Monkey & AGK

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Unity is very cool at what it does.  IMO though to do 2D stuff in the style I like I'd be ignoring the editors and writing code/scripts for everything and if I'm doing that then I don't know why I would pick Unity over any of the other cheaper multi platform coding languages.  That might change when they bring out the 2D extension, but it's difficult to say before it's released.

As things stand Monkey trying to target so many platforms is holding it back in a few important areas (eg. image manipulation and file access) but people are already adding tweaks which might work around that for some platforms.

And who decided it would be a good idea to only let people who have purchased the software post anywhere on the forums?  That must lose them a load of sales.

What are your plans for 1982.  Will you be porting it to your new language.  Have you released it for Xbox ?

I plan on using 1982 the same as I did Echoes.  I'll port it to the new language as a way of learning.  I hadn't written a single line of C# code before I started writing E+ and it seemed to work out ok so I'll stick with that process.

I doubt very much I'll be able to get it to run at a reasonable speed on all platforms but if nothing else I should get a PC version out of it and learn just what the other platforms are capable of....or not as the case may be

[T_M_C]

And who decided it would be a good idea to only let people who have purchased the software post anywhere on the forums?  That must lose them a load of sales.

Yeh, not very clever was it.

But they have opened up a Monkey section on the Blitz forums.

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/topics.php?forum=201

Because the general chat there was awash with monkey posts.

Theres also no advertising on the Blitz website for monkey either.  Which i find very odd at the moment.

But then they have just had thier front paged hacked.   

I plan on using 1982 the same as I did Echoes.  I'll port it to the new language as a way of learning.  I hadn't written a single line of C# code before I started writing E+ and it seemed to work out ok so I'll stick with that process.

Ahh ok.  Sounds like a good idea. 


TMC

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Theres also no advertising on the Blitz website for monkey either.  Which i find very odd at the moment.

Yeah odd, but with the language quite a way from finished they might be waiting until it's had the initial bugs squished and a few more examples of what it's capable of before giving it the big publicity push.

Probably quite wise IMO as the demo only does HTML5 and that's hardly reliable right now with performance across various browsers differing hugely....when it works at all.

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Well I installed Firefox 4 RC last night and so far I'm impressed.  I had to move the tabs back below the address bar, otherwise the few extensions I use work fine and there's a noticeable speed increase.

Best of all though html5 performance is vastly increased and the Monkey demos I tried are now very playable wiping out most of the doubts I had about the practicality of using html5 for game development.

[T_M_C]

Best of all though html5 performance is vastly increased and the Monkey demos I tried are now very playable wiping out most of the doubts I had about the practicality of using html5 for game development.

Cool.

The Monkey demo's i've tried have all been for IE, and havn't experienced any performance issues.

But then, the demo's i tried have only been basic ones.

I wonder how much market share Firefox has now.

Do you think you'll try and code something for the mobile platforms with Monkey.

TMC

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Do you think you'll try and code something for the mobile platforms with Monkey.

I'd have thought so as I'm deigning my game engine with all possible platforms in mind, so I've planned for easily interchangeable control methods etc.

I'd need a Mac for release on that and iOS so that would only follow once I've tried the other platforms out.

I just needto get my head around the best way to handle the different display resolutions and orientations.  For example in 1982 I'd want to use a handset in portrait orientation whereas the other platforms would obviously use landscape.

[T_M_C]

I just needto get my head around the best way to handle the different display resolutions and orientations.  For example in 1982 I'd want to use a handset in portrait orientation whereas the other platforms would obviously use landscape.

Cool.

And i thought the myriad PC configurations was bad.   

That sounds like a bit of a nightmare to me.

But i read that Monkey uses a virtual screen.  And auto scales everything to it's target platform.

Monkey doing all the hard work behind the scenes.

TMC

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But i read that Monkey uses a virtual screen.  And auto scales everything to it's target platform.

Monkey doing all the hard work behind the scenes.

Hmm.  Yes and no

In theory you can use the matrix commands to scale your graphics to match your targets display.  In practice for some games that will only work if that display matches the aspect ratio you design for.

So you end up either stretching your graphics in one axis to fill the screen or alternatively you keep the aspect ration the same, but scale the graphics down to fit effectively giving you "black borders".

And then you have all the issues of scaling 2D graphics and how crap pixel art can look, so ideally you might have each graphics asset in 2 different sizes and use what's most appropriate for the target resolution, hopefully eliminating scaling.

Of course some forward thinking will minimise these problems, so you can probably see why, for the first time ever, I'm doing quite a bit of pre-planning before coding that new game engine.

[T_M_C]

Hmm.  Yes and no

In theory you can use the matrix commands to scale your graphics to match your targets display.  In practice for some games that will only work if that display matches the aspect ratio you design for.

So you end up either stretching your graphics in one axis to fill the screen or alternatively you keep the aspect ration the same, but scale the graphics down to fit effectively giving you "black borders".

And then you have all the issues of scaling 2D graphics and how crap pixel art can look, so ideally you might have each graphics asset in 2 different sizes and use what's most appropriate for the target resolution, hopefully eliminating scaling.

Of course some forward thinking will minimise these problems, so you can probably see why, for the first time ever, I'm doing quite a bit of pre-planning before coding that new game engine.

Ahh ok.

Thats really interesting.

So in effect, you're no better off than coding for the PC.

It looks like you still have the same display issues as me to deal with.

Of course some forward thinking will minimise these problems, so you can probably see why, for the first time ever, I'm doing quite a bit of pre-planning before coding that new game engine.

Yeh, i don't blame you.

It's a big commitment to change to a new language / development system.

And a certain amount of luck is involved as well.

Good job there are plenty of forums to read, to find out what users actual experiences are.

TMC

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So in effect, you're no better off than coding for the PC.

It looks like you still have the same display issues as me to deal with.

Yeah, arguably worse than display issues on PC as you have to handle a wider range of resolutions and aspect ratios.

The way I'm looking at it, primarily I want to release PC games, if I get another platform too then it's just a bonus, but I'm trying to put things in place that will make that as painless as possible should I go down that route. (I couldn't do the other formats right now anyway as I don't have the necessary hardware )

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Thought I'd try out the lovely looking Jungle IDE for Monkey.  It costs a fair amount, but it would be worth it as the supplied Monkey IDE is pretty poor.

Anyway I downloaded the demo and it said I needed to install .Net 4.0 which Windows tells me I need over 1Gb of free space for which I don't have on my eeePC.  Sod that.    Kind of ironic given that Monkey itself is a bare bones, incredibly lightweight language.

[T_M_C]

Thats so Ironic.   

MS bloatware strikes again.

TMC

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If I go the Monkey route, which it's looking like I will, then I'll still get that Jungle IDE and install it on the desktop PC.  Just a shame I wont be able to use it on the netbook too as that's often more convenient for me to develop on.

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Someone on the Monkey forums has posted a rather neat demo of a physics engine.  Pretty common affairs these days, but it's cool to see it running nice and fast in a browser on my little eeePC and shows haw fast things are progressing with extending the language.

http://www.stickydesigns.com/monkey/fling/MonkeyGame.swf

I could use something like that in Tension when I port it 

[T_M_C]

Yeh, that is cool.

I tried the demo yesterday as i'm a regular visitor to the blitz and monkey forums.

I also see there is a second Ide in development too.

It's amazing how quickly the community is adding to the language.

TMC