part12studios's Forum Posts

  • llfstudios so you stick to using strictly what CIO supports.. how has it been? did you implement everything? IAP? Ads? etc? I certainly like the idea of a single plugin to do all that.. any problems with locking orientation? that's something that other devs (and myself) have experienced at times. Rewarded video, has anyone found a service that works with Cocoon IO? This is a pretty hot option for developers right now and is hard to ignore / leave out of a modern F2P game.

    — yea it's rough. i haven't worked out google play or game center at this time. That would be great. To me it's not just figuring something out the first time. the really challenging part to me is that it seems like things coming in and out of working. Having a tutorial that's current would be super welcome!

    BasicTribe while I don't think Ashley's totally misleading, it's just something I think could be given more attention too. Publishing to Android for example with XDK is pretty painless these days. However IF you want to make money with it.. that's where things break down and that's the part that needs work IMHO. It's not just getting a game on a phone, it's all the vital things needed to make a game that can generate revenue. I feel your frustration though and I hope that a conversation like this could help us expose an important need in the community. I would still like to see more people reply though with their experiences.

    I'm a huge fan (like all of us here) of C2 and I am looking forward to C3 (finally running on mac without emulation or bootcamp!) but I just feel like there needs to be more attention / support for the publishing option. I don't know if Scirra will ever endorse Cocoon anything again since they had a pretty rough relationship it seemed with the cocoon.js stuff.. IO takes advantage of Cordova as I understand and it has other benefits as well. I'd be willing to go that route, I just think there needs to be some established standards coming from Scirra officially so we can all focus on the same platform and support each other knowing that C2 offers some guarantee that x y and z plugins work and specific tutorials for those plugins with the specified platform C2 officially supports.

    Again I'm not saying that this declaration means other export options are deemed useless.. some developers may want to keep using whatever they like and if they have javascript experience may be able to make things work for them that average C2 developers are unable to do. I'm one of the non-programming fans so I looking for a stable solution.

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  • llfstudios thanks for sharing. are you using any particular plugins to monetize?

    I'd love to know what people are using with cordova. I'm using the cranberry plugins which are still a great value but because he's priced the plugins so well that he's not making enough money to support it.

    people bitch about about $35 or whatever he's asking for to have access to all AND FUTURE plugins he makes or made before he took a break to do other paying work.

    Unfortunately I really feel like Scirra needs a dedicated developer to provide official plugins for various VITAL plugins like IAP.. video rewarded ads.. they have some like i think i heard from Volkman that the admob plugin works but really there is no way to know that IAP wouldn't work which it doesn't from my testing.. cranberry's is the one that works.

    there are all kinds of strangeness and it's not always Sang Ki's (cranberry developer) fault.. i had a crazy crashing issue on iOS that turned to either be me agreeing to some ToS on Apple OR an update to XDK.. what sucks is that I really won't know what fixed it.. but ultimately it wasn't the plugin's fault.. so you know but it goes back to the fragmented market we have after C2.. there needs to be a standard. is everyone else in the C2 community having zero problems and are they intuitively knowing how to make apps they can fully monetize?

  • metalmuscles it can be for sure. what plugins / services are you trying to publish with and what platform(s) are you needing to reach?

  • I hope more can share their experience (good or bad) please keep them coming because if it's really only 3 people who are having a tough time then Ashley doesn't have much to be concerned about. I wouldn't do anything about it if this is all the response we get.

    TonyW use the crangberry IAP plugin.. the one form C2 doesn't work from my testing for iOS / Android. Cranberry one does. it's still tricky but if you follow his provided example you should be able to get it to work. I am using XDK. I can't vouch for phonegap.. i dabbled with it but handling plugins seemed a little more mysterious than XDK though nowadays i think XDK's has become more mysterious because you have to import a new project to get all the plugins registered right.. this is a pain in the ass if you want to add new plugins to an existing XDK project.. it's unpredictable and maybe unnessesary but i've gotten into the habbit of blowing out projects on XDK and making new ones IF i change plugins.

    metalmuscles you published 1 to Android with any monetization options or as a free/paid up front app? I admit it seems like android is slightly easier to get working since apk testing is faster than iOS/itunes etc.. but the reality in my experience even to this day (market shares mean nothing to the bottom line in my experience) is iOS make more money.. "more money" doesn't mean lots of money just more.. than the android counterpart. So my focus is iOS first and pretty much only since it's such a hassle to support both.. ooo i made $10 instead of $6 because I supported android. heh. I'll skip the platform until I make a noticeable amount of money. Others might have more success than I have on the app stores in general, but I haven't found my angry birds game yet.

    grigrizljac cool about your success. yes crosswalk is too big. I hear that Cocoon IO makes a smaller APK, but I got errors when I did the tutorial so I never got that far to do a real comparison.. I've had good luck overall with XDK.. some issues with certificates, but that's more of an apple thing that I had to work through and now pretty much have it down.. until i don't again.. heh. Where does it say PhoneGap is their preferred method? I also had some good personal support from folks over at the Intel XDK team, but I can't say that they are ready to support an entire community of developers with issues like mine.. at the time the support guy was a dev here in Boston so there was that human element there but he got relocated and another guy started helping. He did right by me but i think i've used up my coupons over there at this point.. heh.

    Also are you talking about the adobe phonegap service or the standalone free phonegap? the free one seemed a bit intimidating. I never saw a tutorial for how that one works. Or was C2 in favor of the Adobe one which I had some success with but found the plugin stuff got weird once i needed to start using those. Also you are not doing any monetization which is VERY helpful in making a smooth publishing path.. it's been things like IAP.. rewarded videos.. and other services that got weird at times.

    Yes HTML5 is very simple and as long as you use web-friendly plugins (not cordova) then you can do a lot with web. At this point I'm still considering doing web only from now on for games. While the market is arguably just as flooded at least more time is spent making games and less time fighting mobile publishing / monetization.

  • Hi everyone,

    I have been inputing ideas on another recent thread over here about suggesting that C2 (or C3) consider bringing the publishing process to iOS and Android (at least) into the C2 engine.

    In short I've found games to be easy to make with C2 (which is why I love it so much) but publishing to iOS and Android via Cordova (and needed 3rd party plugins) to be very unstable and unreliable. Yes I have published successfully with it.. plugins and the methods of publishing and C2 itself are constantly updating..

    The other thread had some great input from folks but it this is a chance to open up the broader question to as many C2 users out there who see this to weigh in..

    How easy / successful have you been at publishing C2 games to iOS / Android with C2?

    What flavor of Cordova are you using? (XDK, PhoneGap, Adobe PhoneGap, Cocoon IO, something else?)

    how has it been using plugins to monetize your game like rewarded video? banners? IAP? etc.

    Even if you see this and publish to Web or other platforms speak up because I'd love to know what the statistics are of developers using C2.. perhaps 80% of you out there are targeting Web.. or PC.. or something else?

    Thanks,

    Caleb

  • $500 per splash is a lot, but its a flat fee so I can appreciate that, but i'm not paying $500 per game for something that doesn't work. I'm excited to see any updated tutorials that work well.

    but i think this is the crux of the issue. HTML5 is moving so fast.. and mobile is too.. services like C2 are too far removed from the target platform to be relied upon.. even xcode and android studio developers deal with compatibility with OS's and such though not as bad..

    There might also be two classes of C2 users.. ones who know javascript / coding which could be considered advanced .. and then standard users which don't know how to code or don't want too with C2.. each could offer different options.. imagine a setting in C2 that would hide certain features that standard users should avoid.. and advanced users know going into it.. results may vary..

    but for standard users some level of support would be expected.. but this also isn't just to put more work on Ashley.. it's about allowing the community to unify under one solution and really pound on that when things go wrong.. more people will be using the same software and be in the same situation. there needs to be some standardization in the C2 community.. I don't care what and I think everyone would agree.. we just need it to work reliably.

  • yea what Ed said about Unity.

    I say it's expensive because a client is not going to want you to make a game for them that says "made with unity" they are going to want it branded with their own splash logo.. and if you want a game for iOS and Android (pretty standard request these days) you're looking at $4500 to own a pro license or at least a 12 month commitment at $225 a month.. to lease the pro license.. so yea unity is not cheap for professionals.. it's fine for indies doing their own thing and don't mind some branding.. and you really can't expect a client to be billed an extra $4500 for software.. unless you've found a very very nice client.. heh

    Now to C2.. yes this is the issue.. and honestly there is a problem that goes into software development in general.. tutorials for example.. are snapshots in time.. they tell you how to do something at THAT time.. but because everything is changing.. XDK.. phonegap.. CJS (now I/O).. C2.. tutorials themselves have to be somewhat living things.. and this can be a lot of work..

    That said any engine has the same problem.. try googling tutorials or whatever on youtube for unity tutorials.. some go waaaay back to versions of unity where the interface is considerably different and methods change.. I don't expect C2 to solve this problem..

    but what they can do is "pick a plot line!" to quote Fear from the movie "Inside Out". There are no certainties in life (like C2 ultimately abandoning CocoonJS for good reasons) but if C2 could declare the "official" publishing path(s) for various platforms then developers could team up and focus their energy to help each other work through things.. but right now we have a 3 way split.. XDK (my choice so far), Cocoon IO and PhoneGap.. and I guess Adobe PhoneGap Services (whatever it's called) so actually 4 routes..

    This means that now when you ask for help with your platform a good number of people won't even be able to help other than "use what i'm using..." which is tiring after you've already put energy into one that pretty much does the exact same thing.. just at that moment unsuccessfully but will likely work again at some undetermined point.. heh.

    I'm willing to go with whatever platform works best. I just feel like C2 needs to take ownership of this issue and offer its community a real solution. For now I'm going to stick with XDK as long as I can till perhaps Ed's tutorials are in place because i followed the other one and it failed with a bunch of plugin errors which pretty much was enough for me.. seeing plugin drama was the last thing I needed to see for a first impression of Cocoon IO. However i hear it's APK's are smaller than crosswalk so I'm very interested in that.

  • — yea i'd like to look at cocoon.io again. i tried the tutorial and got errors.. so i didn't pursue it further.. we just need a solid official pipeline.. and yes. for perhaps some edge cases / advanced users.. it may be a "at your own risk" but most of us just need to know our games will reach iOS successfully with the most popular ways of current monetization..

    I would love to revisit c.io with some tutorials.. but maybe it's time scirra also price better.. they have a fantastic product.. and frankly i'd pay more for it.. maybe they need to make the business license actually have more features like a guaranteed pipeline..

    The business license would feel like we're really getting something not just paying extra once we make x amount of dollars with it because guess what? I can't make money from clients with this software without it supporting basic things in a consistent / reliable state.. THIS is what a business license should be and if I could be promised publishing would "just work" I'd easily pay $500 for this software.. it's still a fraction of Unity3D.. it's a hell of a lot easier than blueprints for Unreal4.. it doesn't require C++/lua like Cocoas2Dx.. it's not a pyramid scheme like build box is... it doesn't require any scripting like game maker does.. it doesn't sandbox you like Gamesalad does nor a subscription fee..

    The only thing i don't like about c.io is the money you have to pay to remove the splash.. i mean I don't mind paying them to support the product but paying per game would get expensive.. but if it really works and doesn't break a plugin / game every other week i'd be happy to support it..

    It's just that there is this gaping hole in C2. I think Professional license needs to be re-evaluated in what it really means..

  • that's exactly it! Sang Ki has had to take a break from plugins to do other game work because i'm sure it's paying much better.. so guess what? no broken plugins (if they are broken) are being updated and

    this is a serious problem and Scirra needs to take it serious because while it's only a few of us vocalizing this issue.. we need more people to speak up.

    Right now we're trying to get unity ads to work with the cranberry plugin and while it was working for iOS8 we believe that iOS9 it's now broken. I'm waiting to hear from Vulkan if this is in fact the case.

    I have the utmost respect for Sang Ki and his efforts, but he's one guy and like you said he is (and really is at this moment) a single point of failure.

    You reflect my feeling exactly.. C2 is a brilliant and powerful solution game development, but it doesn't help if we can't rely on it

    Sang Ki's work shows the great potential of what can be done through plugins.. but C2's limited plugins out of the box are not enough.. clients (and developers) need to be at the front of the curve as much as possible.. ads are going out of style.. rewarded videos are hot right now.. it's what people want.. i don't even care if we only have one solution so long as it works

    I just came out of plugin / xdk / c2 hell with IAP crashing on one of my games.. and only that game.. i had the latest Cranberry Plugin.. i was on iOS9.. this went on for almost 3 weeks.. Sang Ki wouldn't respond.. and everything was updating.. iOS9... XDK... Construct2.. Sang Ki's plugin was from september so that was steady throughout..

    anywho.. i try once more after updating things.. and great it's working again.. i'm willing to give up bleeding edge updates.. give me a stable version of Construct 2 with proven solutions.. now do i REALLY know what the problem was? no f'n way.. everything updated.. and sure.. maybe even some human error was in there.. but jesus.. it shouldn't be like that..

    I wish Scirra would hire Sang Ki to be a full time plugin guy. I know they are a small company but someone like Sang Ki would be a big help in managing just plugins.

    I admit I know it's not easy to keep up with all the changes.. but if we stick with stable builds that include native C2 supported plugins.. i'd be ok with that.

    As much as i love the regular updates from C2.. i'd be willing to suspend that for reliable publishing / plugins.. because i'm at a point where I may stop accepting client work or pursue any more mobile games with C2 and advise others to do the same until this problem is resolved.

    I'll advise for people to just use C2 for web games.. this is where it's real strength is.. and will be until the issue is resolved.

  • Exactly. There just needs to be some absolute path for officially publishing each supported platform.. i do understand it puts some burden on Scirra, but if they can help us spend more time building games and less time caught in publishing hell, the happier their devs would be and that results in more sales..

    C2 is a very good value.. and I would be willing to pay more if only they could help make the publishing process easier..

    Definitely one of the worst parts of cordova / plugins for me (beyond the general build troubles that crop up) is that you really can't test without building for a device! This is a terribly slow and cumbersome process.. previewing over a browser is a godsend, but that goes away very quickly when you have to push over and over again to test one small change or debug a failing to work plugin..

    However if they could help us come up with some kind of effective simulator that could honest to god show things like admob working without having to build / push to a device, productivity would again go that much further.. but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this, but it seems like there must be..

    Even if they just focused on iOS / Android.. i know that supporting every single platform to this extent would be too much but at least help us with the most popular ones that would get the most use. I can't say I'm aware of what the statistics are but I'm going to say it's safe to say that most people are targeting mobile and of that iOS/Android are the largest mobile focus so let's go with that.

  • Yea basically as far as I can tell, performance on iOS is about the same with both, but where CJS shines is on android where XDK relies on Crosswalk which ads 19mb to any game and CJS's output is much leaner..

    The CJS stuff (not CJS IO) was too quirky before which is why Scirra moved away from it.. too difficult to support it's unique system.. CJS IO seems like a better option, but it's still got some weird steps to go through to make things work and when I tried it failed and really didn't feel like investing more time into it when the tutorial didn't work, plus they charge for services / features (like debranding) and XDK is 100% free.

  • yes exactly. updating some files is a small price to pay (even that could be automated i would imagine, similar to how C2 extracted the WebNode stuff out of C2 installer to save on download bandwidth.

    also just because cordova updates doesn't mean C2 would have to update every time. if we have a stable cordova version, updating that could be methodical. sure maybe some hard core users would need an update, but i think the vast majority of us just need a standard solution that works and is part of the C2 experience, not leaving that environment into a wild west of options and problems.

    I love C2, but it really has been a drag and a lot of wasted energy battling various build errors and inconsistencies taking a lot of time from making games to just getting games to build / run well.

  • Hi everyone,

    As we all know.. with iOS8 it really made Cordova a great option for C2 developers and in general I agree with this, but what I'm finding is that its also difficult to have multiple technologies all needing to work with each other at any given time and not knowing if this update or that update will break everything.. for example:

    I have construct 2.. which gets frequent (welcome) updates which I like to keep up with..

    then I use various Cranberry Cordova plugins which are great.. but these plugins in general, especially when hot/new tech also get regular upates.. and once you do this, you open yourself up to having trouble going back to C2 for help.. but since C2 lacks many essential plugins to make apps that can generate revenue / get discovered in many different ways.. we don't have much of a choice but to use them..

    Then we have options like phonegap, xdk and now cocoon.io.. each of these systems are also in development and getting updated. I've tried to stick with xdk simply because it seemed the most straight forward, but not everyone is using it so now you have fragmented publishing platforms with their own potential quirks / bugs, etc..

    All of this can result in one day being very productive making apps.. testing them.. etc etc.. to being dead in the water until the break can be found which is not easy.. especially since we have to (in my experience) actually make builds for many features to work (like ads, for example) because they don't work when testing in a browser..

    So that said.. I think it would be really smart if C2 could (or maybe a thing for C3?) to actually incorporate Cordova.. since it's open source as I understand it, there shouldn't be anything stopping it from working. basically there should be some standard in which Scirra establishes as THE best way to get your games to iOS / Android.. They did a great job with using webnode where basically C2 generates the various exe's.. what would it take to make an official / supported / working pipeline for (an assumption on my part) C2's biggest target platform (maybe it's not?) which I would imagine is iOS/Android.

    I realize making another "XDK" is a big undertaking but because the Cordova would be specifically tailored to C2 users / needs.. so much UI would be stripped out going straight from C2 to the Cordova wrapper. This would also help plugin developers who have to potentially deal with their own customers using multiple services and addressing those quirks and inquiries. Having one option (or at least a default one for advanced users who NEED something else) that most of us get behind would create a better widely supported system to work with..

    even when we get stuck at least we're all using the same approach, so it makes community help possible while in my work it feels that once i get out to XDK I'm kinda getting away from other users who may choose a different path for publishing..

    Thanks,

    Caleb

  • Hi everyone,

    I've been working with XDK for awhile and generally I like it. It offers a nice "app" interface that helps keep things straightforward, but it also is a platform in development while Construct 2 is also in constant development..

    As it stands I was first having trouble with the latest update working with Cranberry plugins. This I learned (thanks to the good support at XDK) that the projects default to 5.x Cordova.. so rolling a project back to 4.1.2 fixes this, but then i run into a general IPA issue that I can't figure out.

    My certificates should be solid, they worked with the same project in XDK not even a week ago and nothing has changed. Just wondering if anyone knows a solution to this as I have several games being held up from being published at this point which is pretty frustrating.

    Thanks!

    Caleb

  • ok cool yea I just bought the ADV product, thanks for that tip / lead. I'm going to look into this. doing a full screen capture is no problem. I can design around that.

    Thanks,

    Caleb