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AppGameKit Classic Chat / The Future of AGK?

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Xaby
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Posted: 26th Nov 2018 00:37 Edited at: 26th Nov 2018 00:38
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Heho,

Maybe some Clickbait, but not at all. I am happy with AGK. I am not moving to Godot, Unity or Unreal or something other in the near future.

So what is this about?
At first what is this? "[SOLVED] OFFICIAL 3D PHYSICS DEMOS TIER 1 " Why is it sticky? Why can't nobody post in there? It's empty, but I have to scroll down, to see the important things. So please no personal things here. I liked that thread when it was with content and I loved it to look for ideas and code examples. In this form it is nonsense!!!

At next, I want to ask about the future of AppGameKit. Not if there are some new commands or bugfixes, more what it could be and where it could focus on.
Why do I write this now?

I saw these 4 videos in the last days ...








The "new" Raspberry Pi 3A+ is out. AppGameKit is able to compile for the Raspberry Pi.
GameSack shows MegaDrive / Genesis games and Pokémon sales well.
And! RPGMaker 2003 games are playble on the SNES / NES Classic mini.

So what does that mean? AppGameKit could also be the SDK we use, to make games with graphics compared to the MegaDrive / Genesis or could be the engine we use to create games in the quality of Pokémon.
Or games like Ben10. What we would need would be a visual Editor like the one from "Party Hard 2".

And next? I would like to see AppGameKit games on SNES / NES Classic mini as well. If we not have the Switch-Export yet, maybe it could be done for an more like Raspberry Pi thingly device.

This could be a niche, but that is in my opinion, what could distinguish AppGameKit from the other engines. That we could make (trippe A kind, maybe) games for the Raspberry Pi and "Microconsole-Class".

With that, I could imagine, to use AppGameKit in a Kickstarter project, to create completly new games for Raspberry Pi / RetroArch and or the Minis (NES / SNES Classic)


And why would we need tools and editors from the community? I guess, we are more indie then others. We are not using Unity or Unreal with lot of plugins, we love to code and love to tinker. But we also love to have some ideas created in a simple prototype.
We, so is my feeling, do often the same tasks over and over again. Everyone from us has to manage the assets, implement controlls and so on.

I don't need this kind of graphics

It's funny to listen, how big it is and the compiling times are very long. I like that part of AppGameKit and that is, why I don't want to change this beautiful engine.

So what do I ask for?

Maybe we could establish some guide lines for greater projects. Something like a pipeline for asstes, controllers, Maybe also have some more complex examples and or "open"-games.

At this moment I am creating a paper for "data reduction with machinima techniques in storytelling". It is more or less the idea, to have an editor like "Plotagon", or SCUMM for 3D Point & Adventures, but without the game mechanics included. So only the cut-scenes. A simple form of ALICE 3D, a very simple form of Poser 3D.
And these "movies" or "animations" could be played back via AppGameKit.

For that, I am creating also assets, and I want to make them free. I guess, it's the best way, to use the "player" later. A lot of the assets are will not be completly new, but mostly converted assets from FPSC Classic and its open source models.
It is not as easy as it sounds, because a lot of the models are very heavy directed to adult themes. So the idea is, to have the models more child friendly and create something not so violent with it.



So to reach a broader audience, I guess, we also need free Assets in this community. Not only the payed once for GameGuru. And not only the military scary once from FPSC Classic

The art style could be like the one from "RPG World" / "MyWorld", but to share the source and the games and so on, I guess, they have to be CC0.
for 2D we can use a lot of the "Glitch"-Assets, but they also needed to be converted. I did this in some way, but a lot of them are broken or don't suit together well.

https://www.glitchthegame.com/public-domain-game-art/
https://github.com/TheGameCreators/FPS-Creator-Classic

If we would have a complete useable library of 2D and 3D assets, well rigged and animated, the prototyping could be easier and we also can make games, where we could share complete projects, without the fear of copyright infringement.

The next thing is, we could make these asstes available in the App-versions of AppGameKit and only have to share source code, but the assets would still work correctly.

I am thinking about ~ 80 MB of assets. Textures, 3D objects, sounds, music-snippets

I am thinking of ~ 1.000 unique 3D objects and textures. About 1 hour of music. And maybe a complete free Voice for the game character.

With Low-Poly, textures without DXT-artefacts, clear colors, and maybe MIDI or MOD, better MO3 (http://www.un4seen.com/, combination of ogg and mod)

And or things on-demand implemented like Sfxr / Bfxr, this could be possible. This also would make using AppGameKit itself easier in schools on a Raspberry Pi and so on. Because the Raspberry Pi is very slow to create complex 3D models, but would be fast enough to use pre-created textures and models and or play 4-channel MOD files.

A lot of the people use the Raspberry Pi for RetroArch to emulate older consoles, and also the SNES / NES Mini Classic. Unreal and Unity and also Godot have problem with exporting to OpenGL ES 2.0, but AppGameKit does that very well. And with a low asset foodprint ... this could be a great choice.

So what do you think about that?
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Jack
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Posted: 27th Nov 2018 01:33 Edited at: 27th Nov 2018 01:35
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I see a bunch of good ideas. AppGameKit does actually has a lot of features for low performing hardware.

Does anyone remember the old DBC .x Object Library from A to Z? It was an awesome loot back in the times with no fast internet.
With some UVW maps and textures they would fit fine for a remastering. I think you have to talk to Lee Bamber to see whats possible.

[/url]
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Xaby
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Posted: 27th Nov 2018 15:23 Edited at: 27th Nov 2018 15:31
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about 20 categories, what do you think, do I miss something?
Would you change the assignment?

the objects would get an unique-ID, it doesn't matter, where they are in the virtual folders, it is more to have an overview about the things are there, and the things are needed for storytelling or some kind of prototype-game.



accessories, is the word, nobody can write

Where would a "book" go? It is small like a tool and could fit on a desk. Or it stays in a cupboard.

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Xaby
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2018 10:09
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so maybe we can have a compo for games for the Raspberry Pi
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tboy
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2018 12:22
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I believe AppGameKit has a bright future ahead of it, irrespective of products such as Unity, Unreal, Godot, etc...

I think the next phase for AppGameKit should be Nintendo Switch, the Switch is an awesome bit of kit that will be around
for many many years and TGC should take advantage.



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Xaby
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2018 14:52
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@tboy, yes, the Nintendo Switch will be arround for the next 10 to 20 years, I guess. The question would be, when would anybody use AppGameKit instead of Unreal or Unity or Godot?

The "problem" I see with the Switch is, that you have to do a lot of legal stuff before, and pay some money to Nintendo for the DevKit. To be able to test out the games on a Raspberry Pi would be not bad and there also a lot of games out there, who have a Raspberry Pi.

And mostly on the Switch Nintendo looks for games, that are known on other platforms before. So it is not as easy for completly new devs. And for the Raspberry Pi, you could buy one, and that's it. You would get AppGameKit for free for it. But the entry level price for Nintendo Switch is much higher.
And I guess, if you payed that price and maybe created all your assets, animations, sounds and so on, it doesn't matter, if you would have to pay a yearly fee for Switch export in top of that.

It would make sense, if you could switch the Switch from normal mode to DevMode like the Microsoft XBox, where you can test your UWP apps without paying extra or ask Microsoft for something else other than buying a normal XBox One by yourself. (like it was the idea of the OUYA back than)
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Xaby
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2018 16:17
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Maybe we can start with some of the Kenny-Assets, they are CC0.
https://www.kenney.nl/assets/furniture-kit





And there are some other nice assets around, too.
https://fertile-soil-productions.itch.io/modular-terrain-pack


And there is also Sprytile
https://chemikhazi.itch.io/sprytile
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2018 17:52
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I'd guess AppGameKit switch builds would be much smaller than Unity so that could appeal to a lot of folks. I know it used to be common people said they could make a near empty game build for mobile and it would be 20 MB or more (it might have been 30 MB or more). That's without any actual assets from what I understand. It might be better now but I think it was crazy high. Switch is probably the same.
My Projects Most With Full Source...
[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
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Xaby
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2018 19:38
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Unity has some other problems, and maybe Unreal too. They market as "Designer"-tool, without the need of any programming skills. And that is the problem when you look into performance. A lot of the Unity or Unreal games are only running on High-End-PCs something like well, but it is mostly a mess. From the visuals it does often not look better than Wii game, so with lower specs in mind, and better memory handling, the games could run better, but ... artists don't want to make comprimises and the best would be, to use the million polygone models directly from ZBrush in the game, without retopology or normal-map-baking.

Fortnite is about 2 GByte on the Nintendo Switch. So it is possible, to get a game small and fast. Also a lot of the games from the XBox 360 era are not looking so bad and Wii games could be upscaled a little bit, and would look also fine.

The Switch has nearly the same "problems" like an OUYA. You could do a lot, but using to much of the shaders would make the system very slow. I guess, 2.5D games with low-poly 3D models could be a fun thing. Also I have "Toki", it is fine, too.
What I want to see is something like "Ori and the blind forest", but on the OUYA / Shield / Switch.

AGK could be able to handle it. But the Spriter / Spine libs are very old now and also a visual editor for placing objects would be great. I guess, we have to build a lot of the tools for ourself.

And we would also need some more "impressive" showcases. Maybe the "Switch export" could be something on our "wishlist" and we "donate" some money for that.
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Xaby
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2018 19:44
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And we could use first some assets / art from free sources. Also have maybe a mascot

https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/static6/sources



An AppGameKit community "Pepper & Carrot"-game.

Or more than one game. Jump'n'Run / Platformer, 3D third person magical RPG, a Bejeweled Clone with spells ...
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Xaby
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2018 19:50
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But with our own free assets, that could include Spriter animations and a AppGameKit platformer example.
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Xaby
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Posted: 9th Dec 2018 12:22 Edited at: 9th Dec 2018 12:30
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Why is this "important"?

The PS classic has about 1 GB of RAM and USB-ports for sticks on the front. It is about as powerful as the Amazon FireTV 4K Stick, and could be about 2x to 5x the performance of an OUYA. ~ half or less of the ForgeTV. So I guess, about the MOJO, Tegra 4, but without DXT support.

SoC Mediatek 8167A Quad Core Cortex-A35 1.5 GHz / PowerVR GE8300
Audio chip: Mediatek MT6392A
Motherboard Sony LM-11 (1-984-020-11)
RAM 1GB DDR3-1866 Samsung K4B4G1646E-BYMA
eMMC 5.1 16 GB KLMAG1JETD-B041
Dimensions: 149 x 33 x 105 mm / Weight: 170 grammi
Resolution: 720p e 480p via HDMI
Power: 5V 1A
Confezione: cavo HDMI, cavo USB microUSB, 2 controller USB

________________________________________________________________________

So now there are much more micro-consoles out and they only used for emulation at this moment. There are not really new games for that.



But if we look to the OUYA games, they show us, what is also possible on a micro-console.










Nimble Quest has now over 1 Mio. downloads on Google Play.


So without Switch Support, and Steam not doing well, we could try that, don't now, how to monetize, if needed, but maybe via Humble Bundle or the new Epic Games Store or via Steam with a DLC for SNES / NES / Playstation Mini Classic / Raspberry Pi / OUYA. That are gaming devices. The FireTV is more used for watching movies, not so much for games, I guess.
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Xaby
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 00:49 Edited at: 18th Dec 2018 01:15
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No shadows, bright colors, simple geometry, like the style.
Beware at watching, it is VR, so you could get sick, if watching to long



And another more simple, but fun looking game, we maybe could do as a community project somehow ...
"Barbie Explorer"
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 16:11
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What is the goal exactly? Are you talking about people doing some kind of community game project in general or showcasing game art or thinking of how to best make money from AppGameKit game development or focusing on building a game with "gee whiz" graphics to get more attention to AppGameKit or... ?
My Projects Most With Full Source...
[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
[Unity - Atlantic Crisis] [Unity - Treasures of Ali-Gar]
[AppGameKit BASIC Extended API] [Ultra LowRez Tower Defense]
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Xaby
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 21:34
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I am throwing some ideas around, but don't know, if somebody is interested in

@GarBenjamin
It is some kind of all things you mentioned. Sometimes it feels, like AppGameKit is dead, sometimes if we are only a very few. Sometimes it feels, like AppGameKit has to be better in graphics for competition with Unreal or Unity, or have more tools, to attract more people.
Sometimes it feels, like TheGameCreators have to many other projects at the same time and don't focus so much on AGK.

So the question for newcomers would be: Why AppGameKit instead of Godot? Why AppGameKit and not Unreal or Unity?
And the other question is, if graphics don't matter and also some tools missing, and it's not free, how could our games get tracking in the crowded market? Even if our games would be free, how would we get players to play our games?

I love AppGameKit, but I don't want to see it dying in two to three years, because of a shrinking user base. So AppGameKit has to attrackt somehow people. Yeah, it is kind of open source, but not free. So we could develop it by our own, if TheGameCreators don't do anything, but we choose AppGameKit, because of the easy programming language and we don't want to use C++ in the first place, I guess

We see GameGuru games, so lets say GameGuru is more competing with Unreal Engine. What makes that AppGameKit competing with?

What I like to see is:
- more complex games created with AGK
- more complex example games / themes
- easier support for Raspberry Pi (and maybe export to other SoCs / micro consoles)

Why? I guess, AppGameKit can be a great product and there are gamers out there, who wants to play new games, but at the moment, it feels, like we have all on our own intenvt the wheel for ourselfs over and over again, and can't concentrate on the games itself, because we figuring out the basics.

So what can we do out of that? We could focus on needed tools like a 3D editor, or a 2D editor with Spriter / Spine support. Or focusing on fixing some of the higher functions like Skeleton-Animations. Update them.
We could have a community game contest and use a bunch of free defined assets for more complex games, showing, that AppGameKit could provide complete games not only for some demo or some minutes of gameplay, but maybe with complex mechanics, complex AI, complex visuals, simple, but more advanced.

We have some shader demos, we have some mini-games, we have some snippets here and there, ... but we have in my mind only some commercialy games on steam made with AGK. We are missing free and easy to integrate assets, we are missing demos for FPS, 2D-platformer, 3rd person ...

I know, some of the things are there. What I am saying is, for new AppGameKit users it would take month, maybe years, to find out about these things, they are not on a single place, they are not so much on YouTube, and so on.

I am not talking "Red Dead Redemption 2" made with AppGameKit and selling millions ... I am more thinking about, and that could be the idea, that we create some games, and they are optimised for e.g. the Raspberry Pi. Why? Because there is Quake III Arena, and some 2D emulator games on it, but no new games with high quality.

There are millions of Raspberry Pis out there and we could create some beautiful games, not for Steam, not for the Epic Store, and maybe not for Nintendo Switch, but we could do it for the Raspberry Pi. And that could bring traction.

There are some Kickstarter projects out there for Raspberry Pi and microconsole hardware, but not for new software. A Nintendo Switch would cost about 300,- $ but you can't simply create games for that. A Raspberry Pi + some peripherals, maybe 60,- $ + TV and you could create games on your own and share them with friends.

So AppGameKit could have more impact than Unity, Unreal and so on, because it doesn't need a strong hardware to run on. But at this moment it is a little bit lacking the games in the showcase department and there is nothing, I know, out for the Raspberry Pi.

And yes, I am showing here some examples of games, that could be done with AppGameKit, without too much of fanzy graphics, but with beautiful graphics, games that could make fun and impress, if you considere the lower-spec hardware. Not so impressiv anymore, if you have a beefy computer with workstation graphic cards in it

So what do you think? Where is the future of AppGameKit?
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 21:48 Edited at: 18th Dec 2018 21:54
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All i see and imagine that AppGameKit is a one man band - programmer Paul.

Would this be too much for 1 person???

Please dont take offense - just been realistic

Unity and Unreal Engine and others will have hundreds of persons working on the same product....

Time to give up! - its quiet frustrating to keep this going
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 21:59 Edited at: 18th Dec 2018 22:00
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and they have provided the hard work code into GitHub recently - so we all should know how its all developed..No other company would dream of doing this....

Cuppa and have a moment to think time....
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 22:12 Edited at: 18th Dec 2018 22:18
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Ah I see now Xaby. Yeah I actually just posted in a thread CJB made about 2019 Wishlist kind of along the lines of what you are talking about.

I like AppGameKit a lot too but I can also understand why most people make simple and / or tiny games. It has a great core functionality and very nice api. It is very much like the apis we had back in the Amiga days using AMOS. We have basic 3D support (I think AMOS had a 3D extension). AMOS also had a tilemap extension called TOME. We do not have anything like that.

Anyway I see it like we basically have a very solid foundation but we need just a little more. Like tilemap support as I posted over in that Wishlist is one thing. It's because of what you said.... yes we can do all of this. Most of us here can do it have done it and are doing it. But these kind of basic fundamental things that were available even back in AMOS days it would be excellent to have them available built-in so we don't need to write all of this stuff and can focus more on making the game.

There is plenty to do in making a game period. It's like say someone wants to create a large top down rpg game. Instead of focusing on all of the work (a huge amount) in making such a game itself they also need to focus on all of the tile map fundamental stuff as well. Same for 2D Metroidvania games. One of the most popular best selling genres out there. We aren't seeing many (any?) being made here because there is so much work involved in just getting to the point of being able to even focus on the game itself.
My Projects Most With Full Source...
[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
[Unity - Atlantic Crisis] [Unity - Treasures of Ali-Gar]
[AppGameKit BASIC Extended API] [Ultra LowRez Tower Defense]
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 22:14
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Why do i bother speaking.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 22:38
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That being said though I do have a quite nice tilemap system built so making a nice metroidvania or rpg game I could mainly focus on just the game itself at this point. But to be accessible to more people yes this stuff should be built-in.

Puzzler I don't know what you are talking about or why you seem to be sad or something. When you say "why do I bother speaking". You must have some reason something you wanted to say or you wouldn't have posted I would guess.
My Projects Most With Full Source...
[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
[Unity - Atlantic Crisis] [Unity - Treasures of Ali-Gar]
[AppGameKit BASIC Extended API] [Ultra LowRez Tower Defense]
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puzzler2018
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 22:40 Edited at: 18th Dec 2018 22:43
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I said AppGameKit is a one man band that there is no time in the world for anyone 1 man to acheive so much in any product, This is a Future of AppGameKit and what like to see in it going forward.

There are loads of threads now on the similar thing. what we like to see in AppGameKit etc

I feel we could talk here for millions of years - it wont happen
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Xaby
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 23:30
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No, it is more like:

What can we do as a community or how do you as programmer with AppGameKit see it?

My take is, that AppGameKit could benefit from focusing on Raspberry Pi. So the question is more: What could the future be? This is not meant to be something: Oh, Ahh, ui, ... I think, I have to change my engine or language for my next project ...

It is more like: We have a great "Minecraft-clone" project from you. We could make something out of that. We have now car physics, we could build that into something. The next step of community projects, but maybe a little bit bigger together. Not a one man show anymore.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 18th Dec 2018 23:47
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AppGameKit is very fun to develop with. I truly do think so.

Yeah I think the same thing Xaby. When I talk about things I'd like to see included in the product natively that isn't bashing the product. Any product has things missing and the only way they ever get added is by the users saying they would like them to be added. Doesn't always happen in some engines. Like Unity users have waited many years for the new terrain and new input systems for example. Most have gave up. The difference is they have the Asset Store and other users have created basically plug-in asset scripts offering solutions for these and many more. But they have like 4 million users so even though it is a tiny % of people actually doing that kind of thing there are still plenty of options.

Anyway... yes we could do the same things here. And I agree Xaby I think probably you are very right what needs to happen is some kind of coordination and cooperation between all of us users. Like I remember looking around here to see what people used for tile maps when I first started using AppGameKit and it seems like I found numerous projects along these lines from custom map editors various people built duplicating each others work to some degree to Tiled importers. But it seems like a person does a project like this then it just fades away over time. Maybe there needs to be a new section added to the site like User Projects / Tools or something. Not forum threads but an actual section with a prominent top link up there leading to that section. Then if someone for some reason wants to work on such a thing they can get the source and update it as needed adding whatever new feature they are needing. Something like that.

Because like Puzzler and others have done a lot of work but eventually all of these things will fade away. Might be a year or 2 years the work will still be very relevant and helpful but simple forum threads are going to be buried at some point and people will start all over from ground zero again. A different person setting out to do Minecraft for example.

It's something to think about I guess. Or maybe everyone should just release their stuff on the store here. I don't know if things can be added for free? But if so that would be a way to do it. I know there is a code repository thing and I have added some of my stuff there and others have too. But I honestly forget about it even existing because I see no link to it here anyplace. It might be good to just add a link to that code stash right up there on that top forum menu line before Forum Home or after Login/Logout.
My Projects Most With Full Source...
[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
[Unity - Atlantic Crisis] [Unity - Treasures of Ali-Gar]
[AppGameKit BASIC Extended API] [Ultra LowRez Tower Defense]
[My YouTube Videos] [Twitter]
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GaborD
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Posted: 19th Dec 2018 01:52 Edited at: 19th Dec 2018 01:53
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AGK's big strength is that it's simple and flexible. It provides the strong backbone to build upon.
Will it give you high end rendering out of the box? Nope. But if you want to go in that direction, it gives you everything you need to add it yourself without having to delve deep into openGL or even bother with C++.
Will it be a clickety clack game maker for your specific type of preferred game out of the box? Nope. But it gives you all you need to add that functionality and tailor it to your project's needs.

Pushing the core engine too far in these specific directions just weakens it in my opinion. Not to mention every user will want it to be pushed in a different direction.
As puzzler2018 pointed out, the team's time is very scarce compared to the big guys who can throw a ton of devs at things. Trying to do what those guys do would just lead to a jack of all trades, master of none result. Too many roads to travel down.

But, if you enjoy the challenge of adding your needed higher level functionality onto AGK's strong core yourself, you are handsomely rewarded by getting a result that outperforms the bigger engines.
Because you don't have the "we tried to please everyone" bloat. This is a huge (and underrated) strength of smaller engines like AGK.

Keeping the backbone simple and flexible means the users can jump in and focus on higher level systems for their preferred style of games (while still having the advantage of the easy to use language to do it) and if the result is good maybe release it either for free or on the store as addon systems for similarly minded users.
Which brings me to: The store should be more prominent. How many people really frequent it or even know about it? The potential is certainly there, it just needs to be more of a focus. That will get more users interested in putting stuff up there. This is one thing Unity actually did right and it boosted their engine a lot in return.

Added random screens of AppGameKit realtime shrooms. Because images of 3D shrooms win every discussion.

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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Dec 2018 03:05 Edited at: 19th Dec 2018 16:02
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LOL awesome mushrooms GaborD.

Yeah I was thinking about that a bit ago. I am kind of two minds on this topic.

One way I enjoy just building everything myself I like the control that gives us. And I was thinking a lot of people who enjoy AppGameKit are probably of this mindset. They enjoy getting into the projects deeper on the technical side. They like spending time down in the trenches so to speak (without needing to go super low level). There is a lot of flexibility & freedom when developing this way even though it isn't the most efficient way.

On the other hand (or my other mind so to speak) I think of it from Xaby's perspective of increasing the size of the community which will likely always be capped tiny because most people just want to make games not get into all of the lower level side of having to write all of the middle layer code themselves. And I also think of it from a productivity perspective and this mind falls more into this camp because ultimately I just want to get things done not build up simple systems just so I can then build games with and on top of them. This mindset is more about productivity getting things done in the most efficient way.

So I kind of wrestle with this back & forth. Some of us want the community to grow because ultimately that should be better for everyone TGC and the users because they will have more money coming in and the more people who are using it and completing games and getting those games out there the more the users are marketing the product.

That's how Unity and others do it. You don't see ads anywhere that Unity puts out for the product. They don't need to because every game made with the free version has the Unity splash screen at startup and users have created thousands probably tens or even hundreds of thousands of videos and webpages and even websites focused on Unity. Game jams have a huge number of submissions made in Unity. The users do all of the marketing for the company. But the only reason that happened is because people could jump in and easily get results that were previously very complicated and time consuming.

On the other hand it is enjoyable to get down into the details and design systems and implement them ourselves. Especially when we are used to working that way. I don't think anyone (well maybe someone does) wants AppGameKit to be anything like Unity. There is such a huge difference between AppGameKit and Unity I think the idea is more just to simply add some more core features that are just fundamental things. I can't see it ever becoming some GUI-based dev system nor would I want it to.

Would I like to see it come with a 3D world builder and a great api to load that data in? Sure I think that would only be beneficial. If a person doesn't want to use it then they don't use it. Same for support of Tiled which is probably by far the most common 2D map editor. Again if someone just enjoys reinventing the wheel so much they want to create their own map editor and system they can do that. People who just want to skip that and get to the game work could use Tiled and the built-in tile map features. And what this does it make it so people are able to produce games in less time. And that means there should be more AppGameKit game jam entries which ends up marketing the product. It means instead of someone spending 3 years on a game they might be able to finish it in 2 years (depending on how much additional functionality is added of course) or else make the game a year's worth better. And that also ends up as marketing because it results in bigger better quality games.

I don't care I guess really. I am kind of in the middle between the two sides but I don't have any problem with additional features being added to the core product. Certainly no issue with them adding fundamental type of stuff that is common for a huge number of 2D games or 3D games. I think that is just an expectation most people would have today. It's probably only us diehard old school types that were used to developing everything ourselves in Assembly on C64s and so forth that really get into the Roll Your Own mindset for everything. lol
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[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
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Xaby
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Posted: 19th Dec 2018 17:52
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What I wanted to say is,

we are maybe only a few devs, and there for our projects can't be as big as from some big company. But that is fine.

At this moment I am creating some tools, maybe it will be one big tool, for objects, animations, level-building and so on. Made in AGK. And in the first place I am making them for my own projects I have in mind. For prototyping.
But I guess, it could be a tool-set or maybe game with some elements of an level-editor in that for low-specs platforms.

And I saw this, but don't know, if AppGameKit could someday export to that. I guess, the RS-97 is not ARM based, but some kind of MIPS.


Also I understand, that AppGameKit is for people who are very fine with it and how it is. And I am. Maybe I wanted to know, if this community feels the same, that AppGameKit could have here and there some more tools, not changing the CORE, but having some more advanced stuff, to work with, for people, who don't want to code every thing for themselfs,
Maybe a BASIC of the BASIC

Not-Clicky-Clack completly, but more like a first Cliky-Clack and then code from this prototype. Like an GUI-builder / form designer.

And if is interest, if I am the only person, who things, we could publish games for the Raspberry Pi in a more "advanced" way. Like having a little Raspberry Pi store, like Steam for Windows. This is not about the CORE of AppGameKit, it is more about the community future. Maybe the title is missleading, but such topic is not an easy task.
At this stage, I thought, we could share some ideas, and possibilites.

Maybe there are projects out there, that do the same or focus on the same, but I don't know. I know, we have the "Showcase" section in the board and also the tools section. Maybe we have all the things, everybody needs and we are all fine.

Than would be my question:

Are you interested in a bundle of AppGameKit games running on the Raspberry Pi / OUYA and would it be a smart move, to plan a promotion around that or would it be the dumbest thing you could ever imagine?
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Xaby
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Posted: 19th Dec 2018 18:15
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But why Raspberry Pi or some other Low-End device?

Because they are affordable. A mini-Laptop is about 250,- $ and more. The Nintendo Switch ~ 300,- $

So what would be a good device for schools? Maybe they allready have a Raspberry Pi and HDMI displays, or the budget per student is about under 100,- $

So with AppGameKit, we could not only make games, but also Apps, educational things and so on. Why not a Smartphone with Android under 100,- $?

The Playstore and other apps are complecated, it is not easy to administrate them. And maybe you can't lock them up, if you need to. There are cameras and microphones in there, what may provide conflicts with the rights of pupils. Mostly the Google Playstore and Steam are for children over 13.
Also a mobile phone can break very easily.

The Nintendo DS / 2DS / 3DS and so on, is robust, but to develop for them, you would need to have an Nintendo developer account and also a DS-DevKit. But these microconsoles are cheap, and for tiny apps good. And the market is not crowded.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 19th Dec 2018 18:28 Edited at: 19th Dec 2018 18:38
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It sounds like you aren't so much thinking of making AppGameKit more accessible and growing the community but are looking at how to best carve out a niche by adding build support for certain hardware.

It doesn't really matter what you are targeting there will be competition. If there isn't in the beginning there soon will be. All it takes is one "player" for your niche product to make YT video that is seen by the right person or for them to mention to friends etc that happen to know one of the millions of Indies and if money is to be made people will pour in. Just how it is.

There were some few people making new games for old hardware such as C64, DOS, Spectrum, etc years ago. As the size of those gaming communities continued to grow and games started selling sometimes up to a couple thousand copies.... more and more people are now making games for those old machines. Reason being making a game that sells even 50 copies at $8 is better than making a game for mobile and making 47 cents.

Where there is money to be made there will be people and lots of them. That's why the whole indie thing is often referred to as The Gold Rush. There are so many people who never even had an interest in making a game before heck there are many who don't even play Indie games or games period who are making games all in hope of making money.
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[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
[Unity - Atlantic Crisis] [Unity - Treasures of Ali-Gar]
[AppGameKit BASIC Extended API] [Ultra LowRez Tower Defense]
[My YouTube Videos] [Twitter]
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Xaby
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Posted: 20th Dec 2018 01:37
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I guess, we are not using AppGameKit because of the money

Maybe all we need is allready there I am thinking of an more open project, with free of charge assets and without licencing trouble.



And maybe it could be also run on a not so beefy hardware And these "animations" then could be used in AppGameKit or so.
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GarBenjamin
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Posted: 20th Dec 2018 05:23
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I guess I just am not sure what it is you are after. You need to create the project and post it then we will all see! LOL
My Projects Most With Full Source...
[Attack of the Crows] [Christmas Command 2016]
[Simple Sprite Shaders Example] [Old School Style 3D FPS]
[Playable 2D Shmup Template] [2D Single Screen Platformer]
[FixSpriteToSprite System & Demo]
[Mutant Invaders 3D Shmup]
[Unity - Atlantic Crisis] [Unity - Treasures of Ali-Gar]
[AppGameKit BASIC Extended API] [Ultra LowRez Tower Defense]
[My YouTube Videos] [Twitter]
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