and persist. I really believe that everything else - and I mean everything - should be put on hold until the following issues are fixed:

1. ** Massive slowdown in the creator (greatly improved at one point but back with a vengeance and never fully fixed). This costs me literally hours every day.**

2. Difficulty in selecting and dragging attributes from one behaviour to another.

3. Inability to store table names in attributes.

4. Inability to specify text colour using attributes.

5. Constant crashing when loading CSV files (though stability overall is much improved compared to a few months ago).

6. The need to enter an actor to adjust it's size and location using specified values.

7. Ability to copy from one expression to another without the myriad of limitations currently in place.

Number 1 is the really vital one. The product is essentially broken at this point, and I'm quite literally having my earning potential cut in half. I currently spend 50% of my time watching a beachball or restarting GameSalad. Literally 50%.

I want the new features being developed. I love that GameSalad is being so proactive introducing new things at the moment. But the bottom line is they're all of little value when it takes me 45s to change scenes. This bug has been around for months now. I just don't get why the GameSalad team isn't panicking about the fact it's still in there, making their product seem shoddy. If I downloaded GameSalad for the first time now I'd go "Damn this thing is sloooooow" and uninstall it within 20 minutes. My continued use of it with this bug is a testament to my love of GameSalad.

I've been using GameSalad for 6 years now and I've never seen it in as bad shape as it is currently due to issue 1.

Edit: Added 7th workflow issue. (Note they are not in any particular order, except for no. 1.)

vonhank

I have to admit i totally agree with Armelline. I can understand why adding new stuff is so important for Gamesalad, but currently it goes with the expense of our working tool. Creator slowing down after sometime has been major problem for me since i started working with GS during christmas. It was better during stable 12.20. but after current stable it went step back. I really hope they could prioritise some of their love for tool itself and put it in shape where we could keep working without constant restarts of GS.

One of the things i currently wait most is rework for current visual creator. Current one is just fairly clumsy when it comes to working especially on bigger maps.

Socks

@Armelline said:
I love seeing these new features.

+1

@Armelline said:
But I grow increasingly frustrated by the severe - almost crippling - workflow problems that persist and persist.

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000

@Armelline said:
I really believe that everything else - and I mean everything - should be put on hold until the following issues are fixed:

1. ** Massive slowdown in the creator (greatly improved at one point but back with a vengeance and never fully fixed). This costs me literally hours every day.**

2. Difficulty in selecting and dragging attributes from one behaviour to another.

3. Inability to store table names in attributes.

4. Inability to specify text colour using attributes.

5. Constant crashing when loading CSV files (though stability overall is much improved compared to a few months ago).

6. The need to enter an actor to adjust it's size and location using specified values.

I'm sure the order and priority of these kinds of things will differ from person to person, but I wholly agree with the overall theme here.

GameSalad seems to go from year to year to year without much in the way of change in workflow, Creator as a tool seems to be have been left for dead with the focus entirely on peripheral features (features outside of Creator that don't impact on actual game creation) like more ad systems, more platforms supported, Amazon competitions and so on.

Thats not to say there are not incremental improvements to the performance of GameSalad, just that the same issues in workflow that have persisted in GameSalad from the beginning are still there release after release.

darrelf

@Socks said: +1,000,000,000,000,000,000

x 10

Due to a change in family circumstances, I put game dev on hold for a few months. Now I'm back, I find the slowdown in Creator incredible compared to previous versions when it was almost a pleasure to use.

Now I have to close and restart Gamesalad after a few changes otherwise I'm just staring at the screen and waiting. Argggghhhhhhh

Game development is supposed to be fun isn't it?

(excited about the new stuff in/coming but wish the core stuff was much better)

PhilipCC

@Armelline , @vonhank and @Socks I agree with what each of you say. It is so frustrating that we still do not have a stable Creator to allow us to submit apps that will be passed.

What good are all these other features?

Months ago iAds were not working properly (along with a slew of other minor annoyances), then IAPs were not working, then iPhone 6 and 6+ came along, then iOS8, then start-up crashes, then the no loading wheel, then 64 bit, etc... well, you all know, it just goes on and on.

I get all excited when there is a new "stable" release, but within 2 hours people are reporting other problems that have arisen. I can't be bothered submitting anything when there is evidence that apps are continually being rejected.

If a GamePad controller could control all these problems I would be all for it! But other than that, who gives a "rat's ...."

... and yesterday I was preaching forgive and forget, and everyone let's move on.

Socks

@PhilipCC said:
If a GamePad controller could control all these problems I would be all for it! But other than that, who gives a "rat's ...."

To be fair the controller feature was @BlackCloakGS's personal project, he took it on in his spare time (and won ! ), it's an impressive piece of work and a fantastic feature for a game engine, I have nothing but praise for it.

But, yes, ultimately it has no impact on using Creator, if only this level of dedication could be aimed at addressing the dozens of workflow issues that have dogged Creator from the beginning.

Lovejoy

Not sure what the maths count is up to so, +infinity?

Chunkypixels

Have to pitch in and completely agree with what @Armelline and others are saying. The state of the current stable release is shocking. This build of the creator is the worst I've experienced for a long while... It's really slowing down and is painful to use, even after only a short while of being open, with the spinning wheel appearing on so many simple edits, and is crashing more frequently.

The previous version ran like a dream compared to it, and could be used for hours without experiencing the same slowdowns and crashes.

I understand there's memory leak fixes etc in some of the newer nightly/release candidates, but they need to be implemented into a new Stable build ASAP.

The new controller stuff is cool... but it really raises questions about GS priorities again, when the main tool is in such a state, with various fragmented buggy versions, yet the main updates seem to be on something with a relatively minor market penetration or importance to the majority of current users.

I'm really concerned that your really stretching the companies assets way too thinly, trying to chase the different projects (Game controllers/Amazon/Graphene) when you really should be concentOptionsThe majority of your resources on fixing the core tool that your user base are currently using...

Your collective company heads seem to be all over the place, pulling in different directions and not concentrating on the core product that people are actually here to use. Yet again, you seem to be chasing new things, rather than fixing/improving the core product. Actually, it's worse than that... As the Creator seems to be progressively getting flakier/buggier recently.

freneticz

We with PRO should get 2-3 month free because of the really slow builder right now (my PRO ends in a week)

Armelline

@Chunkypixels said:
The new controller stuff is cool... but it really raises questions about GS priorities again, when the main tool is in such a state, with various fragmented buggy versions, yet the main updates seem to be on something with a relatively minor market penetration or importance to the majority of current users.

GameSalad clearly have a deal in place with Amazon who are funding this promotion. Putting time and effort into making deals like that possible makes complete sense, as it helps keep GameSalad financially viable. That said, this is the first promotion I don't intend to take part in. I simply can't face wading through the thick soup that the creator has become to try to make the necessary changes to any of my games.

Here's an action shot of me working on a game yesterday:

(P.S. Don't google image search quicksand with safes-search off if you're at work... Who knew so many woman get stuck in it topless.)

Socks

@Armelline said:
Here's an action shot of me working on a game yesterday:

Socks

@Armelline said:
Edit: Added 7th workflow issue. (Note they are not in any particular order, except for no. 1.)

You've not even scratched the surface !

Inability to copy and paste within and between expression boxes (your copied data is lost after the first paste - and will not work at all if the window you are copying from is not open at the same time).

Inability to tab between fields in behaviours.

Default white text on default white actor colour, a purely aesthetic choice that forces extra unneeded work to make the text visible every time you use it - I'll make a point here and keep repeating it, as it bears repeating . . . this is not a big deal, it's a few seconds work, but repeated over and over again, every time you use the text behaviour, and coupled with all the other little needless tasks that need to be repeated over and over again, it all starts to add up to a slow UI/UX.

A white background to the image asset window + white as the default colour for images you want to colour (or control the colour of) within GameSalad means that often your image assets are mostly invisible, I spend a great deal of time scrolling through hundreds of invisible actors looking for a particular image, loosing the ability to visually scan a folder means you need to slow down and read the actual file names. White images on a white background is a bad choice with actual effects on workflow, why not pale grey or even a preference where you can choose your own colour ? As it is it often makes working with large numbers of images painful.

Importing images and deleting images is broken and has been broken for years, pretty much everything that needs to be said about this has already been said, the lottery of deleting images is especially risky as you can screw up your project if you don't first save your project, then save-as a new name and do your deleting there.

Placing an actor into the scene places it on a sub-pixel value, this forces the user to open the actor and correct the position (round the value up or down to a whole pixel value) if they don't want their images to blur, like all the other issues, not a big deal, but done over and over and over again, for months and years, dozens of time a day, it starts to add up, I must have gone through this pointless process a few thousand times.

Windows losing their position / state when you shift focus - example navigate to layers, scroll down to the layer you want, open that layer, scroll to the actor you want to investigate, double click - you are taken to that actor . . whoops, wrong actor, go back . . oh, you can't go back to layers, so click on scene again, then layers . . oh, look everything is closed back up . . scroll down to the layer you want, open that layer, scroll to the actor you want to investigate, double click . . .etc etc . . repeat 140 times over the course of a day = : (

Same deal with the scene / stage, you might have a big project, a few thousand pixels high and wide, scroll around, up, up, up, left, left, left, left . . hmmmm . . . right, down, down, down, right . . . (no ability to zoom out) . . . down, right . . Ah ! there it is !!! : ) Ok, double click on the actor, change its size, now go back to do the same to the three actors next to this one, so hit the back button . . . but your move has been reset, you are once again in the bottom lefthand corner, so you start your scrolling around again . . . up, up, up, left, left, left, left . . hmmmm, can't see the actor . . . right, down, down, down, right, repeat 112 times over the course of a day.

I could list these little issues all day long, there are so many, and some of them seem entirely within the power of GameSalad to address but there doesn't seem to be the will to address them, for example people have repeatedly (and for years) asked to have the font size of 99 lifted, you can do it yourself by editing the HTML file, which makes me think it is a simple task, but maybe I don't know what's involved, it's easy to ask for all this stuff, but maybe changing a window colour or window state would have knock on effects I am entirely unaware of, but what I suspect is true is that if someone were to move on from GameSalad to some other game engine it would be because they were unable to use the tool to make the game they had in their head rather than because GameSalad didn't support Fire TV or Ouya (or whatever).

phamtastic

Thanks to the latest patch (0.13.7), my game finally passed and now live on the Fire TV. However, I still need to update the screenshots by removing on the touch events.

http://www.amazon.com/Phamtastic-Games-Wushu-Kung-Runner/dp/B00TXV8JWI

Is there a way to generate promo codes as I would love to give it away for free to the GS community?

Thanks GS!!!

jonmulcahy

I know I read elsewhere that they going to be looking at the creator issues next. They were working on a featured that was just recently finished and now they are moving onto this. If they kept jumping around trying to fix the problem of the day, nothing would ever get finished.

But I can't wait till the creator works well for more than 5 minutes at a time