polygone
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Posted on: February 15, 2015, 06:15:59 am |
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Location: England Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 794
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Perhaps we could get some feedback from any newer people here, what were the impressions you got when you first came here and initially ran ENIGMA and started to use it? What are the problems you most frequently run into with ENIGMA?
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I honestly don't know wtf I'm talking about but hopefully I can muddle my way through.
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Darkstar2
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Reply #1 Posted on: February 15, 2015, 02:34:28 pm |
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Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 1238
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Perhaps we could get some feedback from any newer people here, what were the impressions you got when you first came here and initially ran ENIGMA and started to use it? What are the problems you most frequently run into with ENIGMA?
I will speak for me, MIXED. I was lured because of the GM familiarity, the IDE was familiar and much of the functions, and the actually compiled nature as opposed to runner based. The bad impression at the time I joined there were strong heated discussions amongst developers and clearly had the vibe that people were not on the same page. As I kept working discovered things I wanted to do did NOT work properly in ENIGMA, and many set backs......But that was when I joined at the time, since then lots have changed, and the only thing that kept me here despite the mixed impression was my interest in learning and work around things.... so much has been fixed, unfortunately some things broke in the process, I guess that is to be expected with an open source project run by contributors, sometimes certain things get broken and the person who worked on something that broke something else has no more time to fix it etc..... Which is why first impressions can be deceiving because there are many areas where ENIGMA has improved, though still has its share of problems ATM, but for people who like workarounds it's not too much of an issue......probably one thing that can set people back and give a bad impression is no general agreement on an official licence.....and the endless debates. Since it would be unfair to say BAD impression, I will say MIXED, since there is good and bad in my opinion, where I was concerned though. Having done preliminary tests with YYC I was pleased of the file size delivered by ENIGMA to be significantly smaller than the YYC. The smallest file I could get in ENIGMA is around 300k compressed, where in YYC even compressed over 1MB in size for an empty project.......the ability in ENIGMA to deselect modules you are not using, (extensions) is a big plus. the ability to use EDL and C++ in the same project again a big plus - ability to use my own C++ functions inside my project, a big plus......I'd say at the moment my impressions would be more towards the good than bad.......most my gripes are with the lack of integration of some functions inside the IDE, which is present in GMS, and stability issues with the enigma.jar inside the IDE. For someone hoping to do direct ports 100% without issues 100% of the time, might be disappointed. Someone expected 100% compatibility with GMS, and a carbon copy of the product, might be disappointed too. For people who like workarounds and learn, they will eventually find that despite that, there are many advantages to using this over GMS, at least as far as windows development is concerned. GMS supports physics through its iDE, ENIGMA doesn't......only supports it for editing purposes but it is not functional. you have to code it yourself.....not an issue if you like coding and learning how it's done. So at the time I joined my impression was mixed.
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time-killer-games
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Reply #3 Posted on: February 16, 2015, 02:38:34 am |
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"Guest"
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Well im not a new user, but ill have you know that if it wasnt for the GM compatibility I'd find nothing about this project interesting enough to consider using it.
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Darkstar2
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Reply #5 Posted on: February 21, 2015, 02:01:02 pm |
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Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 1238
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Well im not a new user, but ill have you know that if it wasnt for the GM compatibility I'd find nothing about this project interesting enough to consider using it.
Well you might have changed your mind if you had a unique and different product not compatible but with the same ease of use, that was more powerful and did even more than what you expect of it. I guess people's minds will change soon - YYG announced officially the news and Playtech announced what they have in mind....This could all be rubbish talk but if what they say comes true, then ENIGMA will be really behind.....the only real valid reason people would continue using EGM is because it's FREE. GMS 2 is due this year, + other things as well, would be amazing if they add C++ ability alongside GML like ENIGMA, there are ways where GM can win people over, but then ENIGMA will always be FREE, so it might not completely die and lose its user base, however feature and stability wise, I guess it is to be expected that GM will shine. I admit I am skeptic as to GM's future as well, even with Playtec in the mix, I mean why the hell would a gambling company be interested in GMS - it's odd, and will they deliver or simply destroy the project will be seen, I guess maybe they will impress us all. But one thing that worries me from the start.......they mention they plan to stay aligned with YYG's visions...That's a big fucking no-no from the start......
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HitCoder
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Reply #6 Posted on: March 30, 2015, 08:29:04 am |
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Location: Oxford, England Joined: Aug 2014
Posts: 157
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I'm not new any more, but I just thought I'd give my opinion on the program, hopefully novice users may find it useful. Enigma is literally the best game dev tool I have ever found, no joke. I was on Game Maker, but because I wanted versatility between Windows and Linux, I found it annoying that GM didn't run natively in Linux, and through wine it ran like crap. Enigma on the other hand, runs perfectly. While you may have some bugs setting it up due to various issues on windows (Spaces in file paths, forgetting to run as administrator, a corrupt installer, etc...) and on Linux (Distro-varying issues, for example jar mismatch, missing dependencies, etc...) it's easy to resolve. Some things are buggy or get confusing, like there's three settings menus, a build settings, a program settings and a game settings menu, this can make it confusing, however it at least keeps things organised (just takes a bit of getting used to) Enigma is very powerful when in the right hands, even more so that GM. Personally, I think the IDE, while looking like Game Maker intentionally, I personally find the IDE to feel cluttered, which is an issue with GM as well, I would like to see the ability to use NaturalGM as an IDE, but I'm not sure how that would work... I just want to see an IDE that is tab based, like Eclipse. A cool feature would be to have the ability to switch between the window-manager IDE and a tabbed IDE. I like how when I run it on Linux on GTK I get an interface like this: (Notice the 'task-bar' thing at the bottom? It behaves like tabs.) TL/DR this is a lifesaving program making Game Maker obsolete (in my opinion) EDIT: ENIGMA will be really behind.....the only real valid reason people would continue using EGM is because it's FREE. GMS 2 is due this year, + other things as well, would be amazing if they add C++ ability alongside GML like ENIGMA, there are ways where GM can win people over, but then ENIGMA will always be FREE, so it might not completely die and lose its user base, however feature and stability wise, I guess it is to be expected that GM will shine. Actually, I was in a skype group and when that news was first announced they were going on about how it'll ruin GM, an how it won't succeed, etc... they threw a ton of negative comments at this... But that's because some people just can't handle change. I suggested moving to Enigma to them, guess what? They said they'd stick with original GMS... Some people. >.>
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« Last Edit: March 30, 2015, 09:24:24 am by HitCoder »
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Computer Scientist, Programmer in C#, C/C++, Java, Python, GML, EDL, and more. Hobbyist musician. DISCORD: HitCoder#4530
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Darkstar2
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Reply #7 Posted on: March 30, 2015, 11:03:39 pm |
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Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 1238
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Well if PlayTec has the smarts they could easily win ENIGMA users over. 1) uncripple the windows side, that was raped and mangled by YYG, re-introduce back the functions that were deprecated for no reason other than laziness. 2) Optimise the bloody YYC! I've managed to make ENIGMA project sizes more than half the size of the same project in YYC! I really like how ENIGMA groups certain functions as "extensions" and allows you to exclude categories of functions you don't need, making the compiled file much smaller! 3) add native video support, add ability to add external sounds (sound_add) yes they do handle audio dynamically,but some people want the add function back!!!) 4) add C++ support alongside GML. Ability to mix GML and C++ in the same project would be great. 5) actually listen to the people who pay for their salaries, us users who buy their products they have read over they years many complaints from users on their own community and here... now they have no more bloody excuses, they have the seed investment, they should get to work! If they can do that they might win back some people. Right now I plan on making my own dynamic resource handling/encryption/decryption engine in C++ and used alongside a project - I mean after all, YYC converts to C++ and compiles, so no reason not to offer C++/GML integration. Mind you, they NEVER considered ENIGMA a threat anyway, and they are right lol. BUT if they wanted maybe to start widening their market instead of their 0-9 year old demographic target, to target a wider group including advanced developers who want to make more than catch the fucking clown, burst the balloons and mario clones! Cheers
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time-killer-games
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Reply #8 Posted on: March 31, 2015, 04:48:49 am |
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"Guest"
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lol i am very afraid of clowns especially that one. it tries to catch my attention all over the internet. i have nightmares waking me up at the buttcrack of dawn. its tragic. if they actually had good tutorials and sample projects shipped with their engine, ya know, like what i see Unity doing on their fb page im subribed to with lust but im dry of the same money i couldve invested on that on GMS instead. i was set up. wanted to make games googled generic game maker and boom im stuck with shit unil ive completed my investment in moving out of my parents house, got a job with a crazy badass pay i feel lucky and spoiled bc its a job help programming web content for someone at my familys church he nos im lazy and hes ritch paying me crapload of money to help me generously i think hes even losing money in this help me succeed in life its amazing. bad news im already hired but never actually started yet he wants me to learn json, flash, and php figures my least fav web language among the very few i have no interest in or experience with, been putting off the tuts so my savings still consist of 0 dollars and 0 cents when im 20 anxious to move out booked reading this shit that doesnt interest me nothing like c++ which i actually know how to code in for years now and actually consider useful. the motivation is wats making hard. ill be lucky to purchase a decent license of unity by the time im 50 due my priorities i hate my fucking family moving is my first concern so they dont give me the eviction notice they threaten daily over stupid shit like if i look at them funny even. american law is fucked up it supports my family kicking me out bc they hate me over things i cant help like disagreeing them on everything thing it doesn matter even if i honor and submit to their wish they think im psychotic bc i dare disagree with them bout anything. oh my im sorry i have the audacity of having brain forming unique views just like everyone else on the damn planet. excuse mom and dad i obey and respect u all the time godamn but but wat yu cant force me to is agree with wat u force me to do i do it anyway without complaining isnt tht good enough for crying out loud. u cant do this bc u dnt like me me and im a legal adult wat other reason is there. this is some serious bad juju. i blame game maker and where the fuck r my goddamn meds for shits sake
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« Last Edit: March 31, 2015, 05:17:20 am by time-killer-games »
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Wendigo
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Reply #9 Posted on: April 01, 2015, 07:37:22 am |
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Joined: Apr 2015
Posts: 42
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My first impression on Enigma by having a quick look at the documentation section in the wiki and viewing some screenshots was just "WoW!". I'm running linux on my computer and apart from godotengine there is no other game engine I know of that comes with a level editor and a text editor with code completion. Compiling was quite easy thanks to the nice tutorial but I encountered an issue when running LateralGM cause of a version conflict of JNA that I could solve by purging the already existing JNA lib. I have never used game maker before (*cough* linux guy) so I was a little lost at first. There was this cool feature rich game engine but I could only find two small tutorials about how to create a simple game with it. After reading in the forum I found out that the IDE design is actually based on game maker. With this information I could find a heap to help online. I haven't done any serious projects with Enigma yet but my first impression is absolutely positive. The only worry I have is related to the inactivity on development side -> no commits since end of 2014. So from my point of view this things should be adressed: - Fix the JNA issue as soon as possible. Not everyone is as patient as me. - Make clear that the IDE is built like game maker so noobs know where to look for tutorials and stuff. - Create binary zips for linux or add at least a package / repo for debian (ubuntu, mint, etc) based distros which are the majority at the moment. - Advertise Enigma. (Maybe create an official "Enigma-Dev" channel on youtube and post some videos (feature presentations / tutorials etc)) Sadly the engine is absolutely unknown at the moment even among us linux users that have few alternatives. - Choose a license that allows for commercial publishing of games
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« Last Edit: April 01, 2015, 07:48:25 am by Wendigo »
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polygone
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Reply #11 Posted on: April 01, 2015, 12:36:18 pm |
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Location: England Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 794
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How many people are actually developing still or planning on developing again after some other commitment? Things seem rather dead on the forum and in the repo...
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I honestly don't know wtf I'm talking about but hopefully I can muddle my way through.
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Darkstar2
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Reply #12 Posted on: April 01, 2015, 02:23:56 pm |
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Joined: Jan 2014
Posts: 1238
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never actually started yet he wants me to learn json, flash, and php figures my least fav web language among the very few i have no interest in or experience with, been putting off the tuts so my savings still consist of 0 dollars and 0 cents when im 20 anxious to move out booked reading this shit that
Well I wish you the best of luck, I guess everything happens for a reason in life, I don't believe in coincidences A lot of unexpected stuff happens, I can relate to a lot of that. Seems you have gone through rough patches as well, I have too and going through a shitty FUCKING one myself, sometimes you plan stuff and things get derailed, I planned to do lots of projects with GMS, ENIGMA, C++, but things came to a halt, so yeah I guess maybe certain things are meant to be and others not. ill be lucky to purchase a decent license of unity by the time im 50 due my priorities i hate my fucking family moving is my first concern so they dont give me
I don't know your exact age, but I'm guessing you might be far from 50 so by that time Unity might be the equivalent of a C-64...... I don't have much hope for the desktop PC industry, it will be taken over by shitty consoles and mobile or hand held ! the evicion notice they threaten daily over stupid shit like if i look at them funny even. american law is fucked up it supports my family kicking me out bc they hate me over things i cant help like disagreeing them on
I don't know about specific laws, but unless you are a minor, if you are of legal age (adult) they can evict you. but there are weird laws indeed, you have kids suing parents, parents suing their children, etc...so yeah I guess anything is possible now. everything thing it doesn matter even if i honor and submit to their wish they think im psychotic bc i dare disagree with them bout anything. oh my im sorry i have the audacity of having brain forming unique views just like everyone else on the damn planet.
psychotic ? I've been called far worse lol. Yeah I guess people say shit when they are raging with anger and in intense disputes, I can write a book on this subject myself, I've said stuff and I've been called stuff I guess we all are crazy in a way, some resentment, anger, hidden feelings tucked in sometimes comes out and explodes.
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Josh @ Dreamland
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Reply #13 Posted on: April 01, 2015, 10:56:23 pm |
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Prince of all Goldfish
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 2950
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I'll develop again, at some point. I have other interests, at the moment (and an increasing number of them). Though I'll admit, there's something I'm hoping will come along that would rekindle my interest in the project.
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"That is the single most cryptic piece of code I have ever seen." -Master PobbleWobble "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Friends of Voltaire
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time-killer-games
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Reply #14 Posted on: April 03, 2015, 01:03:41 pm |
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"Guest"
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I dont normally post long ass shit like this but pleass bear with me guys this is very fucking important!! @Josh, ISM, ExDeus, Robert, DS2 and all the contributors here - love how you guys have been working on this game engine and ide for several to many years and your acting like now more than ever this project is dead and a pile of shit just about the exact same time were getting these new members telling you the oposite. As been said from them ill reiterate, "ENIGMA is why i find GameMaker:Studio obsolete" - notice that was said even with him knowing no mobile or console support yet, must mean he really fucking likes it!! Or what about "Im the only strictly linux user for the most part who uses this because while i find it much better than the very limited linux alternatives out there, no one else will feel the same way without knowing it exists" - advertise your awsome shit damnit!! You may think its a good idea to leave the GM compatibility, but face it most people who like this product is because of the GM project support. Even DS2 who tries to pretend otherwise, as he said he may or may not switch back to GMS, but if he did hed need to rewrite his projects from shit if it wasnt for the amazing level of compatibility it has now. Even people who have had no experience with or awareness of GM wouldnt use this right now if it wasnt for it being a GM clone. While we have doc'd stuff on our wiki, we'll NEVER be able to provide the level of insight the GMC and YYG themselves provide for their engine, as its been said ill repeat "I had no idea how to use this thing and couldnt do anything but set up LGM with the plugin and run an empty untouched project, but once i found out it was a game maker clone, the GMC gave me EVERYTHING i needed from top to bottom" - being honest, with the little motivation and interest in developing the project there is now, do you honestly think for a SECOND we'll ever have as big a help resource on our wiki that would EVER compare to whats on the GMC, not to mention the YYG wiki/helpdesk and help doc. Are you really saying if we became an independent product from GM wed magically get the motivation to do more work and be more a competitor to YYG any sooner? Im pretty sure for the reasons given, that would slow down our progress greatly for years to come and would ultimately kill the project. People like this shit for the GM compatibility no matter how much you as the devs dont agree. We need their documentation, helpdesk, GMC, their audience partially, etc on top of the idea if you really did make enigma its own shit that would be more work not less, not just for the technical help side of things as mentioned, but also the core engines code itself. Thats a lot more functions and features to write from scratch or base on what we already have but renamed and rewritten almost completely, AND somehow "do a better job than YYG" in addition? REALLY, now?? Youll magically find the strength to do it then with life getting in theway just as much i can garentee it, you wont be able to make money from the project anyway from how its licensed, you may be able to relisense with permission from every to enable closed souraced commercial games, but i can garentee youll never be able to sell the engine with it open source whether whole or in part, and not every contributor wil approve of the idea of making it closed source so thats your fault for going GPL as a 16 yo Josh no offense and sticking with it all the way till now that your arent a minor and have a real legal voice, very late for that now. Money might motivate, as your only hope of more motivation, you still cant help life getting in the way of all the people developing this, and dont forget you arent exactly set up for an ideal future as far as making money on this project due to its self destructive licensing. I say dont pursue selling it, and just as much please do keep the GM compatibility. It isnt dead just yet but dont set yourself up to kill it off completely and that what these things would do exactly. @Just at DS2 - you do realise DLL extension while are very messy are just as effective roughly as adding your own source code to anything that is open source even though GMS isnt? An example of this you cant do anything about what built in,the game file sizes are bigger than enigma's but its stil very damn small no one fucking cares bc whether you use ENIGMA or GMS the only real filesize concern that can REALLY increase your filesise in a way that actually matters is not the base engine but the many images, especiall if HD, and the many sounds, espcially if its an actually goooood game that uses more than one stupid repetative soundtrack, ie They Need To Be Fed and eveything else that sceams YYG or typical mobile shit you wont see on any quality console except OUYA and the likes. Even XB1 and PS4 ndies know how to be more talented than that shit. Again, even pixel art games, like 16-bit obvs, that filesize can really fucking grow if the game is of an acceptable commercial length and quality, and that will require a TON of varying images and visuals, ultimately could turn stuff into the GBs pretty fast as far as media, where as look at the core runner, the only thing to worry about there is like but a couple MB not even? Who fucking gives arip? The runner code is always the same size with every game YYC or not and the rest is simply your media and raw text "settings" appended to it. Notice every GMS exe is the same size, the data.win in that directory and the external audio is the only difference youl see in that folder, all the YYC does is replace th interpreted code with native and appending that data.win file within the executable binary itself insead of an external file. Its the same thing across platforms. Androd for instance the data.win file for windows looks exactly like the game.droid file in your android apks asset subfolder. Its the same exact file if you compile the same project, except for varying platforms with the project untouched. The game.droid equivalent for data.win is the same exact filesize, copile for android, extract the game.droid, rename it data.win and put in in the default runner.exes directory. Itll run the same exact game using that file as though using the original data.win. also dont act like GMS cant do videos, it can and much better than enigma, not with lonewolffs shitty windows only hogwash, thats as worthless in my book as what enigma has, while it has more functionality, windows is the dumest shit ever to support exclusively with no other platforms in mind bc every game engine on earth nearly supports windows for crying out loud. This is why im planning to port my extensions to Linux and Android as well as mac ehen i finally get one. Other than that i know how to program android and linux extensions i got a new LG android phone (so much better than my shitty old as hell samsung that broke) and i have a second machine running ubuntu and im considering a dual boot for my windows machine. I alreaday have everything i need to support 3 very important platforms, one enigma doesnt have, i just need the time for it which ill have startig in 3 months thanks to summer. Get this, GMS supports Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android for Video playback thanks to two well updated extensions on the marketplace. everything that GM made obsolete one way or another can be just as easily added back with extensions just as ENIGMA did by being open source. Thats exactly what nearly all my extensions are doing. @DS2 and lonewol-double-"f"-for-double-the-fuck - Here's the video player extensions i was talking about, the desktop ones should all work in ENIGMA too. Im actualy glad someone beat me to it in making a video player in this case, they did it right, saves me of a lot of trouble, it isnt free, eh, why should i care, at least the price is worth it knowing that platforms in mind. Lol yeah lonewolff im still talking about you but its not a personal attack its just the truth you act like in your MP profile you know tons of languages, when either you only know C++ and or windows only stuff like Visual Basic as your personal website ("win32developer") and everythig else your online content suggests, you really like programming for windows exclusively and id consider that nearly useless in todays crossplatform market standards. :p why do you program again?? Seriously man your a mystery i seriously dont get the lack of appeal. Lonewolff please cry on the GMC they arent letting me back anyway as i just checked again nothings changed in their view since day one of my ban. Dont forget gamejolt, im leaving there as soon as they add the disable rating and comments feature their planning, once thats done ill be using the site merely as file sharing system like dropbox and nothing more as the community ive ben avoiding for a while now. :p Windows, Mac, and Linux (FFMPEG based, cant beat that!) (one crossplatform extension, an extension done right) https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/1524/cttvideoplayerAndroid (Android API based, still MUCH better than windows only shit!) https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/1406/videoplay-android
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« Last Edit: April 03, 2015, 01:34:24 pm by time-killer-games »
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