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Post by ilan on Jul 21, 2016 11:35:44 GMT 1
i really like b4x and i think it is good enough to make some games but i more think that it is more build for apps then for games.
the main problem for me in b4x is that if you create a nice game (box2d+libgdx) for android you will have to write the same game from 0 if you want to port it to ios and you also dont have the same tools so it also wont be the same.
i think for games we need a cross coding platform and b4x is not cross dev platform.
i really want to make more games in the future and i loose interest in b4x. its to much work to do simple stuff. after making my Moped Climb game with box2d and libgdx i see how much work you need to spend to do simple stuff with other game making soft you can do it in few hours.
i recently found a really great tool that is also not to expensive and i really think i will purchase it. the great thing in this tool is that you create 1 project and export to any platform you want (android, ios, windows phones, ps3, ps4, xbox one, html, ...)
bottom line, b4x is good but less for complex games and more for simple apps (db, mysql, php,..)
what do you think?
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Post by wonder on Jul 21, 2016 17:02:36 GMT 1
I think that B4X could be a great solution and/or learning platform for game programmers, IF is was steered in that way. If you think about it, it's only thanks to Informatix and his libraries (LibGDX / Box2D) that we're able to create games at all. I really want to get into the PC/Console market where gamers actually spend REAL MONEY in platforms such as Steam or the Playstation Store. Unfortunately, none of this is possible with B4X, as we still lack an OpenGL lib for B4J. I love B4X, I really do! It's a lot of fun to work with, but more and more I'm thinking about diving into the Unreal Engine and C++. Take this screenshot, for example. If you really want to be taken seriously in the games industry, C++ is a must! It saddens me that my NLG (C++ to B4A) hasn't received that much of attention so far. Despite not being perfect, it's a really important tool! I've already proved that it is possible to build your entire game in C++ and have B4A doing nothing more than the rendering job (LibGDX). This kind of approach will hopefully allow my next project to be on both Steam (PC) and Google Play. Long story short, B4X can be the right choice in some instances, but until we have a unified multi-platform B4X IDE which can deploy to PC, Android and iOS at the same time, using a ready-made engine such as Unity or Unreal, will always be a more sensible and professional choice. Thanks for reading.
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Post by melonzgz on Jul 22, 2016 13:41:19 GMT 1
i really want to make more games in the future and i loose interest in b4x. its to much work to do simple stuff. after making my Moped Climb game with box2d and libgdx i see how much work you need to spend to do simple stuff with other game making soft you can do it in few hours. Well, that's true. Take a look at Unity and you can see how easy it's to make a game with it. You can even buy game templates and you can have a platform game ready in a few hours without even knowing programming, while in b4a you can spend days for the same result... Anyway, you can make generic classes and use them in your games to speed up the development process (camera handler, collision handler, UI management, coins, particles... ) In my catapult game I had to do everything from scratch, but now I've reused a lot of classes in my new game. Adding menus, buttons, level selection and such has been so fast now. The problem here is that we depend a lot on informatrix, and as he doesn't have interest on ios development, we don't have libGDX for ios...
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Post by ilan on Jul 22, 2016 14:47:44 GMT 1
i really want to make more games in the future and i loose interest in b4x. its to much work to do simple stuff. after making my Moped Climb game with box2d and libgdx i see how much work you need to spend to do simple stuff with other game making soft you can do it in few hours. Well, that's true. Take a look at Unity and you can see how easy it's to make a game with it. You can even buy game templates and you can have a platform game ready in a few hours without even knowing programming, while in b4a you can spend days for the same result... Anyway, you can make generic classes and use them in your games to speed up the development process (camera handler, collision handler, UI management, coins, particles... ) In my catapult game I had to do everything from scratch, but now I've reused a lot of classes in my new game. Adding menus, buttons, level selection and such has been so fast now. The problem here is that we depend a lot on informatrix, and as he doesn't have interest on ios development, we don't have libGDX for ios... creating classes will speed up your coding for new projects and we all do it but the main problem is that after you have a game finished exporting it to another platform is to much work or even not possible. if you would make your catapult game in a cross coding platform you could export it to so many platforms with only 1 click. this is a very important feature when you make games beside the fact that coding in game makers soft its much more simple and faster (as you said you can purchase for few $ a complete project and turn it to a uniqe one). i also dont see b4x getting a cross coding platform in the future. erel is even not interested in making a b4windows phone soft and instead he create b4r and b4j but this is his choice. i will still use b4x for my apps but for games i will look for something else. its to much work in b4a (box2d and libgdx) even i have created classes where you create physic bodies with only 1 line but still this is not enough to make a game. you can spend month on a game with b4a that would take you few days with a soft like buildbox. have a look at it:
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Post by wonder on Jul 23, 2016 14:16:23 GMT 1
While I agree with everything that was said above, I'll keep coding my games as much as possible.
As a gamer myself, I can often feel the difference between a so called "auteur" game and a generic (insert engine name here) made one. I believe that, whenever you invest your time and efforts into coding critical parts of a game, you're also lending your personality into the final product.
If we all resort to ready-made engines, without adding any personal touch, every game will feel the same.
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Post by melonzgz on Jul 27, 2016 17:52:21 GMT 1
While I agree with everything that was said above, I'll keep coding my games as much as possible. As a gamer myself, I can often feel the difference between a so called "auteur" game and a generic (insert engine name here) made one. I believe that, whenever you invest your time and efforts into coding critical parts of a game, you're also lending your personality into the final product. If we all resort to ready-made engines, without adding any personal touch, every game will feel the same. Totally agree There are a lot of Unity games, or I should say Unity clones out there. A lot of people get a tutorial and make a game. You can make a platformer game with Unity in a few steps. But you know what? almost all of them look and feel the same, because a lot of people just copy & paste code (if there is any!) Then there is people, like me, that love to write code. If I didn't have fun programming I wouldn't do the games this way. I've made a platformer from scratch. And I've spent hours (or days) just testing, changing parameters, adjusting things until I have the feeling that everything is in it's place. And you... you've done the whole paltformer physics engine That's a lot of work!! Man, I remember when I first studied programming. I inmediately started to make a game, in MSDOS with turbo Pascal and assembler for the graphics routines (mode 13h 320x200 and 256 colors... I still remember it). Now for me b4a + libGDX + Box2D is heaven!
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Post by wonder on Jul 28, 2016 5:59:52 GMT 1
...and is that sort of passion for coding that makes handcrafted games so special. That's the reason why Mario feels like Mario and Sonic feels like Sonic. The whole beauty of game development is finding the perfect and delicate balance between high-level development tool and getting your hands dirty and coding things yourself. I pursuit not to create the perfect game, but to create MY game. The game that people would instantly recognize as mine, even without seeing any names or branding. That's, what's for me, the greatest honor. That's what keeps me coding. That's what keep me learning Newtonian physics. That's what keeps me delegating more and more routines to C++. That's what keeps me up at night, and ultimately, that's what keeps me happy!
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