Took some time out..
Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Discussion/Took some time out..
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| Sup all.. I took some time out from Monkey to get some gaming done and to generally just take a long need break from writing code and being creative, people need to just switch their brains off some times and game. Another primary reason for this was hearing the sad news that mark was no longer getting enough out of monkey and it seemed like to me at least it's days were numbered, so I'm popping back to just try and catch up, see what I have missed in the 6 or so months iv been away and really to hear if its worth getting back into coding with monkey or if I should find something else. I'v already noticed hardly any activity on the forums which is a shame, but let me know anyway, I would like some details thrown in with any opinion that might be flung at me I know a post like this invites a lot of personal opinion and that's fine but please back it up with some details.. thanks in advance. PS on a side note.. stay away from Archeage, its a brilliant concept and brilliant looking game that got completely ruined by its developer and western publisher, lessons to be learnt from that for sure. |
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| I was wondering where you were. But anyway, same ol' game like before. Nothing happens. Well if you consider the bundling of some stuff (Monkey/Jungle/Ignition) then YES, big changes. ROFL Imho the situation hasn't changed regarding the development of the tool. And Apple users still get bashed/insulted here on the board. So it still is like when you left for your timeout. Anything else you would like to know? |
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| Mark is still doing incremental updates and things haven't changed. I don't see any reason to stop using Monkey. I considered Archeage but read about the problems and let it go. I have gotten back into WoW and am having a really good time with it. Good to have you back(for now.) |
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| We have been super busy on our commercial products. Working toward to finally bring one of our games out of Early Access on Steam after putting way more polish than originally intended into it. >And Apple users still get bashed/insulted here on the board. ??? I use Windows, Mac, and Linux daily and I've never been bashed here. Where does this happen at? >Mark is still doing incremental updates and things haven't changed. I don't see any reason to stop using Monkey. This is the truth. Mark is still here, posts on the forum, deals with problems. Monkey as is is an incredibly useful tool and if you use it to create products which people want you can profit from using it greatly. For its use case, which is cross platform 2d, there is still nothing comparable to me - everything else falls short of what Monkey already can do. Work is still happening. You can see: https://github.com/blitz-research/monkey/blob/3e3d1418c297b72f3f75d65ca67c5ddd1fc93b4f/VERSIONS.TXT https://github.com/blitz-research/monkey/commits/develop >Nothing happens. Wondering what your wishlist of features and changes for Monkey is? I have been thinking maybe we and some other commercial devs can sponsor Mark for a while to improve Monkey for everyone if he would agree to it and there were a set of improvements which would make sense to push for. |
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| thanks for the info guys.. ROFL looking at code for the first time in months is scary. |
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| I have gotten back into WoW and am having a really good time with it. Tried that a year ago too. Had a good time for a week after 6 months not playing. After 5 days I decided to activate the authentificator, but by then it was to late. Soemone was able to hack my account during these 5 days and did shit with it. My account was faster killed by blizzard than I can blink. And even it was clear that someone from another continent did it, they didn't reactivate it. So that was the last time playing a blizzard game for me. |
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| Mark is still doing incremental updates and things haven't changed. I don't see any reason to stop using Monkey. No reason at all, I need my daily dose :) |
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| Welcome back. I've been MIA, too, and I noticed that the forums were kinda dead. Since starting on a new project though I've been more than happy to start promoting Monkey on other forums, since it's still better than a lot of other options out there and it needs more love/support and a wider community. Expect to see more games made with Monkey on Steam soon! I swear, there's some people out there who try to keep Monkey as their own "best-kept secret". I only know of one other commercial dev (not counting Soap) who doesn't try to hide Monkey as their devchain of choice. That kinda promotion could really go a long way to help jolting some life back into this community. |
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| For myself I keep on working on my next project. I'm using MonkeyX+IgnitionX+in the makJungle IDE, all of which are kept updated and fulfill my needs to this point. The forum is very quiet indeed but questions still get answered. Maybe I'm naive or too optimistic but for now Monkey X is offering me everything I need. In the last few months we also have heard of a few promising games like 2Dark http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/posts.php?topic=9061 or Tiny Thor http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/posts.php?topic=7623 and there are probably more good Monkey games e. |
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| The only ongoing concern with Monkey's usefulness is whether BRL will maintain it in when platform changes occur or add any new platforms that pop up. The community could pick up the slack there but with the reduced activity from the sub-set of devs who contribute most you might end up being on your own when Google or Apple update. Apart from that the product proposition for developing your own project remains the same. If you liked Monkey 6 months ago you should like it now. For myself I've parked Monkey for a while. That's not because it's not useful for building games but because it doesn't offer a great market for me as a programmer. There are too few commercial devs using it who might offer contract work/employment and the community is too small to support even the few people selling tools/libraries for it now. At one point I was working on an editor-friendly engine concept, thinking of re-porting the latest Box2D and thinking of how to generate more community activity and collaboration but the reality is I can't afford that amount of effort in isolation for likely no return. I think it's still possible for Monkey to have a future. The Playniax/Jungle bundling could be a big positive change if it leads to a more cohesive toolchain and particularly a simpler and faster "get something on screen that shoots/jumps/explodes" experience. Devolonter's Mungo/Harmony project could make a huge difference by offering advanced, but increasingly expected, rendering capabilities if he manages to find time to get back to it. Upcoming commercial games releases that use Monkey could attract interest (although I'm of the opinion that this won't do much unless the product ease-of-use for newbies improves). In the meantime Monkey still does what it did before so no reason to abandon it if it suits your purposes. |
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| Hey I'm new to monkey, just discovered only 3 days agos, but from what I've seen it's a solid framework. I've developed my first game using gamemaker (via gml not via visual editor) but I think that monkey it's more suitable to my specifications. So now I'm using monkey-x to (try) write my second game, and sure I will buy a full license as soon as I wrote the prototype of the game The only things that I would like to see at this time is a export for PS Vita/PS4/new 3ds. Maybe there are other things more urgent requested by experienced users... maybe the updates are not frequent as Construct 2, but what I can see from the change log, Mark is still working on it. Ale |
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| PS Vita target is already existing. 3DS and PS4 are possible, but with both of these a more public target is a little tricky. If Mark wants to make targets for all of the consoles which would have to be shared more privately through contract verification I can help facilitate that - it would without a doubt be valuable to bringing more people to Monkey. But still build your games first, make games worthy of these platforms and you will find a way onto them. Keep in mind unlike those other tools Monkey source is accessible, which means if you really wanted to you could make any target you want, or pay someone to make one for you if need be. |
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| An update: Monkey is still awesome. |
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| muddy_shoes wrote: The only ongoing concern with Monkey's usefulness is whether BRL will maintain it in when platform changes occur or add any new platforms that pop up. The community could pick up the slack there but with the reduced activity from the sub-set of devs who contribute most you might end up being on your own when Google or Apple update. I see the next big change (and possible opportunity for MonkeyX) coming with Windows 10, see - Microsoft Windows 10 Event Presentation HD (Full) or - Microsoft Windows 10 Event January 2015 (Full) They change to Universal Apps. One AppStore for everything! PC's, Tablets, Phones, Xbox, HoloLens (see FAQ), ... everything with 1 AppStore and Universal Apps, and DirectX 12. Also, Microsoft will add support for even more devices, for example Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2. I think it's a big change, also for MX. The sooner there is a Windows 10 target (maybe after //build/ conference in April?), the better for the MX customers and community. |
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| I agree that Windows 10 looks to be an exciting development for developers. |
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| For myself I've parked Monkey for a while. That's not because it's not useful for building games but because it doesn't offer a great market for me as a programmer. +1 After interviewing a bit, people do not care that I can create an octree spacial structure in Monkey. They want javascript and java, properly structured, and in their coding style. I've since taken a design role at a major US company, but still slowly trying to dedicate time to code in Monkey. |
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| Hey Adam, Good luck in the job. You're absolutely right that most programmer employers want experience that precisely matches the technology and methods they use. It's complete nonsense but it's not hard to find stories of very talented and experienced coders being turned down because of trivial gaps in their knowledge. The problem is magnified when you're looking for freelance/contract work. Trying to persuade someone that Monkey skills translate to Java or C# or whatever isn't going to fly (even though it should, if only on one wing). |
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| Good to have you back! |
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| Hey Paul! Hows the little coder going? :) |
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| If you mean my Daughter yeah that didn't last long, although she did catch the minecraft bug and has been very creative via that, and my son is now learning Unity at School which is really cool and should set him up when to goes to college, which is cool. |
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| Well I've moved all my projects to Unity not because monkey has anything wrong with it, its just I have limited time and having to fluff with icons, configuration files etc just doesn't appeal to me. I still use monkey for the Star Rogue editor though which v1 is complete now :) Productivity has been reduced somewhat with the removal of the x86 binaries for Linux in the latest versions |
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| Yeah I'm going to be getting into Unity this year for sure, weather I move to it fully or not only time will tell, initially other than learning c# and only at a glance I really cant wrap my head around the scripting/coding side of it, I am so used to writing code in languages that execute from top down style with either the first line in the fire file being the entry point or a func main() entry point, but Unity seems to do things differently. |
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| Uncertainty is the killer here. If it wasn't a problem then those that post here with the content of their posts containing what I interpret as abandonment then these posts wouldn't exist. Uncertainty always, but for a few scenarios, leads to abandonment. |
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| I agree with you Amon. I'm gearing up to start my first major 2d game and I'd love to use Monkey, but it's the uncertainty that is holding me back. I keep looking at other products, but I would prefer to use Monkey because of the language, it's non drag n drop approach, multiple targets, and of course the price. I have Jungle and am looking at Playniax, but the not knowing where Monkey is headed is such a black cloud. I wish that Mark would take a bit to explain where Monkey is headed. I know he's making bug fixes here and there, but that's not enough. People need some sort of a road-map and a game plan. This would give other developers the confidence to invest their own time to make tools, contribute code, and so on. But as it stands now, I'm not sure Mark will pull the plug tomorrow or surprise the hell out of us and release something new and exciting. It's the not knowing that really does hurt Monkey. My guess is that Mark is having a difficult time letting Monkey go and a financially difficult time to keep it afloat. This is his baby and I can't imagine what Blitz and Monkey mean to him. Having said that, Mark needs to lay it out for everyone here for better or worse. If not then Monkey will just fade into nothingness and that's sad because it is such a great product with enormous potential. Just my $.02 |
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| I think its got an air of what happened to Blitzmax about it for most of the users who have been here long enough to remember that, mark posted a roadmap for that too even a demo of the 3d engine which was going to be max3d. With max3ds collapse and the rise of Leadwerks and minib3d as 3d replacements it sort of seemed that mark had missed the boat somewhat. After this mark seemed to lose interest in max and support seemed to dwindle to the state it is now where I have yet to see mark post on the original forum anymore. I would hate to see monkey to go that way but it does seem inevitable as it seemed its what BRL does when a product reaches a certain level of completeness. Coupled with the financial uncertainties of BRL where mark has posted he is looking for a job as this isn't paying the bills makes users and perspective users look for a more stable platform. There is a lot of uncertainties regarding BRL its not got the same level of brilliance and forethought that it had in the blitz3d days, in those days if marketed right b3d could be where Leadwerks, Unity and TGC are now. |
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| Yeah I think that's one of the reasons I took time out, I'v been with BRL/Mark since B3D and Idigicon, I actually toyed with Blitz on the Amiga although at the time I had no idea who or where it came from, so I saw and watched how Max went down the drain from a developer standpoint, I think the only thing keeping Max ticking over is the wealth of user made content which is cool, but monkey does not have that same level of content to support it if and when mark pulls the plug. Personally I have finally come to a descision of sorts, I will finish the projects that I have started in monkey and once their done and out the way , unless something here changes I will be moving to Unity for all my games. :/ |
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| Its the same decision I made a while ago, mainly when the whole max, BRL running out of money, etc caused me to rethink my strategy so I converted my projects over. I agree the much smaller community here doesn't bode well for monkey, the blitz basic website had tons of people in the same amount of time. |
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| Unity is a beast of a system and you can't go wrong picking it. I own Unity Pro 4.6 and it never ceases to amaze me capability wise. Content wise Unity users have produced, both for free, for a small fee or just under/over $100 a plethora of content from 3d models, tutorials, 2d art, sounds, music etc and to top it all off it has a massive userbase and forum that is always active. |
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| Yeah some one mailed me recently suggesting that I start selling some of my game art on the Unity Store , that asset store is such a benefit to Unity, it's something we could really use here even if Mark has to make it only for free stuff to avoid the hassle of payment systems and such it's still something that this small community could really use. |
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| Well the more content a website has the more people have a reason to visit it. Currently this site seems very simple and lacking much content. I would like to see a media store, expansions and upgrade store mark could take a percentage and it would keep brl afloat at the same time. |
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| Yo all. I'm also in the 'took a break' club. Well, I've been busy teaching and doing some other projects. I started learning Unity last year, doing a few games in 2d, then going to 3d. It took quite a while to get my head around the way Unity works, but yes, it is an incredible tool. Sadly, part of my decision was the uncertain future of Monkey, and small community :( Also wanted to do some 3d. I do have some Monkey projects coming up, making some educational resources. Flash+html5 covers many browser targets; Flash isn't (quite) dead, html5 isn't reliable enough on old/IE browsers. Plugins/NPAPI being killed off, but Unity/webgl not a viable replacement. + Unity killed their flash version, of course. Monkey will always suffer from not being seen as a 'real' language. I've dabbled with Phaser-JS as a way to improve my js skills, v nice framework [ incidentally, their website/community is excellent too]. However, out-of-the-box, Monkey/html5 is still a really great way to make 2d games. I still feel it has a place, but in a very crowded market. Still makes me sad to not see Monkey listed along side other game dev tools, but it shows the lack of impact it has made. GameMaker seems to hold that educational/ease-of-use space, even though I found it really hard to use! baz Edit - game jam idea is a good one to show off content and get the community more active. |
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| Unity need 6,6 gb hd !!!!!!!! Bin files are also fat Someone tried GODOT ? Look like Unity to me, but with less 3D It is 100% FREE and small (30mb) It include everything: scripts, tile editor, animation (spine-like) editor, particles, 2D and 3D, GUI etc... For all platforms: win, mac, linux, android, ios, html5 (win phone comming soon) Awesome!!! http://www.godotengine.org/wp/ |
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| Godot is pretty nice. The paradigm and scripting language take some getting used to and there are some... odd... things that are a bit clumsy when using the editor. |
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| From what I could tell, there's no support for IAP and ads in Godot as of now. Otherwise looks quite interesting in many aspects. |
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| Plus points for monkey are: 1) runs off of usb 2) <100mb for all targets :) 3) lightweight fast 2d 4) MUCH cheaper than alternatives 5) open source so easy to add targets 6) friendly community |
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| it is possible to display ads https://github.com/okamstudio/godot/issues/1059 but i think it need more tweaks http://www.godotengine.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=77 |
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| open source so easy to add targets It's easy if you're just changing or optimizing something on an existing target. Otherwise, its not so easy. I'm trying to make a DX9 target (and later a target for XBox One) and all I got working so far is a window and Cls and DrawRect commands :P |
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