Hey everyone, I am making this post because I am interested in what you think about Buildbox in general and if you purchased MC2 what you think about Buildbox 3. I am working with BB for a year now and I managed to publish one game to both IOS and Android so far. I had LOTS of issues with integrating HeyZap and exporting my games in general. It really annoyed me that there was no helpful guide on how to actually get your game running on a store and make money with ads while this is most likely the main goal of your app and why you purchased BB. I also purchased MC2 for over 2500$ !!! That is an insane price and I expected that BB3 would be ready at the end of December 2017 which they said would most likely be the case. Instead of that BB3 ALPHA was released just today to those people who spent over 2500$. You can not make a final game with that yet. Yes, I know there will be fixes and improvements but still, for that price I expect a final product at this point. Don't get me wrong, I think that BB is a really great product but I feel like the price is set way to high for a product that often has bugs or is not even ready to make a proper game. Right now I have an issue with BB2.3, it does not let me create an APK for Android for whatever reason. I contacted the support and they said there will be a patch very soon. It's been 2 weeks and I still can not upload my APK to the Play Store. It is a very good program but for that price it should be even better in my opinion. What do you guys think? Let me know!
Hello, I agree with you. BB 3 would have to be a Beta version, not Alpha. I guess you will have seen the manuals to integrate Heyzap, but I think this should be integrated into BB itself. On the creation of an APK in BB 2.3, have been solved in the version of BB 2.3.2, you have to use Android Studio. If you have problems to create an APK, you can buy my services offered in BBriver, http://www.bbriver.com/market/i-build-your-game-to-apk But before making the purchase, I suggest you send the project (Android Folder) to verify 100% that your project can be exported to Android.
If you search the forum, there are already a lot of threads talking about 2.3 and MC2. On my side, if I would reply here I just would repeat myself over and over. All your points are valid. But they are no different to what has been known before you bought the product. You did see the thread for MC2 after the event, did you? I'm using Buildbox now for two years and 'got used' to it. It's just how it is. And you got in in the right moment, because the Buildbox team is trying right now to get things sorted out for good. If your main reason was to buy MC2 because of Buildbox 3 then you definitely made a mistake. It won't be production ready until 2019 (or late 2018). It was always thought to be the goodie that gets you a long term value for your invested money. Once it is here and it works bug free, it will be awesome and you don't have to pay a dime extra. That's awesome. Until then, you can use Buildbox 2.x which is powerful too. And believe me, a year will be over in no time. Edit: Wow @jcalle, you are cheap...
Hi Freddy, you paid $2500 for Buildbox 2, Pixelbox, Voxelbox, Animationbox 2, Soundbox 2 and early access to Buildbox 3. As you've seen, we've been constantly updating all of this software the past month and will continue to do so. The updates to 2.X put is slightly behind on 3.0 development. We're not far from beta, but honestly Freddy, at this point, I think it's best to refund you. You can email support@buildbox.com and we'll take care of that. I'm sorry you were expecting a final product at this point, but that is realistically not going to happen. Buildbox 3 is a MASSIVE project what will be in beta for months.
As I said I still think BB is a good product and it makes creating Apps much easier than coding. But you guys should try working on the game publishing end so your customers don't have to spend hours on trying to figur out how to implement HeyZap etc (I know there are some tutorials but most of them are outdated or cover only one of IOS App / Play Store and the ones that finally worked for me were not from BB but from BB customers). Ignoring all the annoying bugs I faced while I made my apps I ended up with a good and working game. But the exporting and uploading part was a pain in the a.. and nowhere near to easy. With Buildbox you can make easily a good looking game but in my opinion that should also include to actually publish your good looking game. Hope you understand my improvement suggestions
Great suggestions, Freddy. Totally agree on all of those. We're creating a new system to handle SDKs. Right now we have more options than any other drag and drop game builder, but it's still a pain in the ass to use. With 3.0 this will be revamped. As for exporting, that's a tough one. I actually met with Apple on this one. The problem is digitally signing games. I wanted to create an account and let all you guys upload your games to it (with your ad ID's so you make all the money), but Apple was against it. Then soon after they released their updated terms which stated you couldn't have the same game types uploaded multiple times... so we understood why. For the last year we've been working on a system that will do all the XCODE and Android Studio stuff for you. You just input your account info and it creates the build. This requires a LOT of error detection (i.e. what if someone has a different version of xcode, incomplete build, weird SDK, etc), but it is something we plan on doing. Finally, this year we also plan on coming out with a BUILDBOX PLAYER app. You can send a BBDOC to this app and play it without having to export or anything else. This will be great for testing on device, or just sharing a quick game with a friend. Keep the suggestions coming, Freddy, we take all this stuff very seriously.
After downloading BuildBox 3 Alpha Version, I can easily say that in the upcoming months, this software will be the best one out there and will stay like this for a very long time, maybe 3-4 years. As a MC2 buyer, it is a great investment if you plan on creating games for the next 5 years. I think that we are slowly approaching to the end of the 2D stuff and everyone is really focusing on 3D now. Maybe I am wrong but buildbox made the right move by pushing BuildBox 3 to life. It might take a while before I can even adapt to it but I think it will be worth the journey.
I can only agree! Buildbox 3.0 is soo awesome! I can’t wait to get my first games ready with Buildbox 3. It‘s much better and stable than i have expected for the first alpha version! But i think i should learn more JavaScript Good Job Guys
Having downloaded bb3 and seen video guide I’m hugely excited by the new logic/process options if, as I assume, they will be there for both 2d and 3D. For me personally this is more exciting than the 3D. I think 3D is going to be huge and is very exciting but it looks like good game design for it will be quite a bit more challenging. I’d love to see perhaps a marketplace for coded logic options to encourage developers time into it. I Don’t know JavaScript very well but I’d be happy to learn it if I can wrap it into Buildbox as a framework and have amazing flexibility. Very exited for the future of B.B. albeit that it’s going to take some time to get there.
One thing I'm a little bit worried about is the the 3D animation in BB3 and how it's going to be implemented. The only way these days is with FBX files that contain the animation frames, you can't do this with OBJ files. Then there's the question of the 3D collision system. The FBX one is simple you just need to drag in the file in the right slots E.g walk idle jump run die same way you would a 2D animation. But it's early days yet and I'm liking what I see so far! keep up the great work guys.
Great feedback guys, sent to the dev team. Thanks! Yes, when we finish 3D nodes, we'll be porting over all the relevant ones to 2D Lots of discussion internally about this. We know we have to have SOME basic rigging, so we're discussing that.
@TreySmith Very excited to hear BB3 alpha is up and people are enjoying it! I can't wait till everyone can test it out and not just MC2 customers. One thing I am worried about is with 3D come a lot bigger ideas, scope-wise. Will there be a form of source control for teams with more than one person working on the game? Also, I feel you will need more than they have just "some" basic rigging system. People are going to want to push 3d to its limits and animations are pretty easy to come by for 3d characters. https://www.mixamo.com/, for instance, all you need to do is model a character in T-pose then upload it and pick what animations you want. Mainly thinking of all this since you said you want consoles with 3.5 and if someone is to release a console game they will more than likely need a team of people since releasing for consoles is WAY different than releasing for mobile. This is just what I have seen and thought of so far, with my background in game development. I honestly can't wait to dive into the javascript node creation and see what all I can do with BB3!
Yes, but not until we get to about version 3.5... when we start focusing on console development. We'll start adding things in before, but my preliminary goal for this stage is having TRUE team support where you can watch your teammates making changes in the software in realtime. Like Google Docs. But that will be well after release. Sure, me too, but it's not realistic at launch. Way too many other things we have to nail down. Think bugs are bad now? Then watch us try to fit EVERYTHING in there on 1.0. It would be a total train wreck. It will definitely be improved more and more over time though
Glad to hear the concentration here is on getting a rock solid BB3 for release. We need to walk before we can run.
As long as it will improve I am ok with that . I could probably get away with rendering out png images for 3d animations until then lol. Thanks for the response @TreySmith! I am really looking forward to testing BB3 out during beta! Be warned! I will push BB3 past its limits lol
Hi Trey An app previewer is definitely something which is really needed so that the game developer can actually preview it in their devices. This is something that has been done by many online appbuilders all over the world. You build the app and when it comes to checking you can actually have it tested on the previewer in the device. As for the Xcode exporting stuff probably you can explore incorporating a part where devs can upload their provisioning profiles and distribution certs into buildbox... and then one hit of a button it can generate an ipa file which is ready to be uploaded using AppUploader... no hassles of Xcode at all. I know this is certainly possible as we are currently using an appbuilder that has that feature... unfortunately it cannot build games Please PM us if you would like to know or try out the possibility of this to incorporate into buildbox (Dang we can't send you a PM... LOL). We'll give you an access to the appbuilder to understand better
If you have any problem then you can hire me as Buildbox Assistant. I can assist you to make games, troubleshooting and solve your problems if i can https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01f22e555384972771/
