Spine 2D Integration
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@Murtaza Could add a notification to hyperPad when in online mode and not up to date? While I don't think we really need very frequent small updates, might be nice to find a bit of a middle ground. I'm also actually kind of surprised to hear that some people don't update frequently. My iPad usually updates apps by itself (pretty sure that's a default setting).
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@Aidan-Oxley yes it is a default setting for apps to update automatically in the background. I did further research and there a bunch of companies who also update their apps every 2 days. But these were companies with products that require constant changes. For hyperPad I think a monthly update sounds reasonable. Will be perfect for hotfixes. Because right now I’m in a standstill with development and currently just working on artwork because I don’t want to design the next level without the screen wrap bug fix.
If I could be honest and I don’t mean to sound rude in any way I promise. This is just how I feel. But it gets frustrating because I’m on the go with developing my game. I literally spend 8 hours a day on trying to learn new things and purchasing some expensive software to help my game get better by any means. Especially now with this quarantine. I’m really not messing around when trying to build a successful game. I believe I have the talent and a huge social media following to help me push this game out. But the lack of features that’s hyperPad has is what’s really hurting me and looking into other game engines like unreal engine. The only problem I find myself having with other game engines is that hyperPad really did do something special by having the ability to test out your game directly on your targeted device. With other game engines it’s a hassle to do this simple feature. But I really need a game engine that has the ability to make the game itself look good. Such as lighting, Or even color correction. I wouldn’t even mind if hyperPad released a new 2.0 version and sold it for like $100 but has all these features. I would buy it in a heartbeat. Because I know @Murtaza said they didn’t want to go the packed with features route. But honestly it’s a game engine designed to cater to people’s imaginations I think a game engine packed with features is exactly what people need. Just look at all these other game engines hyperPad is competing with. They are all packed with features. Everyone is a different artist and I believe we need a huge selection of tools to bring out the best in our artistry. I mean look at the Hub, again I’m not trying to be mean just stating facts. A lot of the games look like they were made by little kids. Now it’s not a wrong thing for an app to cater for kids. But reading hyperPad pitch on the App Store it seems they are trying to cater to the artist looking to build the next hit. And if you want to cater to the artist who has the capabilities to make the next hit. I think hyperPad should go the route where it delivers the tools artist needs to do just that.
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@SplitMindGaming I understand how you feel tho. It really was like that when I began programming on hyperPad. There wasn't really much things I really know in the past tho, like hyperPad was really vast with so many behaviors I didn't know what they were doing. I learned that they were great tools tho, I usually use most of them now but I still don't really understand much behavior ( as an example, the Loop behavior is really confusing. But I learnt that it's kind of a Behavior that can execute a program for many objects at once if I'm correct. ). hyperPad behaviors can be really tricky tho, but with imaginations, and creativity, I'm sure you can make a ton and a ton of good looking things on hyperPad. That's sort of my vision for now, I'm really being sort of really enjoying what I already have x) But I also agree with you, there should be more great tools for hyperPad. Or even more "automated" if I can say? For example if you want to make parallax on hyperPad, you gotta calculate that and program everything. But if I remembered well, parallax would be a feature in the future. I even think it is for a few next updates if I'm not wrong. I'm so glad that hyperPad is still going on tho after all these years, I'm really happy. I'm wishing for the better in the future!
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@Aidan-Oxley said in Spine 2D Integration:
@Murtaza Could add a notification to hyperPad when in online mode and not up to date? While I don't think we really need very frequent small updates, might be nice to find a bit of a middle ground. I'm also actually kind of surprised to hear that some people don't update frequently. My iPad usually updates apps by itself (pretty sure that's a default setting).
We send a push notification and emails telling users to update. It doesn't help.
Would you believe we still have users trying to use the old GamePress app from 6 years ago? People don't update apps. It's the biggest problem developers face.While yes, Apples auto update function does help a little. The problem is, it's not the default on older iOS versions... And again, users don't update their iOS either 🤣.
Yes, there are some apps that update every few days. But more often than not these are fake updates to game the App Store ranking system. The App store ranking algorithm counts each download as double during the first 24 hours of an app release of update.
Regarding hyperPad and its features... Well, we highly disagree. We went down that rabbit hole of adding features. But what ends up happening is no body uses them. There are so many hyperPad features that users do not use (THAT THEY ASKED FOR!!!). So instead we changed focus, instead we're expanding hyperPad possibilities by adding lower level support functionality so you guys have more power.
THEN we will move on to adding features. This seems to be working out much better.Yes, there are lots of nice to have features. But not all of them are required. For example Bones animation, awesome to have but definitely not needed to make a great game. In fact most 2D games don't even do animations this way.
Yes the overall goal is to simplify things. So features like a parallax feature are definitely a step in that direction. But we start off by giving users the power to create that system first.
Also, something like parallax relies on some other functionality we need in place first. It's a bit of a chick or the egg problem. -
One more thing I'd like to add.. Theres a reason why we're the only tool like this on iPad (full WYSWYG editor, with the powerful functionality to back it up).
Because its reallllllly hard to do on an iPad, especially while staying on Apples good side with their rules and restrictions.
Unfortunately we can't move as fast on iPad as you could developing for a completely open platform on desktop computers.
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@Murtaza sorry but I disagree. The reason why you may think a lot of people don’t “use” those things you are talking about is because it was the wrong targeted audience to begin with. The proof of this again is within the apps developed by hyperPad. Other then apps created from Hakan which is the closest to commercial developed apps. A lot of the apps created by hyperPad which is showcased on the hub looks like the targeted audience is from kids. So unless this was intended to be a child learning code app then I can see your direction on why you want to keep it simplified. But again to the point of how you guys are advertising this app. You quoted on the App Store “ Your Imagination is the Limit”. Well that’s really not the case. The truth is the limit is what hyperPad decides what to do. Ive also noticed that there’s whole lot of pride coming from your guys end that is blinding your team from the fact this app you created is for the public and creators such as myself to use to create art. But your treating it like it’s a game app and everything we say just goes out the other ear. So obviously and I’m not talking about just myself here, because it seems like a lot of users are scared to really voice their opinions toward you guys. So I will speak on behalf of those people who truly love your software and only want to see great things come out of it such as myself. But I am noticing a trend from other posts that request future things and that it gets shut down quickly from you guys from what I call excuses. So what if you think adding those future request a lot of people won’t use it? That’s good, that just means all the wrong people will not use those things and the app can finally attract all the right people who will start using those things. But again I already know what’s going to happen. Your going to reply back again with some sort of another excuse of why it will not work. Take some risks and either give us the tools that more talented people are willing to invest time in to learn or just change the app to “HyperPad a kids learning device” and there’s nothing wrong with that direction as well.
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I'm going based off analytics and usage data that we have access to. What you see in the forum and hub is not the true usage of hyperPad.
That being said, you are right about a few things regarding the targeting. We've been trying various things over the years and seeing the different audiences who are interested. The truth of the matter is aspiring devs, kids, and education is our main usage. People like your self and Hakan are much less.
This isn't because our tool is bad (not to say it's perfect), but because a lot of the "pro" type users automatically dismiss the iPad as a development device. However this is changing!
One thing you're mistaken on is where we are focusing our time. We're focusing a lot on the behaviour system. We're expanding the power here, making it possible to create anything.
The simplifying part comes next.
We're not ignoring your requests, or any ones request. It's just we have to prioritize our time based on whats going to be used, whats going to grow the app, and what is possible with the current infrastructure.Eg. We can't just add bones animation with out first implementing a hierarchy system.
I'm sorry if you see it as shutting down requests, while it seems like that in the short term, long term we definitely have a huge list of things we want to do (based on all the user feedback and suggestions). Obviously we'd love to add everything to hyperPad. But that's just not realistic. Things take time, and we have to decide where to spend that time.. We can't just spend that time based on one or 2 (awesome) users requests, we have to look at the data that we have access to and make justified decisions.
We also are in the middle of a major update cycle thats already finalized, so that may be way it looks like we're shutting features down.
I think it's a bit of a miss-communication. Its not so much "No, we don't want to add that"
It's more "Awesome idea, it's already on the list. We just need to finish the billion other things first!" -
@Murtaza i can respect that. Well said.
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@SplitMindGaming What I love so much on hyperPad is that we can still stay in touch with the hyperPad developpers. Since I began using hyperPad, I've never felt left or anything. I can't wait for these future features tho, I'm so hyped. I think the next features are gonna be Mask, Lights and Parallax? I don't know but I think it is Mask and Lights ( I wonder how it'll look ). And for the next update, Hamed told us on the Community Discord that there will be a new feature in the next update coming ( if I'm correct ). I hope it'll come soon :3
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@XxWhiteHearrxX yeah I honestly want to get excited too but I like to keep realistic expectations. HyperPad looks like it hit the App Store 6 years ago. Although it came a long way performance wise. I’m not too confident features like lighting will come any time soon. Would love for them to prove me wrong tho.
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@SplitMindGaming said in Spine 2D Integration:
@XxWhiteHearrxX yeah I honestly want to get excited too but I like to keep realistic expectations. HyperPad looks like it hit the App Store 6 years ago. Although it came a long way performance wise. I’m not too confident features like lighting will come any time soon. Would love for them to prove me wrong tho.
Honestly, I get it. I'm with you. There is some stuff I've wanted added for a lonnnnnng time. Especially lighting. I have been an advocate of lighting for about 2 years now. But @Hamed just won't give it!
Know what the worst part is? It was implement in a beta about 3 years ago, just never released. Since then we've had major UI changes so now we need to update that to get it to work again. It's frustrating, because we spent a lot of money developing that functionality.I need to update our roadmap. But I'll give you a quick rundown of where we are at right now.
We're currently working on 2 updates.
First update is the bug fix update and some minor features. It was supposed to be out by now, but the COVID-19 situation has delayed some things (switching to working from home, and also some of our clients having emergencies that we need to handle). There is about 2 weeks of development time needed for this.Second update The revamped hub and community. This is loonnng overdue. It has about 1-2 months of development time needed.
Once these two updates are released, we can return to our regular roadmap. This has prallaxing, lighting, and layer masking stated for the following major release.
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What would be better than packing hyperPad full of unnecessary but convenient behaviours would be a way for us to share behaviour blocks with each other so that these convenient behaviours are made and shared by the community. I'm sure I have so many blocks of logic in my projects that I would love to be able to duplicate to use in my other projects and share with others. I'm also sure I've said this same thing many times when people ask for more uneccessary (but convenient) features in hyperPad 😛.
Something cool about hyperPad (probably partially due to small community) is the fact that we can even talk to the developers and get responses. I don't use any other game or app where I can say the same.
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That’s definitely the direction we want to head with behaviours.
The new hub is actually laying the ground work for how we’re going to handle the sharing/distribution. This is another example of how certain features rely on others to be finished first.
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@Aidan-Oxley The ability to talk to the developers is the exact reason why I’m having a hard trying to scout for another visual scripting game engine. Here’s the thing that people do not understand. To me, HyperPad is the best game engine that there is out there for one specific reason alone. It’s the only real game engine which you can build a game straight from a tablet. As apple pushes more advancements with their iPad to be more laptop like especially with the magic keyboard. The future is looking like it will come a day where laptops are a thing of the past. And HyperPad is setting the trend for this. But here’s a scenario on why hyperPad should really put a strict timeframe to capitalize on this situation. Because if another bigger company such as unreal engine or unity decide to put out their own app version of a game engine. HyperPad can be in some real trouble if their app is still at its current state right now. Here’s my dilemma. I don’t know where I should invest my time in. Because my game at this point as far as development wise is at a stand still due to hyperPad limitation and what I truly want to add to my game to give it the more polished look. Should I leave hyperPad to really learn unity in which I already bought the plugin called playmaker to make unity a visual scripting engine. Get everything I really want to be put in my game plus more. Or do I wait for hyperPad in which I’m really gambling with time for them to implement features that are dedicated to making the game not only feel nice. But most importantly look nice. The problem with this method is that if I really invest my time with another game engine chances are I will not return back to hyperPad. Because by then I would have mastered everything that engine would have to offer and people only really use what they know how to use. But the problem with that route is that now I have to sit in front of a computer in which I am not trying to do. So I’m stressed out. I love hyperPad because it really is the future. But I don’t know if I can simply just build my game with another engine. Then decide later to come back. I don’t know.
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@SplitMindGaming Buy a cheap used laptop from Kijiji and install Unity/Game Maker/Unreal and go nuts. I was doing game dev on a netbook in 2013.
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@Stanica I have a MacBook Pro I just wish it was touch screen. I actually did mess around with each of those softwares. Unreal engine is really nice how it has blueprints. It’s just that game engine is more geared toward 3D. Their 2d platform has actually not been supported for a few years now. It’s why I had to ditch that route. Unity however has a real nice 2d option that has all the lights, parallax feature and access to the countless asset store and plugins you can integrate from within. It even has a built in rig editor which is basically spine 2d inside their software to create animations. Game maker I messed with for about a week. It’s cool if it’s also visual scripting but the fact it uses its own language called GML doesn’t play nice when it’s time to learn another software like unreal engine. The best option for 2D is unity but then again testing it on iOS requires unity remote and your device to be hard wired to your pc just to test it out. HyperPad really is the best software out there when it comes to building a straight forward 2D game.
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@SplitMindGaming You can also jailbreak your iPad and use Phaser/PixiJS for on-device JavaScript game dev :D
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@Stanica hmm ive never heard of that. I will look into it
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@SplitMindGaming What is actually limiting your game? So far I haven't been stopped much by limits other than lag. 3D doesn't exist in hyperPad? Fine I'll make it myself, etc.
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@Aidan-Oxley right now its the screen wrap bug. Alot of elements in my game has to be placed in various exact locations that fit well across multiple screens. Its why i use relative position. Also the overall look of my first level needs lighting for sure as i had plans for dark rooms and only the light from his jetpack to shine the way. Also i had plans to use depth of field objects that parallax with each level. I also wanted to have color grading so the final look can have a haunting feel to it and is consistent with each level of the game. Without these things it would just look bland. Though alot of games actually look like this. I need my game to impose a certain feel the moment someone plays it. The game i showed the developers is only like 10 percent done and alot of the images are actually place holders for whats to come. I compose all my music and also draw and edit all my animations. The main focus im going for is the storyline. Then great visuals and music to compliment the story line. My only weakness is development. Thats why alot of graphic designers such as myself tend to lean toward visual scripting this way we can focus more on the gameplay itself.
