First off, I am writing this article with the background that I am a huge fan of the basic language and I would like to see it around for a long time and as a foundation for my future work.
When I recently found the AppGameKit site, it was really like a 20 year flashback, where I couldn't find a compiler for MS-DOS Quickbasic and stopped a promising career out of lack of perspectives.
There are many many positive aspects obviously, otherwise i would't have chosen to buy it and I wouldn't be here; but i won't go into detail on them, because there is nood need to talk about what's already great.
So here is a list of my impressions of what could be improved - please don't feel offended by any of these.
From a business perspective :
- There could be a boxed version of the AppGameKit - it may seem a bit old-fashioned, but still - a boxed version is sexy - especially as (christmas) present - combined with a complete & detailed documentation book it would
surely be attractive to start a development career.
- The sales page could be better - While I think the AppGameKit itself is presented very well on the main page - the sales page leaves to much options to go wrong, in my opinion.
And no, I am not bitter (just a bit), because I paid 150$ for what i could get for 70$ now - but it leaves a bit a picture of inconsistency - first it's available for 60$ as a promo, then the promo is removed - then it's
put up again.
In my opinion, AppGameKit is well worth like - let's say 150$ , but it shouldn't change from week to week - it doesn't display a solid picture of value if the price changes constantly,
although I think AppGameKit itself has all rights to claim exactly this solid picture.
- A complete documentation should be included in every version of the AppGameKit - even if this means the price would get a bit higher. This software is strong enough - that , from a buyer perspective , it shouldn't change much
whether he has to pay 50, 100 or even up to 200$ for it, if it is complete. I found it a bit lame, when I purchased the tutorial and beginner guide to find out, that the tutorial guide is 2/3 the beginner guide.
From a developer perspective :
- What is AppGameKit in essential ?
A powerful command framework for games and apps combined with an easy to understand language, a compact & fast compiler and the lovely ability to cross compile and the prospect to make games & money.
- The powerful command framework : Should be expanded as much as possible for any area of development - I would rather pay now and then for upcoming releases instead of getting improvements and new features too infrequently.
- I as the customer am happy, if AppGameKit makes money , because AppGameKit making more money means more room for improvement, which in last iteration means more money for me as a developer.
- Should contain a library that can be extended by custom user commands.
- documentation : is already quite good, but could be improved to one big book which covers all commands, syntaxes and control structures - there is nothing more embarrassing and time consuming than having to ask, ask, ask
- compact & fast compiler : maybe it would be possible to decrease the size of executables even more - excluding libraries which aren't used by the program code
- The cross compiling abilites : Has already a lot of targets & could maybe even expanded to consoles
- prospect to make games & money : As much as i appreciate that AppGameKit wants to market itself, it should not be in expense of the developer - there should be inbuilt commands for setting custom icons,
remove any app game brands from any developed product - even if it can be done manually or with third party tools - I think it is important that it is featured by the kit itself.
This i not to say that the developer will deny the roots of it's software - but it should be the developer's choice whether he wants to make additional advertisement for AGK.
- working features, which make marketing easy (in app purchases, supported market stores) should have priority - a earning costumer is also willing to invest further in AppGameKit - which would lead to a a win-win circle.
- charging money for further releases (AppGameKit V 3.0) if that means improving faster - is better even for the developer than not charging for further releases if that would mean more infrequent updates
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additional : the forum could get a polish (yeah, yeah, my face also...) , adding some searching features
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This is my brief take on AppGameKit - for now - and although I am pretty sure many points I have listed are strived for & or are already available - I just wanted the list them for the rough big picture
- although I have to admit, that I am at the very start of getting into AGK.
Feel free to flame me, if you think I am way off.
Regards,
Christoph Schinkowski
