GameSalad Game Highlights (2017)

Two.E

Hello All!

What another fantastic year for GameSalad made games! With some topping charts, others getting Publisher contracts and some finally hitting the App Store after years of work. If it was your first release, or your last, we saw so many variations with some very surprise releases.
This is the 2017 Unofficial Game Highlights!

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Game of the Year!

This game needs no introduction, and was on everyones Wishlist the moment it was teased on the forums in late 2016.
The guys at @RossmanBrothersGames have an incredible game about battling space alien (and cows)! The developers even managed (and rightly deserved) to partners with big publisher Crescent Moon Games and was official released in April. From fantastic sound design, pixel art graphics and animation, this game is filled with un-lockables and challenging levels!

You can download the game here! or watch their cool trailer!.

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Top Mentions!

Since we don't really have game of the months anymore, the following is a list of the 10 games that you might have missed that really deserve to be checked out. They are in no particular order!

Super RoShamBo Fighters by @phamtastic

Wordgraphy by @unbeatenpixel

Sheep Thrills by @Timo

Toilet Bingo by @gingagaming

ChronoBob by @tyl

Super Color Cannon by @birdboy

Piece Breaker by @Hideki Matsui (No longer available)

Polycolor by @unbeatenpixel

Stolen Thunder by @jasonnowak

Nester the Nesting Bird by @Chechesoft

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Of course there were many great games released this year and I would highly recommend checking out the "Announce Your Game" category. There are so many to list and a lot are from first time developers. I am sure I missed some as well that were fantastic so feel free to list them!

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Developers Highlights!

A shout out to those here on the forums that make great games, inspire others or spend a huge amount of time helping others!

@unbeatenpixel is one of the most intriguing developers that seems to be in a relationship with the Apple Publishing team (Just rumour at this stage). Every game release has been super polished, unique and mostly likely featured by Apple. This developer has inspired many, shares statistics on games performance and never seems to sleep. Check out their portfolio of games!

@Toque Although only half of us can see his Icon, not one of us miss his helpfulness, wit, and more importantly, his improvement and dedication to game design. Having ventured into the world of pixel art, Toque seems to spend every free second helping others with their questions and encouraging the games that other makes. While still finding time to announce games like Tank A Lot! A huge step out of the dentist genre.

@tatiang is that one developer who always seems to have the answer, in a well written or nice bundle demo, ready for every user who every asks a question. While often regarded as one of the 'Old', tatiang is one of the few experts who has helped many projects come to life.

@Socks After a very concerning leave of absent, this wizard of a being has been an asset to the forums. In fact, he has single handed created one of the coolest (?) looking games in GameSalad History and still refuses to release an update of the progress, simply because he is too busy writing responses to complex math solutions. He preaches Sin,Cos and Tan. He is also the Leader in Points for the Forum if that is still a thing!

@Japster Is often referred to (behind closed doors - mainly my own) as the voice of the Forum Users, who is not afraid to write long, very long detailed responses on what needs to be improved with GameSalad. Of course, this is all backed up with several game titles of quality. Sadly, despite the active passion for GameSalad, it appears 2017 is the last year for Japster.

@ForumNinja When he speaks, the community stops to listen. This controversial guy hides in the shadows and emerges to bring the news that so many love to hear. While not a GameSalad Developer, I have been told he is a ninja. Special shout out to all the work that goes on in the support section of GameSalad and the replies to the very vocal community.
This also extends to @adent42 with the many long hour fixes and comments.

@pHghost The one who seems to know everything about publishing! In fact, has been actively helping the GameSalad team find solutions to the few* issues that have arrived with each build and update. While also providing support for those who are not in the loop of the work arounds available. More impressively, he does all this without being paid (To my limited Knowledge).
*Number may vary

Plus many many more who are keeping the forums alive and well for all those new and experience users of GameSalad!

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Once again, congrats to all that have released a game this year! It is always exciting and I look forward to seeing even more fantatsic games next year.

All the best,
Two.E

gingagaming

Great write up and summary @Two.E Merry Xmas and Happy new year!

Toque

Yes!! All those are great games. I forgot a couple of those. Played Stolen Thunder for hours.

I think Two.E deserves a pat on the back. Well all the veterans do really. It amazes me how they help people time and time again. Why? They all have better things to do. But seemingly endless capacity to help others.

You should add to Toque “never has a GS user known so little achieved even less!”

Three cheers for this years best games.

Twayne2

Good job @Two.E!

-Timo-

Great list! and thanks for mentioning my game.
You should definitely be one the list too! love your website http://gslearn.com/ and your templates.

Japster

@Two.E - Love it mate, lots of love and effort put into that great post! - Liking the shout-outs, and thanks for mine - pretty much spot-on!

Truly some quality games and great people (self not included!) in that list, impressed with them all, and loving Nestor, great play mechanic!

Yep, will be taking a long hard look at whether I continue, but it all depends on whether or not current breakages and showstopping bugs are fixed asap - sick of not being able to release my latest game... :frowning:

pHghost

Haha, thanks for the shoutout! I'm not sure I do that much.

Nice list you put together, played the majority of the games and they are truly worth it. It does show that given some love from the GameSalad team to get rid of bugs and make things stable, there's plenty of potential for this piece of software!

RossmanBrothersGames

Awesome post @Two.E love the humor! And honored to be @Two.E's pick for the unofficial game of the year. I've loved seeing the cool things made by this community. Wanted to say thanks to everyone. A lot of the people listed in the post, as well as some who are around hear anymore, helped me a ton when starting out with Gamesalad.

With that, I may not be as active on the forums as in the past. We have started using another toolset in hopes to try and make some stuff for steam and hopefully consoles. We are currently building a remastered version of Get Me Outta Here that will have extra arenas and co-op mode. If interested you can follow some of our progress on twitter. If anyone ever wants to send a question my way feel free to contact me [email protected] or on twitter. Always love to provide feedback on projects.

Super thankful for Gamesalad, would have never dove into game design if it wasn't for it. Hope to still support them with purchasing licenses by the month whenever we need to update stuff. And possibly if it starts improving once the new HTML version is up may return to using it to make smaller mobile only projects. Hope the best, I actually was at a Christmas party talking to a family member who is a elementary school principle and told him he needed to get game design in his school and he told me they already were giving Gamesalad a shot. Pretty cool!

It's fun to see where Gamesalad has come. I thought some of you who have been around a while might enjoy part of this video. It features the TouchArcade guys talking about Get Me Outta Here on their weekly podcast and around the 7:30 mark they start talking about Gamesalad and their experience with the early Gamesalad games and how they noticed improvement in it. Kinda fun.

Braydon_SFX

Excellent!

Stickied!

Socks

Thanks for the mention Two.E !!

@Two.E said:
He preaches Sin,Cos and Tan.

tatiang

Great idea! Thanks for taking the time to do this!

unbeatenpixel

Thanks @Two.E I wish you all the best in 2018.

@RossmanBrothersGames Would you like to do a short written interview with us about Get Me Outta Here? We are pleased to give you a place on the indiezoom.co like last year's GOTY Roll Turtle

RossmanBrothersGames

@unbeatenpixel said:

@RossmanBrothersGames Would you like to do a short written interview with us about Get Me Outta Here? We are pleased to give you a place on the indiezoom.co like last year's GOTY Roll Turtle

Sure! Sounds like fun. [email protected]

Two.E

@Socks - I actually read your post before you edited it, so I am sorry to hear about the bears and the affect it has on the update. Seems such a shame.

Although I always assumed the Pivot aspect was just an in built constrain that GS added in. I didn't think there was a difference between using the in built one, and simply using the constraint behaviours.

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Thanks all, It is always fun playing the games, and I know a lot of you have released games this year who I didn't mentioned. Keep up the great work. Also to those who release games but to not announce them.

Best,
Two.E

Socks

@Two.E said:
@Socks - I actually read your post before you edited it . . . .

Yeah I thought it was a bit out of place / a bit too negative for this thread, didn't want to ruin it with more of my whining.

(also I've done enough complaining recently, it doesn't really get you anywhere*)

* technically that's another complaint.

@Two.E said:
so I am sorry to hear about the bears and the affect it has on the update. Seems such a shame.

The bears are always a worry, especially here in the centre of London, only last week a neighbour was taken as they slept, the screams woke everyone, it makes it hard to concentrate on your programming / game design knowing that at any minute it could be you.

@Two.E said:
Although I always assumed the Pivot aspect was just an in built constrain that GS added in. I didn't think there was a difference between using the in built one, and simply using the constraint behaviours.

I'm don't know what goes on under the surface, but like I said in my (deleted) post each actor would need quite a few constrains (x, y, rotation, height, width . . . as well as a few others) to position itself correctly - whereas with COM and Pin I could (if I remember this correctly) get this down to a single Rotate behaviour, like I say it made a very big difference in what I was asking GS to do, the difference between 60fps on an old iPad2/3 and somewhere in the low 50s (fps) on a newer iPad Air2. But as things progressed it became apparent that the bug/s in COM and Pin threw everything out, meaning I had to go back to using dozens of constrains, interestingly the faster you rotate an object around a non-standard / non-middle of the actor COM the worse the alignment issue becomes.

But hey, what can you do ? File a bug report ? Lol

Still, at least the bears haven't taken me yet.

Chechesoft

Thanks for considering Nestor the Nesting Bird!
I am going to download these games and try them, all of them looks awesome!

Chechesoft

@Japster said:
@Two.E - Love it mate, lots of love and effort put into that great post! - Liking the shout-outs, and thanks for mine - pretty much spot-on!

Truly some quality games and great people (self not included!) in that list, impressed with them all, and loving Nestor, great play mechanic!

Yep, will be taking a long hard look at whether I continue, but it all depends on whether or not current breakages and showstopping bugs are fixed asap - sick of not being able to release my latest game... :frowning:

Thanks a lot Japster, glad you are enjoying Nestor!