Consider Cocoon if XDK is not working (updated)

great conversation folks.

however tgeorgemihai your are citing some pretty pricey alternatives to C2.. and calling Cocoon IO expensive. it's $120 a year for a very reasonable plan.. higher priority.. 10 simultaneous projects.. yes the logo thing is pricy but like i mentioned before.. if you wanted to debrand unity you're look at $4500 to do it for ios/android..

To be fair, Caleb, I think alot of people expect C2 to be able to do mobile apps without using an external tool and they consider the $100 they spend on C2 to be enough, it might seem like adding branding after pay for C2 seems a little unexpected.

I'm with you on that Unity business though, the difference is, Unity is an entire game programming language/SDK/toolkit, whereas cocoon is merely a wrapper for html5. I agree with you in theory though, some people may associate cocoon splash screens as being a branding of an inferior product (if there as no branding, the user wouldn't know what engine was used to make it, whereas anything with a cocoon splash is gonna be html) whereas unity is more a brand name by this point, a selling point if you will, like Nike and Adidas.

But I do agree, it's not a problem really, I just think most people would expect C2 to do all of this in the box when they pay for C2.

Zebbi hey i'm glad you found the issue! I would never have thought to suggest that or knew it was a definite problem.

I'm glad you got through it rather than giving up! My first time with Cocoon IO this last summer was pretty much like this.

follow shatterbox tutorial (kinda)..

use my game as my test (should have used a simpler project)

get a bunch of errors..

try a few things..

still get errors..

give up.. go back to XDK

This time though I was desperate to find some solutions to the months i've been getting nowhere with XDK.. progress one day.. setback the other.. plugins were such a problem because the steps to install were not straight forward.. a lot of deleted / readded projects.. etc etc.. this time i was glad i slowed down and really tried Cocoon IO because when I stopped and took my time I found results were much better

Pro tip: when starting out.. do a "hello world" capx.. don't port your game.. just make sure you can make something compile first.. then try your game once but if it fails don't give up.. back up and try adding one new cocoon / cordova plugin at a time.. make sure that plugin works 100% before moving on to the next one..

With me, XDK was a pain in the beginning. Builds kept failing on iOS and didn't know about the provisioning profiles. But, I managed to figure it out and got the app running. But there were still some issues.

Status bar was shown, screen orientation won't lock, and most importantly performance was garbage.

And now there are plugins to fix these issues I mentioned. I'm just too comfortable with cocoon. But I might have to go back to xdk because I'm making a very big game and it's probably going to exceed the limit of 50mb that cocoon offers for the free plan.

As consumers I say we should ALWAYS demand better.

however tgeorgemihai your are citing some pretty pricey alternatives to C2.. and calling Cocoon IO expensive. it's $120 a year for a very reasonable plan.. higher priority.. 10 simultaneous projects.. yes the logo thing is pricy but like i mentioned before.. if you wanted to debrand unity you're look at $4500 to do it for ios/android..

You've got that wrong. I've enumerated alternatives compared to Cocoon.IO's logo removal of 500$. Like I've said: "I can understand the monthly fee (they have servers and people to pay)".

And you tell me that I presented some pricey alternatives (< 800$) and after that you tell about Unity Pro (4500$)

Just so you know, for 4500$ (9 games splash removal) you get a little more in Unity than just the logo removal.

Just to be clear, this wasn't to bash C2, it does it's job great as a HTML5 game engine

llfstudios what is the game your making? I agree the size thing is a problem.. but keep in mind the $120 a year plan (less that C2 itself) is 120mb.. and 10 projects simultaneously.. i mean really.. if you think about it. how valuable is your time? is $10 a month worth your projects running better and working more often?

tgeorgemihai gotcha, well $4500 and then annual $1500 upgrades. unity 4 5 6 etc.. but yea I understand what you're saying. This idea of per app is pretty ridiculous. Unreal would be interesting if it wasn't such a behemoth program (better have a beef PC.. and mac performance sucks when doing a 1:1 hardware comparison to PC (opengl vs directx).. i mention it because it has a code free option.. blueprints.. I've explored it but it's deep.. not like C2.

I think what they really want is the marketing value of seeing games made with it.. for them $500 is for big companies who absolutely must be splash-free.. companies that don't balk at $500..

I'm sure though that something could be negotiated with them. Some people could probably ask for more space and less projects..

I don't think they will budge on the splash though for the reasons stated.. they WANT to advertise their usage much like Unity.

Unless you're making a professional project (with a budget) for someone else that refuse to allow branding then you just deal with the splash and remember you're spending less time publishing your game and more time making your games.. My latest projects felt like 30/70.. 30% making the game then 70% trying to publish.. this is not a healthy development balance..

My overall experience using cocoon is that the interface and the process to build apps is a lot smoother than xdk. I think cocoon is a pretty good alternative especially with the plugins issues xdk is experiencing when publishing for iOS.

Great! I'll try it!

Zebbi sorry i missed your post in my replies. No believe me I think Scirra definitely should figure out some kind of iOS/Android publishing pipeline that is PART of the engine.. i'm guessing 90% of the C2 users and adopters are expecting to make games for mobile.

I started another thread awhile back you can weigh in on here.. basically C3 NEEDS this. I don't care if they make the software $500.. they need it. Relying on any 3rd party solution is bad.. and exactly what we are experiencing is why.

GameSalad did do that right. It had a lot of limitations but knowing that they had a pipeline to get your games to iOS/Android really helped me.. I was able to kick out games for iOS/Android.. serious releases in a matter of 1-2 months each.. it was a kind of golden era.. the reason though I moved from it was it's walled garden was too limited.. C2 is a a superior game engine on just about every level.. but asking C2 to take some lessons from other game engines doesn't make it bad.. just ways it could be improved

Relying on any 3rd party solution is bad..

i agree it is very bad, scirra.com say construct 2 can export game to android and ios when it CANT

yea what they need to do is put an * on the front page next to iOS and Android to make this more clear.. I don't think it was always like this but they need to go back to making this clear because I would honestly say it's misleading advertisement Ashley to not make a distinct NOTE next to these platform options.

Really ANY option that requires something outside of C2 should be clearly marked and be sure to say "results may vary" so people know when they get into mobile development to not expect the process to go smooth because it almost certainly WON'T go smooth given they have a lot of options and pitfalls waiting for them.

Zebbi sorry i missed your post in my replies. No believe me I think Scirra definitely should figure out some kind of iOS/Android publishing pipeline that is PART of the engine.. i'm guessing 90% of the C2 users and adopters are expecting to make games for mobile.

I started another thread awhile back you can weigh in on here.. basically C3 NEEDS this. I don't care if they make the software $500.. they need it. Relying on any 3rd party solution is bad.. and exactly what we are experiencing is why.

GameSalad did do that right. It had a lot of limitations but knowing that they had a pipeline to get your games to iOS/Android really helped me.. I was able to kick out games for iOS/Android.. serious releases in a matter of 1-2 months each.. it was a kind of golden era.. the reason though I moved from it was it's walled garden was too limited.. C2 is a a superior game engine on just about every level.. but asking C2 to take some lessons from other game engines doesn't make it bad.. just ways it could be improved

One hurdle I've run into is testing ads for admob, CocoonAds doesn't seem to have testing mode for the ads, whereas scirra's admob plugin does.

as long as the ads appear it's working.. i have the ads appearing. the big rule with admob is don't tap your ads.. that can get your account banned.

Are you having trouble getting ads to appear?

sign up here

http://appodeal.com/+702cce69791d2fb67f4a39d2464ee1a7

and use that plugin for ads it link to your admob account and you can test your ads without getting banned

i use that plugin in all my game plus it paid more

If you're talking about Canvas+, that has been officially unsupported for some time now, because it's incompatible with so many features it basically never works. So if you try to use it you are on your own and should not have any expectation of it working correctly. The Cordova exports which are based on real browser engines are the officially supported export options for mobile, and as far as I am aware, they are working fine for the vast majority of users.

who are these people having great success? what plugins are they using? none.. sure no problem.. but xdk / c2 / plugins are all changing with no regulation / oversight.

I've been fighting with XDK for months to get all of the plugins working for client work (thankfully a very patient guy!) and going over to cocoon IO I was able to in a matter of weeks to get everything working.. mostly just learning / experimenting..

Ashley canvas+ is working well with Cocoon IO from what I have seen so far and with Cordova plugins which was a big problem in the past. Should we be using Webview? or Webview+ for better results?

This is why there needs to be a legitimate plugin store with developer controlled pricing.. they need to be able to charge what they think is worthwhile to make / support.

or you should consider hiring developers to make the plugins and pay them and include them WITH the engine with constant support / supervision to insure they work with the latest versions of C2 and AT LEAST one formally tested export platform..

I don't care if we used XDK, I just need to know as a professional that the entire publishing path is monitored and tested for me so I don't have to constantly fear something breaking.. give us specific tested xdk versions (don't upgrade warnings) or whatever..

Cocoon IO has simply been the first time since this summer than I'm back to making games and not fighting plugins and losing my own revenue sinking tons of time into a fixed budget project.

Final Thought: If you are concerned that this extra help will cost money.. the by all means.. give me some monthly plan to join and pay to be part of a curated publishing experience please! I know we have a lot of cheap indie developers that thing $130 should give them the kingdom of heaven.. you know as well as anyone.. you're making money one time.. you NEED more developers to buy this one time product.. this means the money will run out eventually without this.. a premium monthly service would offset dev costs for you and even bring in some additional revenue.. please consider something like this. The professionals here have no problem paying for greater support / service. More professionals will attract amateurs.