GDevApp : the online, codingless app to create games

GDevelop general
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[size=150]Introducing GDevApp, the new web app based on GDevelop[/size]

Today, I’m announcing GDevApp, an online app to create 2D games without requiring any programming knowledge.
GDevApp is based on the same concepts as GDevelop, in particular the event system is present with conditions and actions to easily create the logic of your game while remaining powerful for most advanced gameplay mechanisms.

I’m describing in details the application below, and I let you test the beta here:
[size=130]https://gdevapp.com[/size]

Who is the target audience of GDevelop?

GDevApp main target is an audience which is slightly different from Game Develop one: the app is (for now) simpler and less powerful than Game Develop (which acts as a “Pro version”). The goal of GDevApp is to focus on having a more immediate approach (no installation/no plugin/just register and create a game), and stay simple with lots of behaviors for objects and highlights on simple actions and conditions.
Of course, GDevApp is not a replacement for Game Develop. But I’m sure that GDevApp will be able to convince people that they managed to create or modify a game or some part of the gameplay is less than 5 minutes: that’s all you need to open the webapp, create a game with a template and start making some modifications.

What’s about the technologies used to build GDevApp?

GDevelop is based on state-of-the-art technologies : the entire application is Javascript powered, using Angular.js to build a rich web application, and Node.js for managing the server.
Nothing was reinvented to create GDevelop: emscripten, a really awesome and innovative project supported by Mozilla and others web companies, was used to compile the Game Develop codebase into Javascript.

What is really interesting is that there is no duplication or major rewrite to be done: I’ve done heavy work on Game Develop codebase so that it is clean and modularizedso that I was able to compile it using emscripten with no changes. In fact, any change/bug fix/enhancement made in GDevelop will be automatically available for GDevApp, and vice versa!
In other words, working on GDevApp will benefit to GDevelop :slight_smile:
This is something that was never seen before between a native application and its web counterpart.

Can I export my games created with GDevApp?

Absolutely; and this is something important. You can export any game created with GDevApp so that it can be played directly on the website, but you can also download a full zip file containing your complete game, ready to be sent to your website (or Facebook, Kongregate…)!

There is even an option to download the project file that can be then opened with GDevelop! (In fact for now, you’ll have to wait for the next release of GDevelop because the exported file is in JSON instead of XML :stuck_out_tongue: But you get the point, you’re not stuck with GDevApp).

Is GDevApp powerful?

Yes it is! For now, my goal was to provide a simple app, and I didn’t had the time to put all the features of Game Develop inside it! But more and more of the already extensions should be added as the application grow. We made it so that we were able to release it as quickly as possible, so there is still work to be done on it.
But remember that it is based on the same code as Game Develop, so virtually anything created with Game Develop will be one day available inside GDevApp. (For example, when you preview your project, the game is generated exactly as when you preview a scene inside GDevelop.)

What’s GDevelop business model?

GDevAppcan be used freely, but I limited the number of export you can do each day, and the same for the number of games or preview. I believe that these numbers are large enough for most users. Such limits are necessary to ensure that the server won’t be crashing under heavy load if somebody is asking for a lots of exports.
If you feel that you need more preview/games or exports each day, you can subscribe to a really cheap plan called “Indie”. I say really cheap because it only cost 2€ a month, in others words the equivalent of a few coffees each month. If you need even more power, or if you want to support GDevApp, you can subscribe to the pro plan which is 7€ each month, allowing you to create/preview and export games with almost no limits.

I believe these prices are really cheap for accessing to the full features of the most advanced web game creator of the world. :smiley:

What’s next

There is still work to be done to go from the beta version to the fully complete version of GDevApp, but I’m quite confident that the application is strong enough to be used by most people.
The current major limitation is that only built-in graphics and assets can be used. The next update will add the possibility to use custom resources, I’m still thinking about which web service(s) I’ll interface with.

For now, I’ve only announced the app here on this forum and sent a link to the very first people who subscribed to the mailing list on the landing page on compilgames.net
In the next day, if the app has no major bug or flaws, I’ll be sending the announcement mail to all subscribers of the mailing list (and also create a thread on the French forum), and if everything goes well, it will be announced on the internet. :slight_smile: There will be a link on the GDevelop website so that people can test it.

Go try it!

Go go go! :smiley:
[size=130]https://gdevapp.com[/size]

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OMG OMG OMG I have to test it :mrgreen:

Thanks, man! I’ll send some feedback then :wink:

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I love it, very interesting and well designed, I find it very convenient to use :slight_smile:
I hope to see all the features of the native version, such as pathfinding ( :smiling_imp: ), physics, lights, points, collision mask editing…etc
I’m also happy to see that we can share events and complete projects, I hope to see the same for graphics and sounds is well (if it not already the case).

Regarding payment, I hope to see paypal as a (one time) payment option as I’m not going to use my card on the site but I’m look forward to upgrade to premium account at some point but only if paypal is available (and the security certificate of the site is valid). I don’t know what is your plan, but I would not force people to setup monthly direct debit. After every month, the people should decide to buy/renew premium acc for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or 12 months. If a premium account is about to expire and the owner decide do not renew the account, it would simply roll back to a free account with it limitations but can be upgraded any time again.
Also, I don’t know if the prices are real or only place holders, but 7 Euro/month is fair enough, I hope not to see crazy prices :wink:

Finally, maybe I just found a bug when playing object animation using Play current animation of object action. For some reason, the animation plays only one time and stop when it reach the last frame even if I set the condition to play animation on key press. When I press the key, it play the animation and stop at the end, never play it again :confused: Even if I check if animation is finished and play animation again when animation is finished, it doesn’t work.

A question, at the moment, are there 3 people to maintain the webapp version or only you?

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Hahaha It’s great :smiley: … and funny: I noticed today about the action/condition checkbox “Show only easy to use instructions”; I was doing some math to rotate toward mouse (assuming the same functions as Game Develop), to get it works :unamused: :

GDEvents_0.PNG
GDEvents_0.PNG876×84 2.36 KB

And I can’t edit points, so I used it to set the point (CentreX + 20, CentreY) and add a force in the ship direction with “simple actions” :stuck_out_tongue: :
GDEvents_1.PNG
GDEvents_1.PNG1227×209 10.8 KB

I have to congratulate you, I see you made GD portable as a Web app, the lacks come from the IDE, not completely “ported”, if I’m not mistaken :sunglasses:

*Since the order of conditions/actions really matters, a system to drag-and-drop and copy individual actions/conditions would be great (at least I can’t) :wink:
*Is there some expression editor?.. or some way to change object’s name? I went crazy writing these loooong names :smiley:

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For most of them, it’s a matter of porting the interface to edit them, as they are already functional in the internal engine :smiley:

We do not use Paypal but Stripe.com (stripe.com/fr), an excellent and easy to use alternative. It’s totally secured, we do not even store credit card number, it’s entirely managed by stripe infrastructure.
You can go back to the basic plan at any time, and if you stop payment your account will go back to a basic account (if you have more games than authorized, no games will be deleted, you just can’t create a new game until you go back under the limit).

I hope to maintain these prices. They could be adjusted if they reveal to be really low, but I really want to provide a service which is really affordable. :slight_smile:

I’m the lead developer as I’m particularly familiar with Game Develop :laughing: The two others are helping from time to time to maintain or enhance some features, so they should be here to help as the application grow.

Maybe the object was set so that the animation is not looping. You can try to manually change the frame number to set it back to 0 when the animation is over.

This checkbox is to highlight the most elementary actions, but you can uncheck it and use almost all existing actions of Game Develop, including rotate toward a position.

For now, the drag’n’drop of instruction still needs to be implemented, and renaming an object too!
The expression editor is not present for the moment, but I’ll implement it later: in any case, all existing expressions of Game Develop are already working :laughing:

Thanks :laughing:
Yes, most of feature lacking are because the interface was not yet ported, but their are already working in the game engine. (For example, there is no way to edit collisions masks or points but they are fully working and supported. I “just” have to create a interface to edit them).
But my goal is really to have an easy to use game creator, so I take my time and try to promote a feature that is easy to understand with an ergonomic & aesthetic interface to use versus implementing more features that would have a bad interface and be used by no one except most advanced users. :slight_smile:

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Any particular reason? Maybe it cheaper (they store customer card details for free, so nice of them :laughing: ) and easier to setup but not widely used, at least I’ve never heard of it, never used it. PayPal is widely used also by well known companies.

I don’t trust the security of Stripe better then yours or anyone’s security especially when it about to enter/store card details online.
The only reason I do trust paypal is because:
-it handle all the transactions without sharing any card details.
-it takes responsibility for your money and card details
-I can manage the transactions
-widely used = it security is “battle tested”
-protected by password and mobile authentication and also the email account can be considered as a second security layer which is also protected by mobile authentication.

To steal anyone card details from paypal is basically impossible but in case it happen somehow, paypal take responsibility and to steal anyone paypal account is very difficult.
The only security hole of paypal, if someone can login to your paypal account somehow, they can send as much gift as they want and paypal policy (unfortunately) is that, by sending gift you are not paying for a service or buying an item and so, you can’t call the money back. gift is gift, it not nice to ask it back, but to login someone paypal account, you need to have access to it mobile phone or authenticator. So basically it totally your responsibility to use mobile protection or authenticator and don’t lose it with your paypal login on the back :smiling_imp:

In case of Stripe.com I have no reason to trust their service really, it made for businesses to get paid easily, paypal made for buyers to be protected.

The main question is that, do you really trust Stripe.com and feel it secure and confident to put a link on your site and ask people to enter their card details or do you use it mainly because it cheap and easy?
Even though you are not responsible directly for card details and payments, you are still responsible for what service you link to the customers even though if not legally.

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They are a bit cheaper, they have a fully documented API and are super easy to use, they force you to use SSL, they have a reactive support team, they are a perfect service for developers that want an efficient, polished experience for themselves and for their users (simple fact about this user experience: payment is made thanks to a nice dialog inside the app, no need to change the page and lose all your changes you made on your game ), it has mobile phone confirmation.
Check the sites using stripe.com: stripe.com/gallery
You’ll see major websites like foursquare, WolframAlpha, theguardian.com, dailymotion, TED, reddit uses it for their donation page.

There are tons are articles mentionning how Stripe.com is great, just google “stripe.com” or “stripe vs paypal”.

GDevelop must be an application that grow fast, change fast, an application that can be developed fast, and Stripe.com is just the perfect, secure solution for this. :slight_smile:

Of course I do trust it. It’s a perfectly valid and secure service. :slight_smile:
I would not use a service for payment that seems to be unsecure! Again, check the stripe.com website, check the websites using it, type “Stripe vs Paypal”, check the newspapers articles about it, check the articles in well known website like techcrunch. Stripe is battle tested :slight_smile:

I must admit that I didn’t think (so thanks for your feedback about it :slight_smile: ) that not using paypal could be seen as a real obstacle to getting some users to take a subscription. Old habits die hard, come on! :laughing:

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I was read a bit more about Stripe. Well, I don’t know. Sounds interesting that, card details are sent straight to Stripe servers but even on the servers the details are stored in a vault so basically card details can’t be accessed by third parties but on the other side they mentione it, it easy to extract and convert card details from stripe to use with other payment processors. :confused:
Regarding paypal, an article about stripe vs paypal mentione it as a con, paypal don’t let you to extract and convert card details so your customers have to sign up again when you switch from paypal to something else. LOL that is a f**in pro for me, card details denied, that’s it, go and lick some ice-cream. :smiling_imp:

Well, if you going to implement cool new features maybe you can motivate me to use Stripe :laughing:

I have an other feedback too. Sometime when I want to logout from GDevelop and close the window, these scripts are not responding and I have to force the browser to close it anyway. I’m using Firefox.

Script: gdevapp.com/libGD.js:19314
Script: gdevapp.com/libGD.js:19288
Script: gdevapp.com/libGD.js:18444

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Great :laughing:

Strange! What you can do is, before login out, close the project you’re editing (click on its name, and in the menu, choose “close the project” if I remember correctly). Then logout and let me know if it freezes. :slight_smile:

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It may be out of scope for this project, but how about (at later point) making service where you could upload zipped project (GD file and all needed resources) and it would spit out Linux and windows versions? This would make it easier for people to build their games for both supported systems (and in future OSX as well) when those people don’t have access to linux/windows box.

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Congratulations @4ian

I hope this web application have a lot of success and reaches as far as you propose and beyond.

Now, I have a question:

… will you still lead the development of the Game Develop open source code in a proactive way?

It’s just curiosity motivated by the effort you have done all this years to make such great software.

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Thanks! I hope that GDevelop will be successful: it is the first web app which has a core which is as powerful as an usual native game creator software. :slight_smile:
By the way, it works on Android and iOS flawlessly: I was able to test it on my Android phone and it is really usable on an iPad.

Yes, I was already thinking about such a service to build online an Android apk for example directly from the app. It could be extended to Windows or Linux (but remember that making a generic executable for more than one distro is always difficult, because system libraries varies on each distro and there can even be incompatibilities between distro version).

The most important point is that GDevelop is based on the exact same code as Game Develop, so yes, I’ll still lead Game Develop development in an active way.
What is interesting is that now that Game Develop is open source, contributors can enhance/create extensions, features, or improve the IDE, or even compile GD for linux distro and by doing so make the development of GD faster. So if I spend a bit less time on Game Develop, it is compensated by the fact that when I enhance GDevelop, I also enhance Game Develop (there will be a new automatism in next release that was developed thanks to GDevelop, because I realized that it was needed) and by the fact that as GD is open source, it could get an extra boost from other developers! :slight_smile:

To sum it up: Game Develop future is bright!

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I’m experiencing serious FPS drop not only in games, also when you are logged in, the moving stars in the background stops every sec for a very short time. Anybody else experiencing similar problem?

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I have a question too, when will be available the for each object event and linked object extension in GDevelop?

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For the lag, maybe the preview and scene editors are running in parallel. Next time, can you try to log out and log in again and tell me if it’s better? :slight_smile:

I don’t know about next extensions, I start taking note about what is needed. I’ll be working on releasing a new version of Game Develop because it has been a long time since the latest release.

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I have restarted my PC since last time, now the FPS was a lot better for a few preview. After some editing, and previews it started to drop speed again so I was logout, log back in and the preview window just gone blank, the objects was rendered only for a moment :neutral_face:
But in that moment seemed faster :laughing:
After that I’ve closed the project and load it again, and the preview did not started at all, when I was click on the preview button just nothing happened :confused: I was log out again, log back in and it worked after and the FPS was better.

At the moment I’m really miss it from GDevelop
-for each object event
-OR event
-linked objects
-points editing
-expression editor
-physics
-possibility to copy/replace actions, conditions by drag and drop
And when we can import own objects, probably I’m going to miss the collision mask editor too :slight_smile:

Regarding physics I have a suggestion/request. When you going to bring physics in to GDevelop, how about that if we could add physics behaviour to objects in object properties and in physics settings, we could select the mass, material, elasticity maybe even mass centre of each objects and select the level and direction of gravity in the scene and the physics engine would use these details to calculate how different physics objects behave when they interacting with each other.

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Nice :slight_smile: but no post on french forum ? I will test it soon but a question make me scare : native gd will be maintened ? Cause i’m on a big pro ject for :slight_smile:

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I’ll post on the french forum soon but my priority was here because the app is in English only for now (much larger audience) :slight_smile:
No the native app is not abandoned at all! I’ll release a new version this week if everything is ok :slight_smile:

19

Ok cool :slight_smile: Keep up the good work :smiley:

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Wanted to get subscription, but I don’t have credit card (and don’t plan to get one as you can get in debt easily). Can you offer paypal subscription?