part12studios's Forum Posts

  • — the main ones i've been using lately are:

    IAP

    Google Analytics

    Admob

    Share

    Screen Orientation (portrait or landscape depending)

    Those are the ones I use fairly often.

    I've started using the Unity3D ads one so far and it's going ok but I've only tested it on iOS and I think Android might be having some issues.

    be sure you downgrade your project from 5.1.1 or whatever it is now.. down to 4.1.2

    what error do you get? what are you using to build the app? what platform are you targeting first?

  • STARTECHSTUDIOS I couldn't agree more. I am not saying do away with plugins and it could still be somewhat of a "wild west" for non-standard / basic plugins that I think we could easily agree on. The big ones I would love to see made official and actively tested / supported:

    • IAP (Ashley's team is working on update this)
    • Banner/Interstitial service (they say admob works, but i've never seen it work, i use cranberry's with good luck, but another popular one that also is working well last i heard with cranberry is chartboost for better paying interstitials)
    • Rewarded Videos (which service chosen could be survey'd also, I'm currently using cranberry's unityad service with success)
    • Analytics (I'm using google analytics with basic success with cranberry's plugin, but it has been spotty about supporting specific named events vs "layout", I am open to other services)

    There are of course tons of other services out there that could still be added like Parse (I use frosty elk's, and it worked well at the time) which may not officially be supported, but still possible.

    I think 3rd party services will improve as I've said before if we can get them into the official construct store much like the unity asset store. allowing them to be accessed and control their pricnig

    I know there has been concern about pricing being viewed as unfair, but I can't agree with that. If C3 costs $200.. and someone makes a plugin that costs $100.. or hell $500.. so be it.. if Scirra doesn't feel like a vital need is being met at a reasonable value then they can include their own.. or someone else may see someone is gouging the community and realize they could do the same work for less money.. great..

    we can't expect developers who have taken the time to 1. be good developers and 2. figure out how to get a plugin to work with C2 to sell their plugins for $3 a pop and be able to adequately support their product / service.

    Cranberry is a great example..

    1. he has limited visibility, especially for no users.

    2. then people have to know what they are looking for.

    3. find his website.. use free plugins or pay to have access to all of

    4. have a paypal account to make the transaction.. all of this results in lost customers the harder it is to be found.. but it continues..

    5. THEN once he has these customers who spent as much as like $35 whole dollars..

    6. they have to figure out how to use them..

    7. likely have problems because all of this is clearly outside the realm of C2 development...

    8. bug Sang Ki who's likey only got a handful of people paying for his service.. and expecting him to drop everything to fix their problems.. that could take hours of time which pretty much makes the $35 barely worth it..

    9. and more issues in the future with these customers (I'm one of the guys who's needed his help on more than one occasion)..

    10. hear people complain about him not responding quickly to problems for the $5 an hour he's probably making for all this hard work.

    This is all pretty hastily drafted but i think you get the idea.. 3rd party developers need to have easy access to all Construct developers.. they also need to give a % of those sales to Construct.. just like Unity3D does it.. there are developers who make a living making plugins for Unity3D.. there is no reason this couldn't be the same with C3..

    Everyone wins.

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  • I agree with Big Infinity. The $500 is optional and for most personal projects it's a non issue. My concern with that is for client work where someone hires me to make a game for them. Then things change some. Also I still in spite of fans of Cocoon IO, I haven't seen it work yet for me personally so I'm using XDK which has no splash screen.

    Fengist $129 is still fair and remember it's a one time purchase. however you're right it isn't a good thing for new developers, but let me also back up and say that if you're serious about wanting to do apps and you're not a programmer this is still the best option. Also I can tell you that app publishing for Xcode and other game engines have their own aggrivations and publishing to apple is a pain in the ass no matter what for a new person because it's confusing and counter-intuitive. period.

    As a seasoned C2 developer, I brought up this thread to help expose a the area that needs work still. However if you think that app development on other platforms is easier / better.. even if their publishing pipeline is more refined you have a whole other challenge of learning how to code / learn their game engine / become efficient at creating games.

    C2 gets your idea up and running faster.. and web and even pc/steam is an option and those paths to publication are way smoother.. additionally even if this were easy..

    I never got the sense that C2 is promising wealth for everyone. If you want to look for real sharks / schemes.. check out build box.. they chage $2600 for their drag/drop game engine.. much less powerful than C2.. or a 12 month $99 a month subscription... GameSalad is the same with a $300 a year subscription for pro users and their engine (like buildbox) is sandboxed without plugin support.

    C2 is not perfect.. but you'll be hard pressed to find a better easy to use engine!

    However in spite of that I'm always going to advocate improvements that can be made.. not everything is possible and not everything will happen, but if we unify in our message as the users / fans of this product, Ashley will hear us and Scirra can respond.. if we say nothing then nothing changes.

    This thread isn't meant to scare off people but if it does they were not cut out for app development because app development is not easy.. it is not intuitive. it's work.. but for most of us, it's enjoyable hard work.. but the publishing stuff does feel unstable at times and that's what this thread is for. I want to know if maybe I'm just an unlucky guy with some plugins / processes.. and look some errors have been my own thinking it was a plugin or tool issue.. but this is because there really are a lot of little steps you have to be diligent about.. and anything that could smooth this process out would be a welcome change / improvement.

    I don't expect C2 to implement my dream of an integrated publishing solution with cordova.. but what I'm looking at is C3 and how it might be possible while they are building it to consider ways to create a smooth publishing pipeline.

  • yea you should make a new project.. do a fresh export of your game.. be sure you have the iOS specific ID's for the admob.. I use cranberry's plugin even though I hear the C2 one works. downgrade the project immediately after importing your new XDK project. if you are not using the cranberry one you should try it.

    I got an email from Ashley sharing that they are actively working on testing / updating the IAP plugin to insure it's working as it should which is great news.

    Just so you know though, using Cranberry I got this game live for iOS. I'm doing Android next, hoping it goes just as smooth: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/selex/i ... ?ls=1&mt=8

    I used:

    cranberry - google analtyics

    cranberry - IAP

    cranberry - admob

  • yes it really is a problem and THE only true shortcoming of C2 and potentially C3 if something isn't done about either. I wish I could say it's not.. that's it's worth it, but it really is a problem that needs to be addressed or any new user needs to be prepared for the reality of things.

    Do I believe that it will get better? I do. Can it get better? Definitely, but I just think that the nature of this issue needs to be conveyed to Ashley and Scirra that it's not just some small noisy % of the community, but that this is the reality

    I've pushed through the challenges myself and several other developers I know have as well, but even those of use who have years of experience using it face weird quirks and upsets still and for us we have thicker skin because we've seen it CAN work, but as for someone who's new and not sure what to expect, I feel sorry for their experiences because the things we've learned just came from trial / error / forums / networking.

    The community here is amazing and the product is as well, it's just this is a major part of the process and it needs to be simplified and officially supported / tested / updated.

  • ah ok interesting. sorry didn't know what those were. that sounds cool. cranberry did one push notification service but i don't remember.. oh yea pushwoosh.. cool good to have more options!

  • — what plugin(s) are you developing? what kind of plugins are you comfortable developing? I'm sure we have some ideas but knowing what you specialize in or enjoy doing could help us know what we could ask for.

  • I agree it's bad that C2 doesn't have IAP support out of the box*. There is no sugar coating that.. Really most of the gripes probably would be resolved by just having C2 expand it's core plugins that should be considered part of the service. At the very least. Our other suggestions would introduce more work one way or another.

    If you asked the average developer what services a modern mobile game would need and it would be:

    • ads
    • interstitials
    • IAP
    • rewarded video

    IAP and Rewarded Video are the main ones that are entirely absent. I use the cranberry Admob just because I know it works, but I hear the native one does as well with mobile/cordova, I'm just not messing with a working plugin for now.

    I do see what you mean about C3 internal plugins being a possibility. Could be interesting.

    *Update. I'm told by Ashley that it does support IAP but I will tell you every attempt I've ever made to get it to work has failed. I use cranberry's IAP because I've been able to make an IAP work with it fully without weird error messages that don't seem to happen when I use the cranberry plugin. So in my mind I don't feel C2 works out of the box with C2 because it's never worked for me. I just tried since it had been awhile and I still don't find it working like it should.

  • it's an interesting idea for internally stuff, but i don't see it being practical or easy to implement for external source files. I also don't really see what would be useful in a modular sense that wouldn't require some revision.

    What are you eager to reuse? high score system? controls? with a little knowhow you can reuse code from other projects without much trouble. I've done it before and it worked fine.

    If someone is that interested in DIY they should just learn javascript and use the Construct SDK Ashley has already made.

  • newt someone else will have to explain then i guess. no one is getting C2 to learn how to use it to access javascript code.. people who want to do that are javascript developers, not most construct 2 users. what you're really suggesting is some kind of macro / prefab system.. not plugins. plugins are really for accessing libraries.. it really is. be it vibrate.. or social sharing... or tweens.. or any number of other plugins out there.. they allow custom or pre-made / open source html5 code become something C2 users can call on and bring into their game.

  • newt there is no way you're going to be able to make plugins that interface 3rd party Javascript through events/actions without having to get into the code and do some actual scripting. There is an Javascript SDK that lets javascript coders create C2 plugins to access the various files needed to integrate another API.

    I don't see that as a selling point. People want to make games, not API/SDK plugins. What does matter is that a solutions can be found. My business partner is a seasoned javascript developer and in matter of a few hours had a working C2 plugin. Tim over at Ouya managed the same thing having never used C2 to any extent before diving into it. It's not difficult.

    Our plan is to create a plugin for the store if/when it's integrated. I'm not sure which one we'll do but C3 will be ripe for good easy access solutions. We'll likely use it ourselves for our next game and then sell our solution(s) to the community to help them with their games.

  • C3 (as I read it) is basically C2 updated.. it's not some radical departure from how C2 works. We have been told that Capx files will open in C3.. there may be some things that change (consider how webstorage was compared to localstorage plugin, a significant change, but necessary move)

    As for plugins yep.. you can't in Unity3D either. If I ask $500 for a plugin.. or $5.. it's up to the C3 user to choose if it's worth it. a star rating system will help. Plugin developers will ask themselves if it's worth their time to make a plugin for $3.. and have to sell 300 to make what I deem worthwhile for me time... because I had to spend a week figuring out all the challenges of a given service / conversion. Are there 300 C2/3 users who will even want my plugin? I don't know.. however, I'd love to make $10000 for my plugin too so i can spend more time answering users with problems (if there are any) knowing good reviews and happy customers will drive more sales..

    C2 gives you the ability to make your own plugins.. C3 will likely be no different. It's basically .js files with some editing done to expose certain parameters to the editor to act on the plugin's code. Also earlier I said plugins are easy.. this is a bit oversimplified.. some are very easy.. others can be very involved.

    C3 is not going to allow non coders to "make plugins".. that's the whole point of a plugin is to connect C2 (non coding) users to bodies of javascript that call on larger solutions like revenue generation that don't care if you're using C2 or Unity or Unreal.. they are just a service.

    you gotta yourself as a game developer.. would you rather pay a little more and know you're giving a developer enough value to care to support you or would you rather pay $3 for a plugin and wait weeks to hear back from them? I'd rather see developers get paid for their time... and be there for me if I need them so I can spend less time pulling my hair out because something is wrong and no one will reply. If someone charges a premium for a plugin then skips town.. nothing can stop that from happening but ratings will suffer and people will warn each other..

    However I get the feeling from the interactions I've had with the C2 community that it's a good group of people and I believe that the players we've seen making fine plugins so far are going to be continuing to do their good work. Frosty Elk's Parse plugin was great and I did get email support from them when we had issues with it AND our testing found a bug which helped them improve the plugin for everyone. I paid $9 i think for that and it was a great value, but I feel they could charge more and have the time / incentive to do more with it / help people.

    I've never heard any developers say how much they have made off any plugins, but I imagine the money they made was modest. how many people really are using parse with C2? We want too so we bought the plugin. I haven't tried Cranberry Parse yet, but I have it because I paid I think $35 to have full access to all of the plugins which is insane value, however that value becomes less when you realize the developer (understandably) doesn't have time to support every issue because there isn't enough money coming in to justify the time it takes to support every issue that comes along.

  • ah ok i never saw this (or noticed) but yea I can understand the concern about price steepness but let's be honest right. the market can dictate this. if the mobile market told us anything it was a race to the bottom. many of these plugins are not actually that difficult to make really IF you have the knowhow. So if 2-3 people make IAP plugins.. with a user star system and prices / sales I don't think that's a problem

    Also you might consider with your fears of price gouging to support officially the most critical things developers need (like IAP). I don't think you need to add many, in fact I'd even say IAP is the only one you should consider making official. I'd love to see more, but I know your time is limited.

    I mean look at Q3D.. it's "open market" and it's like $35.. if people don't want to pay, then the devs won't make money.. if someone sees a price that's too high.. and sees the audience looking for a cheaper solution.. they can take it upon themselves to offer a better priced alternative.. and if the alternative is better / or worse.. a star system would allow them to be kept honest and help the community reward the best plugins

    i'll tell you right now I'd gladly pay $100 for a professional plugin that works! What sucks is paying $10 for one that sometimes works.. or would work if i knew some little trick.. but because the dev isn't full time on the product doesn't get back to me for a week or two.. not their fault really.. not enough money in it to be that available..

    new arrivals should just be concerned about making games.. if they enjoy the game enough and spend months making some marvelous product they should realize that a $100 (or whatever amount) for saving the many hours / skill sets it would take to figure out some free / cheap alternative AND knowing that the dev is there to offer support for their product it's fine.

    It would cost me much more to hire a single developer to go make a plugin for me.. say $50 an hour.. 2 hours to make a plugin for construct 2? probably an engine they don't know already.. could cost twice that.. maybe more.. and new developers who see a feature they want.. and really understand the value should be ok paying the price.. I know some new users might be students or kids without a lot of money, but they need to realize this is the real world.. developers need to eat.. Unity has better prices (and sometimes much more) for theirs but they have a user base of millions of devs, but some of those plugin devs make their living on the asset store.. no reason C3 developers couldn't or shouldn't do the same..

    Ashley, C2 itself is a super bargain.. like i said.. many GameSalad users pay $300 a year for a pro license.. i had a license for about 2 years I think.. of pro.. $600.. and honestly i didn't mind because i was very productive then.. but i stopped because they are too sandboxish.. they had their own IPA / APK service too mind you.. which was nice.. but yea i'm glad i got away from that.. but it was a good learning experience and taught me things that i could bring to Construct 2.

  • Ashley maybe you could help me know if C3 is going to have plugins be something that can be bought in the app in a way similar to the C2 store? I remember reading some of he initial goals of C3 and that one isn't one I recall in the list. Something like the unity asset store. I'm thinking this is a must have thing and this too could help everyone be synced up to the latest plugins.. offer more visibility and competition for services. It also would allow developers to be able to better support and identify community needs and with the folks with the right skill sets.

    ethanpil I guess this is true though I was hoping it wouldn't be. Other services like GameSalad did it through a web interface. ArcadeEd made it sound like it might not be that bad (though devs would be required to download some stuff, but that should be reasonable) however that might have been oversimplifying things. This thread was mainly focused on the suggestion if it were reasonable to do. I understand it's not. My only follow up to that would be to at least have perhaps an order of platforms to try.. point everyone to start somewhere.. for example.. maybe all devs should start with XDK.. I need to do a Poll at some point and ask people what they are using to publish to mobile.

  • ethanpil "Next, since Cordova is basically an industry standard, I can do the final Cordova compile myself with the free tools on my system." exactly.. make it part of the publishing pipeline.. but in a way that is easy / well thought out for C3 users to not get caught up with the many options and various outcomes..

    Cordova is a standard, we're not asking Ashley to make something new.. we're just saying consider if it would be possible to export directly to Cordova. Rather than having us have to get into command line prompts and managing plugin stuff.. if C3 is smart enough to know what Cordova plugins are installed and developers are given standards to adhere too.. this would allow everyone to focus their energy on one agreed method.. I'm not saying cut off all the others. Guys like you who want options will still have them.. but for most of us we just want the core / well excepted services modern mobile games have to be supported by C3 itself. We shouldn't have to rely on 3rd party plugins to make money off our games. Currently we do and it's ok, but a lot of people are having trouble with it. It's not fun. It makes C2 itself feel less satisfying to invest a bunch of energy into making a game only to have those dreams dashed because something isn't working.

    It sounds like you've had no problems with publishing to iOS/Android using many different 3rd party services and that's great, but from the people who have spoken up you are in the minority. ArcadeEd has shared somr really great insight and has had some good results but he's also a javascript developer and has had the means to work through the bugs he has had to work through to get there, which shouldn't be expected of C3 developers.

    The reason we're using C3 and why we're spending money on this engine is to 1. make games without code and 2. publish those games to (safe to say most cases) make money from our games. When we are required to rely on 3rd party services for these revenue generating options (even IAP?!) this can be problematic.

    Also while I'm glad you like having 5 different options to publish too.. this is not good for most because basically it creates a wild west of hits and misses from everyone.. XDK has been the best overall experience for me, but it's not always.. and I've heard complaints about all the other options too so I don't think any one solution has proven to be the best route. This only hurts C3.. "good luck out there kid.." is basically what it ends up being.. and people who want to use C3 for professional goals should know that C3 IS the solution for publishing their games.

    Maybe I'm wrong. If ethanpil's story is like many other's I'd love to hear all these people who are having smooth sailing creating mobile games that use services like

    I know one developer Volkan who I have had a bunch of conversations about this and he's managed (after a lot of hard work and frustration) to get it working but this may not be the case next time he goes to do an update because of so much change..

    he's done an amazing job of getting pretty much everything working.. and then you have say me for example trying to do the same thing and getting radically different bugs.. so is it possible? basically if you're lucky.. even for him he's spent way more time just getting the services to work than should be needed.. and that was just android.. then iOS becomes a whole other uncertainty..

    it's just mess that could use a better solution than "look at all these possibilities.."