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AppGameKit Classic Chat / Leave the AGK Plattform....?

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sdl
AGK Developer
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Posted: 6th Oct 2012 22:32
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I think it's time to leave the AppGameKit platform ...

I bought the version 1.6x ...
I thought the road map of AppGameKit sounds good.
IOS, BADA, Android ...
I tested several of the updates, either added new functions, or were fixed minimal things. But the important things are still not, even the "new" added 3D range is nice, but what good is that if the rest still does not really work.
On each platform, the player has different bugs.
Deploy everywhere is not at all possible ....


I am most disappointed that the Bada platform has been discontinued.
I have much more BadaApps sold more downloads than Android or IOS, and all without promotion, and in much less time. ... Too bad that the only "company" reasonably supports the Bada now makes a retreat. Clearly the market is not as huge as in iOS or Android, but it has advantages too ... Samsung has discontinued the platform is not so, Samsung increased just in the development department for Bada / Titzen.

Sorry for my bad English ...
But I have to say here once ...


Sascha
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bjadams
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Posted: 6th Oct 2012 23:02
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You can't blaim TGC for not supporting B platforms.

With rising platforms like windows8 and win8phone, i think its better to support these than bada with their limited resources
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DMXtra
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Posted: 7th Oct 2012 10:34
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Well Android, ios, Windows 8 / Windows Phone 8, Win32, Kindle, MacOS, HTML5, and webGL should be supported and that is all IMO.

Bada was never going to make it, I have no idea why the game creators wasted so much time on platforms that everyone knew were not going to make it.

I agree with you with the platform issue. It's extremely difficult for a small team to do something so big and make it work with everything since things like iOS have huge restrictions.

App Game Kit (A.G.K.) - Want to be creative on many platforms at once? This is the tool you need.
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DMXtra
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Posted: 7th Oct 2012 10:41
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I am glad Bada and Meego platforms are gone, they are wasted effort and should have never been developed.

If I was building a product that had multi-platforms, I would not even consider those two, even when they came out. They never were going anywhere. I posted about this many times and I was in awe of why the Game Creators would create platforms for something that was only going to last a few years.

So, I wouldn't sweat it. Buy something you know is going to work, like an Android device, an iOS device or a Windows Phone 8 device and relax.

App Game Kit (A.G.K.) - Want to be creative on many platforms at once? This is the tool you need.
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kamac
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Posted: 7th Oct 2012 13:37
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Even if there are some bugs on many different platforms, you have to give TGC the time to fix them.
Everything takes time, you know.

About bada and meego, I think they were only taking up TGC's time (every new command had to be prepared for those two, while in the meantime they could've focused on fixing bugs / adding new features)

Follow me on twitter! @MotionStruct
Motion Struct blog
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xCept
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Posted: 7th Oct 2012 18:39 Edited at: 7th Oct 2012 18:40
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One reason TGC may have attempted to support obscure platforms like Bada and Meego is as a competitive advantage. The market of game engines that support iOS, Android, HTML5, Mac/PC has long been saturated, so by offering support for niche platforms there may have been hope of drawing some new customers in to purchase AppGameKit over other frameworks.
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Rich Dersheimer
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Posted: 7th Oct 2012 19:40
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Well, if your stated goal is to "deploy everywhere" then you can't ignore viable platforms. After they die, sure.

And although DMXtra knew that MeeGo and Bada would fail, hindsight is 20/20 for the rest of us mortals. Either one of those could have taken off like wildfire and be a dominant force in the tablet arena. In fact, the computing world changes so fast, the next big thing could make tablets obsolete any time now.

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Alien Menace
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Posted: 7th Oct 2012 19:44
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You can still use an earlier version to write Bada apps, it's not like they removed support from previous versions. So it looks like you really aren't any worse off than you were before. Just keep doing what you've been doing.

Apps published: 3
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MrValentine
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Posted: 8th Oct 2012 03:55
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Just my two cents here... literally...

BADA - the name spelt its doom... enough said...

Meego - Until I heard Lee saying this and the other obscure name I had no idea what they were and also raised the question wtfudge are they and why are they wasting their time with them?

I understand that covering niche platforms was a good idea but it was even ever so evident at that time that the platforms were not going anywhere...

I hope Android support is lowered in favour of WindowsPhone8 / Win8 Tablets and iOS [Not that I am a fan of iOS devices] as I can only see Google digging its own grave at this point in time... [Should I be proven wrong, I do not care I barely use their services any longer...] and if I am correct... you heard it here first

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RickV
TGC Development Director
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Posted: 8th Oct 2012 16:43
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Leave while we are only just starting to party with AppGameKit?

Even Samsung are dropping Bada, so it's not something we can spend more time on. Best we get AppGameKit rocking on the main platforms and then see which other ones are likely to stay around.

Rick

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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 8th Oct 2012 16:58
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Googling appears to indicate that both Bada and Meego have no futures.

TGC would be good to update the AppGameKit web site to stop saying that they support those platforms if they do no plan to go forward with them.

Someone posted that you could do Bada with earlier releases of AGK. But there are known issues with those releases.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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bjadams
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Posted: 8th Oct 2012 22:20
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On a a positive note they seem to want to do a v108 for Playbook
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baxslash
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Posted: 8th Oct 2012 22:23
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Quote: "On a a positive note they seem to want to do a v108 for Playbook"

I'd like to make more use of my Playbook


this.mess = abs(sin(times#))
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bjadams
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Posted: 9th Oct 2012 00:16
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I have a playbook game ready for release as soon as we get v108 with ads.

by the way i did not notice Admob support in the new commands
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baxslash
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Posted: 9th Oct 2012 00:22
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It might have been merged with the existing ad commands, it was suggested at one point...?


this.mess = abs(sin(times#))
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MarcoBruti
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Posted: 9th Oct 2012 01:16
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Leaving now it does not seem a good move, because alternatives are not so appealing. HTML5+CSS3 is one of the most promising approach to develop web-based apps for mobile, but you have to learn: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3, Java and more. With AppGameKit Basic, you have got it all-in-one, learning only 1 language. Of course using native languages give you more flexibility, but for that you have Tier-2 (although I do not choose Tier-2 because of lack of time, I am only an hobbyst who wants to develop quick'n'dirty, so productivity is far more good with Tier-1). I wrote games in Java and Visual Basic, but result are much more good with less effort.
We have only to wait for AppGameKit to grow up and become more stable, but right now results are very encouraging.
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Cor
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Posted: 9th Oct 2012 04:26
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I think that AppGameKit is great! Compared to some of the other development tools I have used in the past for apps, its just better. With the new v108 commands it will be even better!
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erebusman
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Posted: 9th Oct 2012 06:14 Edited at: 9th Oct 2012 06:14
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Quote: "Well Android, ios, Windows 8 / Windows Phone 8, Win32, Kindle, MacOS, HTML5, and webGL should be supported and that is all IMO. "


I mostly second that except the Windows XP/Vista/Win7/Win8 should all fall under "Windows" support to me. Windows is still the biggest single market place.

I know AppGameKit is "APP game kit" but I really look at it as a "write once - deploy in high profile and profitable marketplaces" kit myself.

Markets with no market share are a non-issue to me. Cancelling those wont change my use or intended use at all.

I know super geeks (which are probably VERY present in a programmer forum) get really excited about ultra geeky platforms but I'm keeping it real - I'm developing to make some money out of my end results. This means super tiny marketshare platforms aren't even worth the time it takes to figure out how to do the build on it for me.
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Impetus73
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Posted: 12th Oct 2012 16:17
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AGK is great, it's just so early in it's developement, that it's very hard to use properly. In a year or two, I expect all commands to work, and easy 1 click distribution to the various platforms, from the IDE. *dreaming*

----------------
AGK programmer
Did Amiga / AMOS programming in the 90's.
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basjak
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Posted: 12th Oct 2012 18:30
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I'm not sure that BADA is dying as I still receive e-mails about their latest upgrades.

however, windows, ios and android are now the main platforms and all others are dying or cannot compete.

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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 09:40
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I'm not going to comment about the Bada side of the argument, but I have to agree with a lot that was said.

How encouraging is it to work on a project and having it work 100% in the windows player only to find that when you try it on android devices there are all sorts of issues; sprites not showing up (identical to ones that do show up) and the physics behaving completely different.

"Give them time" I hear you say. Well I would rather wait with 3D and all the new issues that will bring to each platform so they could get the current stuff working right.

While I'm on a rant, who is the future customer of AppGameKit going to be with freedom engine being out there? Why should any of us who bought AppGameKit keep working with it since it seems a lot easier to deploy a game with freedom, just to take one example.

What's stopping someone to make a complete game with the free version of AppGameKit, testing it with the windows player, then buy one month of FE and pasting the code there, work out a few kinks and deploying the game with complete rights for only $5? I spent quite a bit more than that solely on AppGameKit which I might as well ditch and only work in FE.

Sorry to come across like a whiny bitch but this stuff eats on my mind daily as I work on my apps. I love working with AppGameKit other than this stuff and I own most of TGC's releases

My hovercraft is full of eels
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Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 11:07
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Quote: "How encouraging is it to work on a project and having it work 100% in the windows player only to find that when you try it on android devices there are all sorts of issues; sprites not showing up (identical to ones that do show up) and the physics behaving completely different. "

Keep in mind that a huge part of the problem is the huge amount of differrent versions of cpu,with or without gpu chippset, amount of free memory.screen resolutions.

I have 4 android devices and they run at differrent framerate on all of them where my sandwich device is the worst.

Android is fun but complicated to dev for.

Android 2.3 , ZTE Skate , 480x800 , 800 mhz , Samsung Galaxy Y , 240x320 , 832 mhz , Sony ericson arc 480x854 , 1 ghz
Android 4.0 , Dmtech 3g 9738B , 1024x768 , 9.7 inches , 1.2 ghz
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bjadams
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 11:20
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Sprites behave the same on T2 1076 across windows, ios, Android and blackberry as I tested them myself.
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bjadams
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 11:24
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Quote: ""Give them time" I hear you say. Well I would rather wait with 3D and all the new issues that will bring to each platform so they could get the current stuff working right. "


the problem is not "give them time" but rather than "how much time"?

if you take darkbasicpro as an example, well, there are still many bugs that have never been killed after many months of being reported.

tgc moved over to produce agk and kind of left dbp behind.
now we have fe. will the same happen to agk?

this is a big concern for many developers, as many of us have now invested 1 year of work in agk.

we have a 108 beta, which t2 users cannot test out as its impossible to make a windows template for now
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baxslash
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 11:42
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I don't know how many times I've said these exact words to the exact same person but FE is AGK. DBPro is also about to be heavily invested in.

How much time you are prepared to wait for a new product to reach maturity is up to you.


this.mess = abs(sin(times#))
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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 11:42
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Unless the android issues are a player problem it's real for T1. If it is because the downloadable android player is old, update it on the products page.

I assume you haven't done an app using box2d and tried it on the different platforms? Because it doesn't behave the same. And if someone knows exactly what it going on they're not telling because there's a thread about it in the android part of this forum. There are only questions in there and no answers.

My hovercraft is full of eels
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MarcoBruti
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 12:45
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I think that the winning approach is the Apple one: single vendor, single platform, single OS, single hw, single CPU...
and if CPU changes (e.g. from PowerPC to Intel x86), all platforms changes, no-one remain stuck to old CPU, versions, etc.
Even with a single vendor, look at what is happening with the many version of Windows: Vista, XP, 7,8 and more to come.
The question could me: why do not migrate to Apple? Also for AppGameKit this could be a big advantage. FPS should be the same on all devices, iPhone, iPad, iMac, because they are almost the same, apart size and aesthetic.
The answer is only one: because Apple is a monopoly and enslave the customer to what Apple wants him to do.
So the anarchy of Android is far better than to be mastered by the heirs of Mr.Jobs.
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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 12:55
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Yeah. Well I choose not to believe that it's impossible to get it right for android. If the problem was only fps I wouldn't have one complain because that would be up to me as the programmer to solve. FPS is the least of my problems

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Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 13:23
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Quote: "I assume you haven't done an app using box2d and tried it on the different platforms? Because it doesn't behave the same. And if someone knows exactly what it going on they're not telling because there's a thread about it in the android part of this forum. There are only questions in there and no answers."

My platformer is completely box 2d and it works great on 3 of my devices and almost not at all on my sandwich device.

A well know bugg for box 2d is to keep the gravity to 160-200 that preben reported.

Android 2.3 , ZTE Skate , 480x800 , 800 mhz , Samsung Galaxy Y , 240x320 , 832 mhz , Sony ericson arc 480x854 , 1 ghz
Android 4.0 , Dmtech 3g 9738B , 1024x768 , 9.7 inches , 1.2 ghz
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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 15:25
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Good information thanks. Even though I'm not sure where you get 160-200 from. Sounds like a lot. I'll try to find the bug report

My hovercraft is full of eels
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bjadams
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 15:39
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Baxslash people want to see results.
Maybe waiting 3 months between versions is no big deal for some, but for the rest of us it is.

We have been hearing reassurances about T2 all the time, yet every new version we get, the Templates never work, and cannot be fixed by us users (like in 108)... how can we believe that T2 users are not left aside?!

BTW, this is not directly aimed at you or tgc personally, its just that unless we cry and beg and criticize all the time, things won't improve.
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bjadams
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 15:43
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Quote: "I assume you haven't done an app using box2d and tried it on the different platforms? Because it doesn't behave the same. "


You are right, I never used Box2d. But you mentioned Sprites not Box2d.

Most probably tgc just picked up the standard box2d implementation for every platform and just put that in agk. you can't expect tgc to fix box2d, i think you need to report that in the specific box2d support forums...
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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 16:00
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I'm ready to let this discussion rest, except for my point about FE and AppGameKit that noone seems to refute.

However, bjadams, I think that since I bought a software that promised (and demonstrated it with videos) that I could write once and deploy to many platforms that it should work like that. And box2d is included in that. However, if there is a known bug I'm willing to work around it, but am I supposed to go through every bug report myself to find one that applies to me? Or should big bugs perhaps be highlighted a bit more generously and explained in documentation or at least somewhere I don't have to use a pretty useless search function on a scattered forum.

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DVader
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 16:23 Edited at: 14th Oct 2012 16:23
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FE is AGK. AppGameKit is used to create the games in FE so if you have it, there's no real need to use fe in the way you said. Also, compared to coding using AppGameKit it seems quite slow and clunky. That may be just my broadband speed, but it is typical of any online tool like this I have tried. I haven't really tried it much since the first week of it being available on beta. I hope they update AppGameKit for easier deployment as they get it sussed in FE.

It would have been nice for existing AppGameKit owners to get a slightly higher MB quota as a sweetener. 10MB is really not enough to do a lot at all really. None of my existing projects would even come close to fitting into it. Even my entry for no media ADG compo will not compile in it, because the code is too long.

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lilpissywilly
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 17:29
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So to sum up, if you already spent money on AppGameKit that's what you're using. If you're stumbling in here for the first time and look at FE and AppGameKit there is no way anyone would consider buying AppGameKit after they see that the instructional video to compile an android apk is nearly two hours long and in FE you just hit a button called "deploy to android". Plus it would take nearly two years of using FE to reach the price of AppGameKit (I bought it early).

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DVader
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 18:02
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I pre-ordered it if that is counted as early I too was flabbergasted when FE was launched, but not really that bothered, apart from AppGameKit suffering because of it. However, I am quite happy now as the AppGameKit updates will continue as ever. I won't be using FE anytime soon at the moment because I just prefer AppGameKit, and have as you said paid for it already. AppGameKit was initially touted as a subscription fee product, but a surge of complaints changed it to a one off purchase. TGC are really just implementing the model they initially wanted with FE, as I own AppGameKit I am not really fussed. This gives us the option of choosing our preferred option. I don't really want a subs based service myself as it seems a potentially expensive way to code from home. Of course if I was making any money I would be prepared to reconsider, but as a hobbyist it is too much.

I think your annoyance may be based on the android compile issue that has been torturing many people since AppGameKit was released. Yes, it is a pain to set up, but once done it is fairly easy to compile. Plus I imagine when it is running in FE properly (I'm not certain that works yet as I don't use it), AppGameKit will get the ability to do it also. If not, then that is a bit naughty, but I doubt it. TGC want more users of FE and AppGameKit not to alienate the users who already have it.

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MrValentine
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 18:24
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Has nobody on here read Lee's latest blog post yet? if not I shall not repeat another post from the forum...

I have more to show here but it is a poster... I will make it and drop by later ^^

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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 18:47
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Quote: "who is the future customer of AppGameKit going to be with freedom engine being out there?"

Anyone, like myself, who prefers to program in Tier 2 (native/c++) will continue to want AGK. FE does not support Tier 2.

Also, as I understand it, there are limitations to the size of what can be done on FE.

And, there is no way I want to post my code and media somewhere that I do not have total control. I know it is supposed to be secure, but I am always paranoid about cloud based stuff.

Cheers,
Ancient Lady
AGK Community Tester
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 18:49
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Totally agree with the Ancient One. Let's have a functioning core that we can use. Please.

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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