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AppGameKit Classic Chat / TGC needs your feedback

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RickV
TGC Development Director
24
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Posted: 29th Mar 2013 20:25 Edited at: 12th Apr 2013 18:32
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Hi AppGameKit users,

I started this thread so that you could give us feedback on AppGameKit and tell us what you needed fixing and what new things you wanted to see added. Well you did a great job and I've gone through that feedback today and below is a breakdown of it. Let me know if I've missed anything, I'll wait a week and then I'll take any further feedback and prepare a survey which will allow everyone to vote on what they want to see added in order of priority.

Cheers,

Rick

------

General
Stable bug free versioning
Stay focused on AGK
Quicker updates

Platforms
Blackberry full support
HTML5 support
Windows Phone 8
Linux
WiiU
Chromebook


3rd party tools/hardware
Ouya support
Spriter support
Spine support
Large 3D Terrain Support
Scoreloop support

Engine
- 3D Animation with the ability to blend multiple animations at the same time (at least four and preferably up to 8)
- Sprite blend modes
- Shader support for 2D
- Full screen shader support
- Read color value of single pixel on screen
- Write pixel to screen
- Tweening system
- 3D batching (preferably with control over the method used, eg. hardware, shader, VTF, etc
- Ability to edit vertexdata in 3D
- 3D command set that matches DBPro set
- 3D collision
- 3D Physics - Bullet
- 3D skybox commands
- Ability to load in legacy DBO objects
- Encrype media files into final build
- Improved control of files and folders and how they are read/written to system locations. I want to control whether my app will need admin permissions on Windows. I want a DBPro level of control.
- Built in GUI windows and control systems for menu, toolbars etc
- Better Audio Capabilities (fade, mixing, loop..full OpenAL support)
- Game Centre style system for cross platform
- NFC & other sensors cross platform
- The possibility to determine when the program goes into background
- Direct camera access on Android (without the need to go through a gallery app to get a photo, and so we can create apps that use camera input in realtime
- Windowed resolution adjustment
- Create a memblock from a file and a sound (this is very important if I want to load a lot of images very fast)
- Deleteallobjects command
- Improved Editboxes (vertical scrolling, better keyboard input on Android, etc)
- GUI access (in which case we could use the platform's textboxes rather than editboxes)
- Memory profile commands
- Play video from game window / onto a texture
- Improved particle commands
- More draw commands DRAWPIXEL and DRAWBOX (filled and unfilled)
- Ability to read DBPro network commands
- Expanded Box2D command set
- In-game fullscreen switching

Tier 1 Editor
- Debugger
- Cross platform IDE
- functions list
- only include required libraries on compile
- One click deploy (make exe, apk, ipa)
- Parser not accepting colons in IF THEN statements
- More control over Windows-resolutions in tier 1

Basic
- Dynamic Lists
- Referencing
- Pass arrays into a function
- Arrays in types
- Forced declaration of variables
- Improve user defined types
- Plug-ins for 3rd party extensions
- The ability to #include non-human readable source files
- savearray and openarray command
- Re-dimming multidimensional arrays can cause a loss of data
- #strict option

Tier2
- Wizards for setting up templates
- Ways to hook into the graphics and sound engines

Blog
- daily change log details
- better communication via forum and social feeds

Help
- Detailed documentation (esp facebook & twitter setup and use, In-App purchasing)
- Complete and accurate help

Forums
- AppGameKit Work in Progress board
- Tier 1 & Tier 2 forums

Tools
- Point and click world builder

Financial Director
TGC Team
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Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 29th Mar 2013 22:20 Edited at: 29th Mar 2013 22:21
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I haven't tried 1089 yet so I don't know if I will encounter any bugs there. Still running 1076. Hopefully I can test it next week. I am not looking for any new commands at the moment. I got all my needs covered there. Getting bugs fixed is what I always want the most, not new stuff.

I am hoping that I get my Ouya next month so I want full support for that as well as full support for Blackberry. I would say there are two platforms missing. which would be nice down the line. Windows Phone and Linux.

I would love to see improvements to the editor. The main feature I am missing from my DBP days is a list of all my functions so I can easily jump around them. But also automatically include only the libraries we need. And anything that can ease the making of the final distributable files.

Another thing I miss from DBP is lists. This is the only command set I am missing. Being able to add and remove entries from an array was excellent when making editors etc.

Cheers!


Demo 3 is out now!
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bjadams
AGK Backer
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Posted: 29th Mar 2013 22:32
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important thing for T2 users is to always have WORKING templates.

also AppGameKit is very strong in the area of 2D so it would make sense to support things like SPRITER which has already become an industry standard as most artists & animators are using it.
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Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 29th Mar 2013 22:38
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Yeah, support for Spriter and also for Spine would be great additions down the line. I've bought both of them but not sure when I'll be using them as right now I am doing retro style and not sure if using either of them would be of any help.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Hodgey
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Posted: 29th Mar 2013 23:36
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I'm very satisfied with T2 right now but I used to be a BASIC user and so to help improve the language I'll list a few things that turned me off BASIC.

1. Referencing - I can get by without OOP but I think referencing/pointers is a must, implicit or explicit. Being able to pass an array into a function would be pretty sweet (among other things you can do with pointers).

2. Forced declaration of variables - the number of times I have been bitten by a typo, which in turn creates a new variable is more than I'd like to admit. Just having the option to turn it on would be great.

Quote: "important thing for T2 users is to always have WORKING templates."

If TGC could go the extra step and create wizards for the major IDEs, that'd be fantastic! But working templates are enough for us to go on.

Thanks for listening TGC!

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JimHawkins
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Posted: 29th Mar 2013 23:41
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Personally, I'd like to see a clear change-log indicating what is fixed, what is undetermined, and what is under review.

I would also like to see some clear documentation for advanced users on exactly what is being called "under the bonnet." For example, is the audio sub-system using OpenAL? I would like to see T2/T3 programmers able to replace or extend things like this.

In other words, I'd like a clear diagram of what we might replace for deeper experience. The audio capabilities of TGK are well below what they should be, or might be. It's hard, I will admit, to cater for the hobbyist and experienced programmer. However, I think it's possible if a clear divide is made between the Basic and T2.

A few hooks would be nice.

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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blueFire
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 02:19
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For me the most important thing is the ability for T1 users to publish to the various platforms with one click from the ide. Most of AGK's competition already have this.

Jason
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Jimmanator
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 02:24
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The most important thing for me right now is 3d animation support because that is the only thing stopping me from creating a quality game right now.

By the way thank you for the PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 support.
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easter bunny
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 02:26
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I agree with blueFire, AppGameKit fulfills all my game programming need, I really like it, but setting up Eclipse properly is really a big pain (good thing you don't need Cygwin anymore though with v108b9), though after you've published your first app, it's far more simple.

Dodge those Balls, awesomest app on the Play Store
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xCept
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 03:56 Edited at: 30th Mar 2013 03:58
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Social Networking - Get Twitter and Facebook fully integrated and functional on at least Android and iOS. Documentation is an absolute must, to walk users through the steps and required configuration on both the client and server-side (via Facebook / Twitter Dev Console). Stuff like Class Name, Key Hash generation, etc. is currently a lot of guess work and research that could be easily solved by writing step-by-step instructions on what settings must be enabled and how they must be configured to work with the AppGameKit social framework.

In-App Purchases - This is coming along well in Android and iOS but is still bugged at least in Android (verify/restore purchases does not work). Again, this is one that should have documentation as it's a very complicated process the first time (e.g., how you must upload the APK to the server, activate the product, etc.)

2D Sprite Enhancements - Some basic functionality is still lacking from 2D commands, including blend modes as several of us have wished for. Providing shader support for 2D sprites / fullscreen without having to apply them to specific 3D objects would be wonderful and open the doors for many new possibilities.
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Markus
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 08:59
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the handling of user defined type works not well as parameter and return value.
often i missing more flexibly.

example:
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mr_d
DBPro Tool Maker
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 09:56 Edited at: 30th Mar 2013 09:58
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Hi Rick, my wishlist for the improvement of AppGameKit would include the following (in no particular order):

- 1-click deploy to all platforms
- HTML5 export/deploy
- a more fully functional IDE with integrated Debugger
- ability to have plug-ins/modules for 3rd party extensions development
- feature-set locked down with a bug-free release of stable version
- complete 3D features to match functionality of latest DBP RC
- help documentation complete and accurate
- ability to encrypt media files into the final build
- better control of files and folders and how they are read/written to temporary/system locations
- built in GUI windows and controls system for menus, toolbars, etc.
- better communications with the forum on what's being worked on and the progress of the relevant items

The above are just the things from the top of my head; some of which has already been raised in this thread, and others that have been raised by others in previous threads (which didn't seem to go anywhere).

You're probably regretting asking now, aren't you?

Anyway, cheers and have a good Easter.

EDIT: BTW, most if not all of my above points are relating to T1 as that is the platform that I use, and plan to continue using.

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Mobiius
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 11:37 Edited at: 30th Mar 2013 11:38
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I'd like arrays in types like this:



Just one level would suffice.

I'd also like the 'lua like' ability to #include non-human readable source files. (It's in the Google list and has been accepted) this way, we can create various libraries, (Like my full UI engine) and we can sell them to forum users who are asking for things like GUIs and what not.

Perhaps #include can be for standard source files, and #decode could be for precompiled source files?

I live for video games! (And beers, and football, and cars!)
See what I live for here: [url]http:\\www.TeamDefiant.co.uk[/url]
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Arbrakan
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 11:55
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Guys, you have made a Great product with AppGameKit ! Love it.

1 click deploy will be awsome !
3D collision feature for my upcoming game will be great..
And maybe NFC compatibility ?

(And for the HTML export did you hear about asm.js ? ( http://asmjs.org/spec/latest/ - http://asmjs.org/ ))

(sorry for my limited english)
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Arbrakan
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 12:02
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Quote: "
I'd also like the 'lua like' ability to #include non-human readable source files. (It's in the Google list and has been accepted) this way, we can create various libraries, (Like my full UI engine) and we can sell them to forum users who are asking for things like GUIs and what not."


Great idea !
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Mobiius
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 12:29
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Quote: "Great idea ! "

Thanks, I have quite a few libraries I'd like to sell, but don't want to give plain source code out. (I'm very proud of my UI and music engine! lol)

I live for video games! (And beers, and football, and cars!)
See what I live for here: [url]http:\\www.TeamDefiant.co.uk[/url]
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Brother
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 12:38
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Hi TGC Team,

I am very satisfied with AGK.
I use V1074 wich is very stable and do what i actually need.
I watch v108 progress with interest.

The only thing i regret is the incompatibility of V1074 successor version with my graphic card. Maybe one day you will think about your first clients... The ones who make your success...
The ones you forget...

Best regards
Brother

I am not english so xcuse my syntax, grammary or anything else wich could occure some ununderstanding
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Tone Dialer
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 14:02 Edited at: 30th Mar 2013 16:26
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@ RickV

Thank you for this opportunity to give feedback. I have been using AppGameKit since the first days..It is evolving, which is a good thing, but this must not be at the expense of a solid bug free programming environment.
I am currently working with V1089 BETA, which is moving towards being the best version yet, for me your decision to bring back BlackBerry Playbook and X10 into the supported platforms is very welcome. Please stick with it and complete the feature set for BlackBerry (and keep it up to date).
I too will be receiving my OUYA very soon, please please give us the tweaks and tools we need to use the OUYA controller functionality and publish to the OUYA store from day one.
That’s about it, except for the long standing bugs in the IDE, it is often really basic issues like not accepting colons in IF THEN statements (see issues 489 and 519 of the official bug board) that let the AppGameKit community down, it has to be said that you would not find bugs like these (for as long as these have been there) in any other programming IDE.

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yamyam
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 15:05
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This is my first post on the forum, my findings, using AppGameKit mainly for android over the last few months.

Excellent program for games and the forum support is top notch. Nearly ready to release my first game to the android market.

The main time consuming problems are with the lack of one click APP build support for android integrated into the IDE ,other basic for android languages i have, are far simpler to deploy the finished APP than AppGameKit, as mentioned by Bluefire. Crack this and you will be the only game kit worth buying.

Keep up the good work.
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uman
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 15:40
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As already suggested :
1-click deploy to all platforms
HTML5 export/deploy
3D support enhancements
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kslam212003
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 16:32
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@ RickV
I still waiting for Windows phone platform template, I want to develop WP game. May I know when it will be available ?

Hope that AppGameKit can support Tiled map tmx format.
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MarcoBruti
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 16:56
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I am not used to repeat what I already have written at least a billion times. I have used AppGameKit for more than 1 year (from end 2011 to all 2012), and I have published 8 apps on Google Play (1 free/advertised and 7 paid), so I can state that I have a good experience on the product. I only try to address some issues in sparse order.
I point out that I am not interested at all in Tier>1, i.e. Tier-2 and Tier-3. I have programmed in almost all languages, including DarkBasic Pro (and I have a master degree in Engineering), but being for me an hobby, I have chosen to use only BASIC.

1) My general impression is that there bugs in the IDE, in the sound system (MP3 playing), in the editbox commands, and many others, that TGC have never solved. This is a big problems. It seems that hands compiler have never been put on, apart new commands. The colon bug of the IF-THEN-ELSE is one example.
2) BASIC language lacks in very important OOP structures, e.g. references (not pointers), references cannot be passed in functions, types are very limited, etc.
3) I asked for an AppGameKit version compatible with older graphics hw (not supporting OpenGL 2), and answers have been very disappointing. We contributed to the success (I hope so) of AppGameKit, and we have been left alone.
4) 3D is important, but most of game programmers for mobile will focus on 2D because 3D requires a lot of additional artwork, more complex programming, higher hw requirements for mobile devices. So it would have been better to focus on product quality that adding features that will not be used by many people and that add complexity. You could give 3D as an add-on for a fee.
5) Add 1-click to build and deploy and HTML5 export: we cannot continue using Eclipse with all problems of setup environment.
6) Window Phone and Blackberry should be added as soon as possible as new deployment platforms.
So I have stopped for now my experience with AGK. I am waiting for new stable version, and if the product will be compliant to my expectations (and if I will be able to use it despite the OpenGL incompatibility), I'll give it another opportunity. Otherwise I'll revert to other platform, focused on HTML5 (the future).
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Mamute
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 17:05 Edited at: 30th Mar 2013 17:08
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I have the same option as mr_d regarding AppGameKit feature set:

- HTML 5 capability
- Better IDE, Debuger and deploy capabilities... the AppGameKit player isn't also perfect..
- Application commands (toolbars, buttons, etc..)
...point and click world builder woud be nice (FPSC style for AGK) but that's another story. Producing a game would be much faster.

|MaMUtE|
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Zwarteziel
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 20:00 Edited at: 30th Mar 2013 20:00
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Thank you for this opportunity to list our wishes. For me, the following things would be very welcome:

General functionality
- IDE improvement, with a debugger
- More control over Windows-resolutions in tier 1. (ability to switch without using 'setup.agc')

2D functionality
- Spine support. Here's a link to the explanations of the JSON-format, should you be interested.

3D functionality
- Animation support
- Collision detection
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BatVink
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 21:34
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Quote: "I would love to see improvements to the editor. The main feature I am missing from my DBP days is a list of all my functions so I can easily jump around them.
"


Seconded

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Grumpy Jedi
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 21:52
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All the feature requests I see appearing here are great ones.

I'm going to try and post a combined list of key feature requests we've seen so far:

These are listed in no particular order:

Editor Improvements (Function Lists Etc) And Debugger
Working Templates
Spriter Support
Spine Support
Referencing
Forced Declaration
Detailed Change Logs
Clearer And Completed Documentation
Documentation For Advanced Users
Better Audio Capabilities
One Click Build And Deploy (With option to Build for all platforms)
HTML5 Support with Export And Deployment
3D Animation Support
Completed Social Networking Integration
Completed In App Purchase Functionality
2D Sprite Enhancements (Blend Modes/Shader Support)
Plug-In Support
Completed 3D Feature Set
Improved File I/O Control
Built In GUI Windows, Controls, Buttons, Toolbars For Menus etc.
Better And More Frequent Forum Updates On Current Work And Progress
Arrays In Types
Ability To #Include Precompiled Source Files
3D Collision
Persisting Bug Resolution
Windows Phone And Blackberry Support


In addition to all those great ideas, I would like to see expanded support for iOS features like Game Center.

Commands for score retrieval from leaderboards.

Built in Commands that let users challenge friends to beat their scores. This can be done now directly through the Game Center interface, but native AppGameKit commands that allow us to do it through our games interface would be a nice addition.

And Game Center multiplayer support...
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Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 00:05
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Quote: "I'm going to try and post a combined list of key feature requests we've seen so far:"

Is that the features you agree with? It is not a complete list of the suggestions made earlier in this thread.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Grumpy Jedi
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 05:20
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if I missed something you want in the list let me know and I'll edit the post for you.

I never said it was going to be a perfectly complete list
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Mobiius
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 12:21
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There's already a list, in the google bug board.

I live for video games! (And beers, and football, and cars!)
See what I live for here: [url]http:\\www.TeamDefiant.co.uk[/url]
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Arbrakan
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 14:03
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Grumpy Jedi, You missed the NFC, they are in 108, but they don't work on Android.. And the is nothing about it on the Google bug board.
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TheTeenDevs
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 14:21
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I would like Windows 8 store support and blackberry support And maybe work on 3d animations
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 20:12
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Steam and Unity is coming for Linux. Humble Bundle requires Linux. When is AppGameKit going to support Linux I wonder.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Max Tillberg
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 20:44
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I think AppGameKit is agreat product but I would like thw following:
- One Click Build And Deploy (Android)
- HTML5 Support
- Windows Phone Support
- Read color value of single pixel on screen
- Write pixel to screen
- Tween similar to Starling
- Sound and Music settings (fade, mix, loop, ...)
- Native UI (buttons, list, ...)
- The possibility to determine when the program goes into background

Thats it. Thanks again for a great product.

Sincerely,
Max Tillberg
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erebusman
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 21:24
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I am a Tier 2 user here are my thoughts

- my number 1 issue by a 3 mile stretch is lack of properly tested high quality Tier 2 templates. End users and testers made far better templates than AppGameKit put out but it took MONTHS of realizing that the provided ones were horrible and did not work before that was finally resolved.

- In its first year AppGameKit was a very successful product for me however TGC became (to my perception) very un-focused and started developing other products that appeared to have been part of the promised feature set of AGK.

- So a year + after AppGameKit came out and I was fairly accomplished with what you had delivered I was left wanting those other features and instead was offered Freedom Engine which is *not* a product I'm interested in at all. You guys have every right to develop other products but if the lack of focus is going to undermine AGK's success .. well as a user of AppGameKit that was extremely frustrating.

- The focus on other products also gave the perception that the bugs in AppGameKit were possibly never going to be addressed (although I see now its not true; but it is what I felt for some time).

- The overall implementation of AppGameKit is very good but there are small over sights that can be extremely frustrating. For example detecting when an application is going to the background on Android is not implemented in AGK and this prevented me from shipping an Android product for my first 3 releases ; eventually I worked around it by having my music loops be extremely small and that sort of works but its very unprofessional. Its bad enough I'm teaching myself Java and learning to program Android natively rather than use AGK.

- Its been ? almost a year (forgive me the dates have been 'updated' on the products page when some changes were made so I don't know the exact date) since AppGameKit 1076 came out. Honestly .. thats too long between updates guys. And while I have downloaded the beta I'm really not ready to try and use because as a Tier 2 user .. yeah no templates..


Now I get it ; you guys need to make *MONEY* Lets be brutal : once you've gotten my money for shipping AppGameKit there is no more money in it for you to update it or fix it unless you charge for updates or something?

But then again if your product does not appear to be maintaind and growing it may not attract new users.

If your product doesn't appear to support desired features like 3D it may not attract new users.

Those new users probably want the same things that I want.

But I'm okay with you finding additional revenue sources in AGK.

Plug-in modular support for extended features like Spriter, L3DT , or other plugins could add both customer perceived VALUE and REVENUE to your company? Just throwing out an idea.

I want you to be successful so the product keeps growing.

Thank you for asking for feedback. I've shipped 4 nice games and am fairly happy overall. I just would like to see things moving forward.


Holiday Cheer on iTunes
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Digital Awakening
AGK Developer
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 21:52
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Quote: "Now I get it ; you guys need to make *MONEY* Lets be brutal : once you've gotten my money for shipping AppGameKit there is no more money in it for you to update it or fix it unless you charge for updates or something?"

Paying for new features was what I thought AppGameKit would be like. Things like 3D and social media could have been sold separately. Not that I mind getting free updates. But you need to make money to keep the product alive. And I agree on the lack of focus on AGK.


Demo 3 is out now!
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Clonkex
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 07:47 Edited at: 1st Apr 2013 07:51
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Ok, you asked for it, so this is what I want, in no particular order:

- 3D batching (preferably with control over the method used, eg. hardware, shader, VTF, etc. Take your queue from the New Instancing system in Ogre)
- Direct camera access on Android (without the need to go through a gallery app to get a photo, and so we can create apps that use camera input in realtime, such as security camera apps that send images over the network)
- Much better audio systems (in DBPro you could change the sound's speed and it even supported 3D sounds)
- Much better documentation (it's really difficult to describe what's wrong with the documentation but I think 'convoluted' sums it up pretty well)
- One-click build and deploy to all supported platforms (Unity does this already - except for iOS and Mac but no one can make Apple apps on Windows - and it's absolutely brilliant)
- 3D animation support (this is the only thing that has stopped me making a really cool 3D AppGameKit game)
- Much better file read/write control (I want to control whether my app will need admin permissions on Windows. I want a DBPro level of control)
- Proper, in-code resolution control (not that annoying setup file) on Windows/Mac including fullscreen switching (what if I want to create a game that allows users to change the resolution or windowed settings?)
- Linux support (this isn't a huge priority for me, but it would be very nice to be able to build for every common platform)
- Windowed resolution adjustment, ie. the ability to set the correct resolution for a windowed program, so it's not blurry or fizzly (how can we create decent tools like Placement Editor Professional without the ability to use the correct resolution for whatever the window size?)
- If you're going to support "forced declaration" in the AppGameKit, this MUST BE AN OPTION! I DO NOT want forced declaration in the AppGameKit so if others want it, you'll have to add it as a compiler option.
- Plugin/module support (I know this is a very difficult thing to implement because you can't just use DLLs like DBPro did, but it would be incredibly useful)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's more I need.

Clonkex



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paul5147
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 11:01
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Can I first of all say thank you for what is essentially a great product, the latest beta upgrades with the 3d commands have really got me interested in AppGameKit once more,I have to admit that 2d was never really my thing,but sprite based games have never been easier to produce now for multiple platforms than ever before,the built in physics collision system and input methods works great.
However,over the last few days i've been getting back up to speed with AppGameKit since i downloaded the latest beta,and i have to admit i didn't miss the editor one bit,i switched years ago from the standard DBPro editor to Balids BlueIDE and then onto Indigo because it simply speeded up my coding and made organizing functions and switching between them easier,even the auto loop completion and indenting,not to everyone's taste i know but they are useful.
Before anyone says switch to tier 2 and use which ever editor you want,i'm well aware i could and do use VS,Eclipse,Notepad++ for tier 2 long term projects,but for a quick test of principles i still like to use tier 1 Basic.
As a long time user of DBPro i have also built up quite a library of 3d assets in your own DBO format,would it be possible to have support for them in future 3d updates.
Apart from that i'm quite happy with the progress you have made with this product and the support over the years i have had with your other products as well,especially the free updates over the years,i know this may not be popular with others but i would be prepared to pay for major updates for features i like,if AppGameKit was more modular like DBPro,allowing for paid and free plugin support that would be great in my opinion.
Thanks.
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Clonkex
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 14:02
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Quote: "DBO format,would it be possible to have support for them in future 3d updates"


Seconded!

Quote: "i would be prepared to pay for major updates for features i like,if AppGameKit was more modular like DBPro,allowing for paid and free plugin support that would be great in my opinion"


Absolutely! Tier 1 plugin support would just make AppGameKit fly ahead, and who knows? One day it might even surpass DBPro in terms of flexibility TGC seems to forget that with DBPro, basically the only limiting factor is that it's not cross-platform. It's an incredibly powerful programming language, if only because it allows plugins to be created fairly easily. TGC made a big mistake (which they're slowly remedying, luckily) in assuming we, the DBPro users, would be happy with anything less than DBPro, even if it is cross-platform.

Enough of my rambling, I have Cubescape to work on!

Clonkex



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baxslash
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 14:38
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As you said Clonkex there is no one format for plugins that would work on every platform. I'm no expert on the various native languages but I'm pretty sure it's impossible.

I disagree about DBPro users not being interested in AGK. Quite a few people moved over even before 3D support (including myself) and loved it despite what it couldn't do. I'm speaking as a customer here, not as an employee BTW and you can take it with a pinch of salt if you like but I barely touched DBPro after I picked up AppGameKit long before I started working for TGC.

I have to say (as a full time AppGameKit user) that I agree with the vast majority of the requests here. For me personally the ones that stand out the most are:
-3D animation
-Ability to edit vertexdata in 3D
-Improved audio
-Option to force variable declaration
-Ability to pass arrays through functions
-IDE-Debugger; Function list; command info at bottom of screen like DBPro
-fullscreen shaders and or render targets

I would personally be happy if AppGameKit development would follow the following direction:
1-Add some essential 3D support such as animation, improve the IDE including all of the suggestions in this thread for the IDE (including option to force declaration)
2-Make AppGameKit as stable and usable as possible on every supported platform in Tier 1 and particularly Tier 2
3-Release it as a fully functional and stable release finished documentation (even if it's just the help files to start with)


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Juande
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 14:54
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Hi,

I have tested the new version and it's perfect for me... but I would like to have new commands.

· savearray and openarray command
· create a memblock from a file and a sound (this is very important if I want to load a lot of images very fast)
· vertex data manipulation commands (like as DBP...)
· to extend the default shader (shadows and reflections), but this is not important
· save objects in .ago format.
· deleteallobjects command
· to load and play animated 3d objects
· To compile in Apk without using eclipse... but this is not important.

Thanks
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MikeMax
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 15:24
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Quote: "Hi,

I have tested the new version and it's perfect for me... but I would like to have new commands.

· savearray and openarray command
· create a memblock from a file and a sound (this is very important if I want to load a lot of images very fast)
· vertex data manipulation commands (like as DBP...)
· to extend the default shader (shadows and reflections), but this is not important
· save objects in .ago format.
· deleteallobjects command
· to load and play animated 3d objects
· To compile in Apk without using eclipse... but this is not important.

Thanks"


+1 !
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Hockeykid
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 22:37 Edited at: 2nd Apr 2013 09:02
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-3D animations
-Full Blackberry support
-Improved Editboxes (vertical scrolling, better keyboard input on Android, etc)
-GUI access (in which case we could use the platform's textboxes rather than editboxes)
-IDE improvments (maybe having the documentation "built-in" like in DBPro)
-Better and more frequent forum updates on current work and progress
-Windows Phone support (not that important to me, but would be cool)
-AGK Work in Progress board (So the AppGameKit Showcase would be only for completed games)
-Ouya support
-There are certain commands that say "This command is currently only supported on <PLATFORM>" when they could be working on most if not all platforms. For example, Geolocation and NFC only work on Windows. Notifications only work on iOS, etc. It'd be nice if these commands were brought to all the platforms that they're possible on.


Sean

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Scary Little Rabbit
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 11:24
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Quote: "Personally, I'd like to see a clear change-log indicating what is fixed, what is undetermined, and what is under review."
+1.

TGC, you are great ones. I want that you do all things that guys told and one extra tool for easy deployment.

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"too many stars, too many stares. disembody."
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JimHawkins
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 18:53 Edited at: 2nd Apr 2013 18:55
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To expand on what I said earlier about sound:

I've been playing a bit with OpenAL. It does just about everything people could want in terms of audio for games. Sounds can be positioned very easily in 3D space. Volume (Gain) can be changed dynamically on individual sounds, and can be automatic by setting the distance from the listener.

How wonderful Cliff and Van's retro dungeon would be if you could hear rats in the distance, and they became louder as you walked down a corridor! Or you hear screaming as you search the dungeon for a maiden in distress and locate the passage by the change of sound.

With the introduction of 3D graphics, the need to manipulate the sound stage becomes more and more important. If you walk towards or by a waterfall, you expect the sound to change along with the visuals.

All this is relatively easy for T2 or T3 users: simply ignore AGK's own sound system and use OpenAL.

What we don't really know is how AppGameKit relates to OpenAL. Does it use it? If so, it would be quite easy to add some extra sound commands to T1 for a sound: GAIN, VELOCITY, POSITION. Many of the more complex listener orientations can be ignored.

I don't do funky visual things. I do audio, and find it frustrating that the audio has consistently been treated as second-rate. OpenAL is totally cross-platform and regular, free, and powerful. If true 3D apps are produced and a waterfall is just either on or off, AppGameKit will be a laughing stock.

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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baxslash
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 18:56
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I 100% agree with you Jim. It needs sorting out vitally. Even in 2D games I've found it very hard to use sound effectively. I managed to make a bouncing ball sound louder / quieter depending on how hard it bounced but trying to do anything clever with sound is simply impossible currently and it will bite us eventually.


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JimHawkins
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 19:24
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Bax - good sound can bring a flat 2D game to life. Your bounce should reflect, in sound terms, what your ball is doing. If you have a side scrolling game it should be possible to have point-sources for volcanoes, factories, etc, and have them swell and die as I pass them.

We could do better audio like this on the Amiga than is possible with AGK. I programmed the original sound installations for the London Transport Museum, running on a bank of Amiga motherboards. You could sit and drive a real bus. As you moved the accelerator the sound changed pitch and intensity, and even simulated automatic gear-changes. I could not do this in AppGameKit at all. On Music Maker for CDTV you could play along to a CD track on the IR remote, with a choice of instruments complete with pitch-bending; the key-mapping of the keys on the IR pad changed harmonically according to the current chord on the track. This is conceivably possible in AppGameKit, but without the pitch bend. That was 1991!!!

-- Jim DO IT FASTER, EASIER AND BETTER WITH AppGameKit FOR PASCAL
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Mobiius
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 20:53
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Better audio would be nice.

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Naphier
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 22:35
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New 1089 works well and I appreciate the steady stream of updates. I like that there is an open bug report project at code.google.com/p/agk/

Number 1 - I would emphasize the need for one-click builds to each of the platforms. This is huge and probably the most important to the success of this platform.

Number 2 - I would love to see BB10 support and mostly HTML5. Then a little further down would be Linux. I think many of us are also eager to use Ouya, but I'm not sure much has to be done on the end of TGC for that. I have a strong feeling that with the advent of Epic showing off their skills in HTML5 that it will eventually become a platform of choice, though that may take a few years.

Number 3 - Fix bugs. There are a lot of really bad bugs in the builds that should probably get faster attention. For example, re-dimming multidimensional arrays can cause a loss of data. Scary issue.

Number 4 - I would highly suggest that TGC provides more user support until things are working more correctly. If one employee were dedicated to answering forum issues for an hour per day I think it would go a long way.

Thanks for listening!

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 2nd Apr 2013 23:34
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Quote: "I think many of us are also eager to use Ouya, but I'm not sure much has to be done on the end of TGC for that."


Best part about Ouya is that it's Andorid. You can just sideload your .apk to an Ouya and run it. So we already have 99% support for Ouya. What I am hoping for is that TGC adds full support for Ouya ASAP. Rush to Adventure have full keyboard support now so as soon as I get my backer unit I will try it and post about it.

Right now there are about 100 titles released for Ouya. But IIRC there are about 7000 registered developer accounts. Every Ouya is a developer kit (like every Android phone/tablet) and getting your game in early is your best bet to get noticed. That market is going to grow fast later this year when developers start porting their Android games.


Demo 3 is out now!
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baxslash
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Posted: 3rd Apr 2013 00:20
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Quote: " I would highly suggest that TGC provides more user support until things are working more correctly. If one employee were dedicated to answering forum issues for an hour per day I think it would go a long way."

I have to be honest I spend longer than that every day in my own time at least... my knowledge is not always spot on but when I don't know the answer I try to find out. I'm not the only member of the team spending time answering questions either, Paul is on a lot providing more detailed and concise responses. I wish we had more time.


this.mess = abs(sin(times#))
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