So you (the author) are on the Gideros team? If that is the case, then this article is supposed to be marked as a 'review' and follow the structure of a review.

-Josh

I definitely agree with Josh, this writeup is review and promotion and should not be listed as a general article.

I stopped reading when realizing only one engine is mentioned over and over again. This should be placed as a banner not an article.

This is not a page for free ads.

Sorry, first time user here, changed to reviews ;)

I stopped reading when realizing only one engine is mentioned over and over again. This should be placed as a banner not an article.

Although in this case they apply to one single engine, the real meaning was that those features are great to have, and maybe something you could look in other engines too

Sorry, first time user here, changed to reviews ;)

Thanks for making the change, Arturs! One suggestion I would make is to disclose that are now working on Gideros at the beginning of the article rather than the end. Otherwise I think it is a fair review. :)

-Josh

I think number 4 is the real winner. In a scenario where you have 4 or even 5 different deploy platforms it is crucial to have on-the-fly testing, basically just re-uploading the "kernel" or whatever you call your application to a fresh instance on the device. No platform specific re-compilation, no USB upload through itunes or whatever. Yes that is a definite winner as if you have the 4 of them in front of you, basically you could update the app on all platforms (even those standing in a show case room) with the click of a button. Very cool.

While point #6 does have content with merit as an opinion, the sentence "Game development is not imaginable without a proper OOP model provided in the language/environment." is actually both very wrong and misleading.

Sorry, first time user here, changed to reviews ;)

Thanks for making the change, Arturs! One suggestion I would make is to disclose that are now working on Gideros at the beginning of the article rather than the end. Otherwise I think it is a fair review.

-Josh

Thank you for suggestion, moved it to the Introduction part ;)

While point #6 does have content with merit as an opinion, the sentence "Game development is not imaginable without a proper OOP model provided in the language/environment." is actually both very wrong and misleading.

True, it sounded too biased, rephrased it

Unity does everything mentioned here better.. plus more

Even if this is an article/review of an existing package, I see it more like inspiration for my own framework (never meant to become commercial by its own). Unity is good for what it does, but it's very hard to extend and has the look-ma-we-have-plugin-x syndrome which is actually described here in point 5 and 8. Please correct me if I am wrong, as this is from an experience of a friend of mine.

Unity does everything mentioned here better.. plus more

Sure I agree, Unity has really a lot to offer.
I've tried Unity before their support for 2D and it was very complicated to start with, but I guess once you get into it, it gets better.

By the way, I don't remember Unity having instant on device testing. Is that changed now?

What the author did not mention in this post is that the drawback of exporting project files instead of app packages is that you'll need a mac to compile for ios.

I have a problem with this sort of article, especially considering the headline which brought me here. A proper name would be "10 Reasons for using our cross platform game engine". The article is superbiased and written with the intention to spread the word for one specific engine and not to inform fellow game devs.

@überflieger and I agree with you

What in your opinion would make it less biased?

If for example, all reference of the specific engines would be removed, would you still call the 10 listed features too biased?

And about exporting to Mac, either way it would be against the Apple rules to allow creating ipa without a Mac, wouldn't it?

Wow, this really seems like a provoking way of advertising. Get a banner instead. Even if it was a review, it would be really biased, as its the author himself who does the review.

Point taken! Edited it.

Just wanted to say that it is not my job to promote it (unfortunately I'm not getting paid for that ), I just wanted to share the experience and hear what others like about their favorite game engines. And I am biased to Gideros engine, but not because I work there, but because I use it in my game dev company and I really love it (and THAT is the reason why I also work there)

;)

What in your opinion would make it less biased?

Comparing at least 2-3 different engines I guess. Or not mentioning a specific engine at all. If you headline your article with "Things you did not know you needed..." then I would be much more interested why I should care about the points you make. And how you came to these points.

If for example, all reference of the specific engines would be removed, would you still call the 10 listed features too biased?

Yes, because they are chosen in order to highlight specific features of your game engine. I mean a list of such things can never be accurate, because everyone has other needs. What about IDE support? What about Debugging Capabilities? What about acess to native device features. These are things I look for in a cross platform kit. I think you can write an article about what based on your experiences you value as important.

And about exporting to Mac, either way it would be against the Apple rules to allow creating ipa without a Mac, wouldn't it?

You have to build your ipa against an ios SDK. There is no mentioning of doing this on a Mac in the Apple dev guidelines. I know of at least one cross platform kit which allows for compiling an ipa package on Windows.

@überflieger hmm, interesting I think it was mentioned somewhere more strictly then guidelines, but still your point is valid, edited the article and thank you for the feedback.

I tried to emphasize it is my opinion in the article now, so hope it is better now

BTW what engine exports ipa and how exactly that is done? By remote server? Because I imagine that even if ipa is exported, you would still need to run the engine on Mac to do so, wouldn't you?

Excuse my ignorance but what prevents a package to have a dynamic jit lua recompilable app layer? Meaning if you have the ip of the app it would just connect to get the proper execution envionment. Why would you have to go through the apple SDK if you use a VM?

BTW what engine exports ipa and how exactly that is done? By remote server? Because I imagine that even if ipa is exported, you would still need to run the engine on Mac to do so, wouldn't you?

Adobe Air for Mobile does compile native ios IPA on Windows. Their Gaming SDK comes with an ios SDK also on Windows. They provide their own packager. No remote server involved. You get a native app as a result.

BTW: I think it is great that you try to listen to the feedback here.

@spinningcube yes that is exactly how Gideros player work, but it mostly for testing purpose.
To use such system in real environment need to be more carefull, as Apple might not allow an app being published which executes none packaged code sent to the app or provided dynamically in other way

@überflieger Windows compatible ios SDK? Wow, they must have somesort of deal with Apple, or something.

And of course I try to listen to feedback, I am new here. And I'm not a writer, much less marketer :D

Just trying to express opinion and learn the ways :)

I see so it's more like their policy but it's not something they can really reinforce except after the fact like a kind of ban on certain applications once they observe such behaviour. It is really constraining developers for all the wrong reasons in my opinion, but then again people eat it up and love Apple whatever they pull. It's a raison d'etre of the appstore. Kind of preventing developers to do what they did to the music industry - to create a parallel distribution network.

@spinningcube so true :)

Well the apple explanation is the security reasons, they do not allow to run some arbitrary code on the device that did not pass their tests. Still I think there could be at least a certification process to make exceptions, but no. :)