Designing and creating a semi-complex game (even simple ones) take time to do well, regardless of the framework used. No game developer in his right mind would start completely from scratch: numerous game engines and frameworks abound, some merely taking care of basic screen/sprite/3d rendering, others offering full game frameworks APIs.
Creating your game in “pure” javascript still depends on the browser framework.
As for “Learning a programming language IS something everyone can do it”:
Sure, anyone can learn anything depending on talent, intellect, time and effort spent - in the end persistence trumps talent. But many people prefer to focus on other creative aspects instead, such as pure game design architecture, graphics creation, or music/sound - or other things yet - and prefer not to dive too deep into programming.
For those creatives game creation software like Construct, Game Salad, Gamedevelop, Gamemaker, and others offer a way to build games without the overhead of being forced to spend a few years on coding only. And to some coding comes easier than others. I teach web development classes, and I have seen some students struggle with even html and css - in spite of them spending many hours trying on understanding AND being able to come up with their own creative solutions. Especially the last part can be very problematic.
BTolputt is dead right when he states that learning the commands and syntax of a programming language and actually being able to do something productive are like two different worlds.
Anyone can learn to paint and draw like a master - given enough time, practice, and guidance. But I am not about to judge against anyone not willing to focus on this for years when their heart is just not in it. Nor should anyone who knows how to code in a computer language belittle those people who are not interested in coding, but who would rather invest in becoming a great game designer, or an excellent game art creative.
(Coincidentally, that does not mean ALL visual development software is equal. Adobe Muse, for example, outputs some horrifically abysmal web code, and should be burned at the stake. Macaw, on the other hand, writes quite elegant standardized code. )
It’s a nice software but when I try to deploy into an android platform using the Intel XDK I get a compilation error (no much more info than that) and doesn’t allow me to create the apk for android. It’s very messy having to use the Intel XDK to deploy to other platforms. Intexl XDK sucks hehehe.
Sorry I am not going to reply to other people who replied to me, but since everyone of you say the same thing I think its time to clarify some things.
First lets start from the basis “The way people teach programming is awful” . Another poster mentioned here Learn Whatever 21hours . Thats a huge series covering a range of Programming languages and other topics and… its a piece of crap. I think I got two of them one for C++ and another of Visual Basic.
The reason this way of teaching is bad is because its linear and highly theoretical . This is a very hard to learn things, people learn easier through practice. It would be much easier to start a user for making a game and show them how to make a game character repeat actions and then talk about loops than actually give them the whole deal what loops really are and people get out of the class or chapter with a “why I should even care” idea.
You think that learning the syntax is diffirent from using the syntax in practice because you have been taught coding the wrong way. Its not diffirent , the one thing, the division is in your heads. The theory of coding afterall its come from practice. Languages like coders did not fall out of trees they are a continuous evolution of practical problems so in the end everything you and learn is 100% practical.
The reason why people don’t get taught the right way is two fold a) because its too much effort for the tutor b) because it takes more time. The practical teaching is against the idea of doing a chapter and forgeting about it, its about going back , again and again and again and using the same concepts to solve different problems.
Practically there is no other added complexity from the language. For example if you want to load a sprite lets say in such game design app you will open a tool for sprites go in its menus and find a “load srpite” or “add sprite” whatever and then find the file with a typical file browsers dialog.
In a programming language using an easy enough game library would be a simple
you may think that doing 3-4 clicks with a mouse is actually faster , its not because most modern IDEs have auto completion so you don even need to type as much.
So fundamentally the only thing that is different is the approach. The effort is the same.
On the subject of syntax, again same thing you will be using logical things anyway like examining conditions , doing loops, creating actions etc etc. If you think you can use the app without reading its documentation think again cause logic can get complex fast, so you basically you will be doing exactly the same thing as you will be doing with the language, studying / reading basic logic.
a condintion in a language is actually
if a > 3 then:
in case of python you don’t even need “then”
On the subject of Hmtl , CSS , XML and Javascript those 4 examples is how ugly it can get when you don’t want to use an existing well established programming language. All of them are languages one of the is a programming language (or as wrongly said a scripting language) they have been full of problems since their inception and still battling with their limitations and ugly design. So if anyone has a hard time learning them is not a surprise , its the norm.
There is an illusion here that in some way you can bypass the effort of learning a programming language to do the same stuff automagically with a designing app. The truth however is quite the contrary, languages are nothing more than expression of human logic , logic plays a huge role in the creation of any software whether you use a programming language or not , because its logic that make the software respond to user input and this is why you make software anyway. Because is you did not want user interaction then you would be better making animation.
So to anyone thing this way is easier, faster or with smaller learning curve I would say “wake up , its not”. Nothing more to add, I hope now I am clear.
Also the idea that no coder in his right mind starts his own game engine or whatever is very wrong. Go visit https://github.com/ . Why people do this ? its simple because existing solutions do not fit their needs and yes it can happen almost always even nowdays that we are spoiled with super uber powerful game engines and thousands of game engines out there. As a matter of fact pretty much most game engine out there started from one coder or a small group of coders that got frustrated with existing solution.
There is a lot of illusions that people have about coding, its hard , its complex, you need to be intelligent, smart, a geek etc etc. I am perfectly ok with people not wanting to code, I am behind them 100% , do not code, EVER. Do not learn a programming language , EVER. Life is not all about coding, coding is only a tiny part of it. But at least dont lie to yourselves that is any different from learning anything else in life, its not, its just another thing.
And most certainly do not lie to yourself that programming does not allow you to directly jump in to doing the thing you love, making games and that you have to spend months even years before doing that. Its nothing more than a lie.
Anyone tried building this thing from source? If so is it a pain? I’m thinking about fiddling with it over the weekend, but the one in the AUR for Arch Linux doesn’t work.
The one at AUR for arch linux is using the deb file for ubuntu and converting it. The script is outdated.
I made an updated version of the script and posted it as a comment.
aur/game-develop-deb
Edit your PKGBUILD file and replace the lines with this:
# Contributer: [email protected]
pkgname=game-develop-deb
name=game-develop
provides=('game-develop')
pkgver=3.4.73
pkgrel=2
pkgdesc="a free game creation software, allowing to make games for the web ( HTML5 ) or for Windows and Linux.
No programming or coding skill is required!
It is easy to use and powerful enough for advanced users."
arch=('x86_64')
url="http://compilgames.net/"
license=('GPLv3' 'LGPLv3' 'zlib' 'libpng')
depends=()
#install="$name.install"
#makedepends=('')
#if [ "${CARCH}" = 'x86_64' ]; then
ARCH='amd64'
md5sums=('SKIP')
#elif [ "${CARCH}" = 'i686' ]; then
#ARCH='i386'
#md5sums=('MD5SUM_HERE')
#fi
source=("http://compilgames.net/dl/${name}_${pkgver}_${ARCH}.deb")
package() {
cd ${srcdir}
#ar -x ${srcdir}/src/dfm_${pkgver}_${ARCH}.deb
tar -Jxf ${srcdir}/data.tar.xz
cp -r ${srcdir}/usr/ ${pkgdir}
cp -r ${srcdir}/opt/ ${pkgdir}
}
you also need to install a new dependency after you install gamedevelop. But i forgot the name of the dependency. Please share what you get in terminal after running it and I will tell you what to get and update the script to get it too.
As for building from source, nobody has made a PKGBUILD for that yet. However florian rival made a build script that should be at the git server. Also there are instructions on building it from source here: http://4ian.github.io/GD-Documentation/GDCore%20Documentation/
and
if you have any issues building from git, get in touch with florian at the forum. File a bug report if need be. He usually responds on the same day
I have several years experience in Construct2. and know all to well that these HTML5 wrapper based engines (XDK, PhoneGap, NodeWebkit) are way too flaky to rely on for commercial work. Construct2 is very nice and easy to use and was obviously the inspiration for Game Develop, but I wouldn’t ever use it again unless my intended output is purely HTML5.
CocoonJS is also another option to try if you want to wrap your HTML5 game for mobile use. It usually has much better performance than XDK since it doesn’t use a browser for its engine and instead converts to its proprietary engine. Alas, it also has its fair share of issues. Among those issues is the fact that it is also a web-based service , so you need to upload to your account and wait for it to email the apk back. You get very reliant upon using these services, which is a big issue if you are creating a commercial game , as it does the apk signing for you. What happens if you need to update your game in 6 months time and they have gone bust , leaving you without access to the original keystore?
I am hoping that GameDevelop will develop a native apk exporter that doesn’t rely on any wrapper tech like XDK. The main thing it has going for it over Construct2 is that it does native desktop export. If this could be extended to Android export and get many of its workflow issues resolved to be on par with C2 then many users would flock to it. Open source engines Godot and ZgameEditor both have native apk export , so maybe some of its source could be re-used? Good to see that GameDevelop does now have a second developer who is doing some useful work with tilemaps. The more the merrier…
Please dont forget that unlike construct2, gamedevelop can also export native executables to both Windows and Linux (the platform that it is running on)!
Then I guess it’s a good thing the Blender text editor has a handy little feature that converts spaces to tabs where possible (along with the indent feature)
and if you ever experience problems with python whitespaces is time to throw your IDE to the bin or get one. A good IDE would even correct problems with whitespaces in existing source files , automagically.
On the subject where a block of code begins and end, this can also visualise a good IDE.
Guess meeting two will make your week then. I prefer explicit begin/end tokens as well. I like well formatted code as much as the next guy, but I also like being able to edit code without having to do it in a editor that’ll play around with my tabs & spaces.
well if we really have to argue against classic programming vs visual programming I have to say yes- they both have advantages and disadvantages.
This does not mean that one of the two is obsolete or lesser in terms of usability.
As It was stated earlier, there are a lot of very successful indie and commercial games being made with a visual programming tool like gamedevelop.
In classic programming you start with an empty sheet of nothing. If you dont know the syntax or how to use it, you cant do anything. There is a giant wall between you and what you wish to achieve in terms of game design. This wall of lack in experience/patience to read through documinetation is always going to limit you. Some lesser programmers get lazy that way- not wanting to implement a simple feature because they dont want to learn how to. Or something they overlooked is consistently not allowing them to get it to work. I have seen programmers just do it their way- the way it is easier to implement rather than better in terms of design.
In visual programming it is more like putting together lego blocks. It is a box full of conditions and functions- presented clearly to you with what they do. The more flexible the engine, the more freedom you have to play with these blocks (as you do in gamedevelop), the more likely it is for you to build weak, inefficient and unoptimized constructions at the start. But once you start getting deeper into it, the more you learn about ways to reuse logic instead of copying and pasting it. The more you learn on how to put it together so it takes less time to compute. The biggest advantage is that you can start playing with it right away. You do not have that wall. You have a box full of lego blocks
And even better- experienced programmers who know abstract ideas of programming will most likely build better constructions than newbie ones. So knowing programming absolutely applies to visual programming as well. You can also get access to low level functions of Gamedevelop- it comes with a command line and a terminal, along with the debugger.
It’s open source nature also allows to really add anything that you are missing. It’s just too bad that it is using C++, which I hear is a difficult language to learn.
Re: c++, it’s really not that bad.
It’s difficult to master, but not as difficult to work in as people claim.
You can try to just look at the source and try to see if you can read the code for starters.
I tried this software out with my boys to get them interested in making a game… first impressions:
REALLY COOL. What you can do in a short amount of time is amazing and kind of fun. Has a lot of power as a 2d game creation sweet, kind of a 2d BGE so to speak.
Interface takes some getting used to. It has some drag and drop but knowing where it does and doesn’t is painful. Most buttons seem to do nothing, then you find out it is doing something on a screen that isn’t visible. Context sensitive menus would really help.
To become like a 2D BGE would mean being able to make your own sprites and level graphics inside of the program as well. You also won’t approach the same freedom of shapes and forms like seen when using the BGE for 2D work until they add the ability to create freeform (or vertex-based) surfaces that can have textures and collisions applied to them (think of combining the pixel-based nature of GameMaker with the vector-based nature of Flash).
I agree with NRK’s post. I haven’t gotten a chance to play with it as much as I like, but overall I like it so far. Out of the various 2D Game Engines I’ve tried on Linux (which isn’t very many), it seems to be the quickest to get a prototype up and running with.
It’s kind of unfortunate that it’s named “Game Develop” – it can be difficult to search for relevant info sometimes.
