Monkey Roadmap [MONKEY NEWS]

Monkey Forums/Monkey Programming/Monkey Roadmap [MONKEY NEWS]

marksibly(Posted 2013) [#1]
Hi,

Ok, I've put together a brief 'roadmap' of what I'm likely to be implementing Monkey-wise in the near future. I'll pin this and update it every now and then...

After thinking over what BRL vs 'the community' should be doing, I have decided BRL should take on more of the '1st party' stuff - in particularly, ads and IAP. These are two pretty fundamental features of free/cheap mobile games these days, and since Google, Apple and MS all offer 1st party solutions for these it makes sense to have them built-in to Monkey as much as possible. For 3d party stuff like flurry, chartboost etc, I'll work on making the 'native' Monkey APIs easier to use and more flexible so that it will hopefully be easier for the community to provide their own solutions.

Mojo3d is already in development - although it may not be called that once it's finished. The basic idea here is to provide a simple, immediate mode, low level 3D API that people can use to write higher level stuff with, for example, a backwards compatible Mojo driver capable of enhanced effects/custom shaders etc. Currently, I am aiming for compatibility with all targets capable of gl2/gles2/d3d11. More on this is it develops...

Anyway, this is a bit brief but here we go:


Short term:

* Https support for HttpRequest android, iOS, win8. C++ later...
* IAP for android, iOS, win8.
* PubCenter(?) ads for wIn8.
* Googleplay gamecenter?
* SetDisplayMode for xna.

Next up:

* Android NDK target.
* 'Mojo3d' - simple low level, gles2-ish 'immediate mode' 3d module for android, iOS, win8, html5 and glfw targets.
* 'Mojo2din3d' - backwards compatibility wrapper for mojo with additions, ie: 'mojo with shaders'.

Ongoing:

* Fix android audio limitations issues.
* Implement better png/jpg loaders for C++ targets.
* Solve delete .build dir issue, probably via version info in TARGET.MONKEY.
* More work on Modman - dependancies, sub repositories, module sub dirs etc.
* Improve/document native APIs to make it easier for people to add 3rd party add ons.
* Factor out a bunch of app config settings, e.g.: APP_LABEL, APP_PACKAGE, APP_IDENT, APP_ORIENTATION etc.
* Implement app renaming in a consistent way across all targets.
* Rewrite remaining bmx tools in Monkey - ie: rebuildall and mserver.
* Glfw3 target.
* WebSockets.





AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#2]
any plans for GLFW3?


Raph(Posted 2013) [#3]
Thanks for doing this, Mark!

If I had to mention one thing, it'd probably be networking. Seems like there isn't a clean way to do this across targets?

I'd mention render-to-texture, but I guess that would come with mojo2dIn3d. :)


muddy_shoes(Posted 2013) [#4]
Cool. Looking forward to seeing where the GLES2 API goes.


marksibly(Posted 2013) [#5]
> any plans for GLFW3?

Added to 'ongoing' - definitely a sensible move to make eventually, but I think the recent glfw2 updates make it less of a priority right now.

> If I had to mention one thing, it'd probably be networking. Seems like there isn't a clean way to do this across targets?

'Networking' is one hell of a broad term! What sort of games are we talking about?

Tcp/udp are in there for most targets, the notable exception being html5 (and xna/flash, but I consider them lower priority - more on that later too). WebSockets then become the obvious choice - which I *assume* can be implemented with plain sockets - but these are tcp based which might not make them appropriate for 'twitch' games? Dunno, been a while since I did any serious network coding, and it generally involved udp tailored to the game.

So...what do people want networking wise?


wiebow(Posted 2013) [#6]
Thanks for this , Mark. Really nice to post this!


Xaron(Posted 2013) [#7]
Woah IAP. Yes, yes, yes!!! Thanks Mark, sounds good!


Oddball(Posted 2013) [#8]
Looks good to me. The only other thing I'd like adding at the moment is an official OUYA target.


Xaron(Posted 2013) [#9]
Oddball I tend to disagree on this one. IMHO Mark should focus on the 3 big ones and let us make custom targets for all those "come and go" platforms.


Difference(Posted 2013) [#10]
Looking good!

Will the Mojo3d thingy double as a way to "extend" Mojo ?

[BROKENRECORD]
Yes, - I still want to draw concave polygons and thick lines, without having to rehack "Drawtriangles(points:Float[],indexes:Int[])" and DrawTriangleStrip(points:Float[]) into Mojo everytime you update.
[/BROKENRECORD]


John McCubbin(Posted 2013) [#11]
"Mojo2din3d" and "SetDisplayMode for xna" already made my day.

Thanks for creating this roadmap it's always good to know what is and isn't on the horizon when planning stuff, for example now we can be more confident in creating desktop games with the intention to sell on portals with the upcoming Display Mode for XNA, assuming it also allows for windowed / fullscreen switching. Exciting stuff!


OvineByDesign(Posted 2013) [#12]
Looks all good to me

/StuC


therevills(Posted 2013) [#13]
Is there a real need for the Android NDK target? What would be the benefits?

The new target system is a lot better, but have you thought about how to add more languages without recompiling trans etc?


Oddball(Posted 2013) [#14]
Oddball I tend to disagree on this one. IMHO Mark should focus on the 3 big ones and let us make custom targets for all those "come and go" platforms.
That would be nice, but unfortunately the community is fickle and unreliable. I don't hold out much hope for user made targets being maintained and kept up to date.


Supertino(Posted 2013) [#15]
Though I applaud Xaron and others for their work on the IAP stuff it super exciting to see this might be handled officially by BRL and Google play services too =D


muddy_shoes(Posted 2013) [#16]
An NDK target should give a performance boost for CPU-heavy tasks (e.g. Box2D). There's a question mark over relative GC performance between Dalvik's and the Monkey C++ implementation.

If someone has an iOS device and an Android device with comparable processors and memory then comparing those should give a reasonable idea of what an NDK target would offer over Java.


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#17]
An NDK target should give a performance boost for CPU-heavy tasks (e.g. Box2D). There's a question mark over relative GC performance between Dalvik's and the Monkey C++ implementation.

If someone has an iOS device and an Android device with comparable processors and memory then comparing those should give a reasonable idea of what an NDK target would offer over Java.

Just to add my opinion to what muddy_shoes has already said, I agree that pure arithmetical operations can be faster but not sure about the GC and the long therm performance when the App is being used for a long time. I don't know current C++ GC status, but I don't remember it preventing memory fragmentation and on small devices this is a nice plus on the Java side. Not sure if this is something very important or not, and if this is properly reduced by making full collection on a per-frame basis or the like, but there's something sure, the Androi Java GC has been much more than tested, and that's something we should benefit from.


muddy_shoes(Posted 2013) [#18]
For a while I leaned towards trusting the Dalvik GC in preference to Monkey's internal one too. Over time I've come to the conclusion that iOS is a C++ target so you mostly end up having to code with that in mind anyway. An NDK target will make things more consistent even if it has some possible downsides if your code leans on the garbage collector.


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#19]
An NDK target will make things more consistent even if it has some possible downsides if your code leans on the garbage collector.
That's a very good point. If they can share the core implementation, they should have a more consistent performance and memory presure on collection, etc. I still think comparing both methods in the same device can be very interesting to get a real comparison. I supose Dalvik GC is not really designed for realtime applications. I do not mean to say that Monkey uses a realtime GC on C++, but it feels "very" realtime.

I may be the only one that sees small pauses every once in a while when developing Android games? I have always thought it is the Garbage Collector or the audio engine, but not 100% sure and it was almost unoticeable, so I haven't bother investigating any further.


MikeHart(Posted 2013) [#20]
No ziggy, you are not the only one.


Tibit(Posted 2013) [#21]
* IAP for android, iOS, win8.

Wow! That was over my expectations VERY good news for us targeting mobile, amazing! Thanks! And thanks for the roadmap as well, seems very good to me :)

On the network side of things. What we have currently looks great, only html5/flash miss out. Multiplayer mobile & web-games is an attractive indy market. Check this out: https://www.facebook.com/stickrunpage - 4.7 M likes, and now you go play the game, is multiplayer the defining factor maybe? ;)

A lot of games and apps don't need action packed network traffic, TCP can be enough. Consider World of Warcraft is TCP (released 2004) and is quite realtime-ish according to me.

Html5 WebSocket support should be simple to wrap considering how small the API is, or? Targeting html5/flash is also very nice for client-testing purposes. For html5 (as a client) to connect to a server we only need to read a header and some pack data? Flash has socket support and their API also seems quite simple?

So my wish is that we get Client-Side TCP-only support for flash & html5. Then let the community handle the higher level stuff like wrapping it up in a easier to use interface. Myself I'd vote for html5 before flash as a first step.

Flash:
ref: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/net/Socket.html
ref: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/socket_policy_files.html

Html5:
ref: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6455 (Opening handshake is like http)


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#22]
Excellent stuff, its always brilliant to know whats going on and whats coming in the future. The 3d module does sound REALLY interesting as an extension to mojo so we can have mojo2d over 3d


ElectricBoogaloo(Posted 2013) [#23]
WHEN KAN I HAS PUT TEH "LIKE ME ON FACEBOOK" BUTTINS INTEW MAI GAIMS?!

-=-=-

A good plan, should be fun to get extra power as we go, but I'm never one to complain about the tools. I tend to stick with what's available, and .. Well.. Anyone who's played my games knows my limits!

Not sure if there's anything missing, as far as I'm concerned.
It'd be nice to have more than one savestate(), maybe savestate(locale,data), but I'm coping well enough without it, if I'm honest, so it's not too important.
What's more important, right now, is me spending some cash on a half decent server that could actually cope with some proper ingame back-and-forth'ing.
...Ho hum!!

Keep it up, Mark!


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#24]
all good news, I have to agree with the rest that IAP news is really good, while community made solutions are being worked on I also take comfort in knowing its getting officially supported.

Had no idea a 3D solution was even being thought about so thats brilliant as well, dont have any immediate plans to do anything in 3D but I do have some games I want to port from B3D so when that time comes I should have more options, and you know we all like options.


ElectricBoogaloo(Posted 2013) [#25]
Hey, I just noticed a lack of Atari Jaguar support on your list.
What's that about!?
You've not given up, have you?


Xaron(Posted 2013) [#26]
Haha, nice one EB!


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#27]
I think Jaguar support will be out just after the zx spectrum and atari lynx support lol ;)


John McCubbin(Posted 2013) [#28]
Ahh the Jaguar, the WiiU of the early 90's :P


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2013) [#29]
"I have decided BRL should take on more of the '1st party' stuff - in particularly, ads and IAP."

+1 for that. BRL should be concentrating on the stuff that most people need. There are lots of talented coders here who will supply the more specialised stuff.

I think you need to look at extensibility especially now when you're planning the next mojo. Maybe I'm just too much of a C++ head. but I'd like to see a 'protected' access qualifier and a stronger pre-processor: I think they'd help with it.

I would consider the Java NDK would fall under the heading of 'specialised'. Hey, we're not using Monkey because we want to 'hit the metal'!


skape(Posted 2013) [#30]
Ah, thanks for posting this Mark! It's great to know the direction Monkey is heading, at least in the shorter-mid term. Looking forward to Mojo3D/Mojo2din3d.


benmc(Posted 2013) [#31]
Wow, this literally gave me goose bumps! Seeing IAP on that list is going to change everything!!! Awesome awesome

When you say Windows 8 - is this also Windows Phone 7.1/8?

I know that my apps that I'm putting out on Windows Phone 7.1 with Monkey are compatible with Windows Phone 8 at the moment, so hopefully it's all connected.

PubCenter is the MS answer to AdMob and iAds. Implementing PubCenter on my own through VS is pretty quick and easy, but it's annoying to have to re-add it to the Program.cs on every build and test, so having it in Monkey will be incredible.

Thank you so much for the roadmap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Why0Why(Posted 2013) [#32]
Thanks for the list! I am most excited about 2D in 3D with shader effects.


Armitage1982(Posted 2013) [#33]
Would it be possible to have more info about the improvements that Mojo3D will procure to Mojo ?

Can we expect things like FBO, VBO, sprite batching, camera, etc.
Before thinking 3D there are several seriously missing 2D API, well IMO...


SLotman(Posted 2013) [#34]
Very nice to see IAP on "short term" list :)

May I ask if there is any plan to change TRANS so users can add new targets without having to recompile it? Maybe calling an external batch file, like (target_name).bat or something after the code has been translated?


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#35]
Android NDK bypasses the Java heap limitation, which isn't as much of a problem on newer Androids, but has given problems for larger more advanced apps.

EDIT:
Hey, one other question about the roadmap:
What about common libraries like XML and tweening? Should we continue to rely on 3rd party/modman for keeping these updated? i thought you mentioned something about reaching out to developers to bring certain core mods into monkey. (Maybe misread.)


Arthur(Posted 2013) [#36]
Great roadmap! All features and changed are really most important things that need to be done.


ElectricBoogaloo(Posted 2013) [#37]
XML!?
..

The Grumpy Oldskool Coder part of me would wonder why you're struggling to parse XML, and needing some sort of library to manage it. You do know it's just a pile of strings in a text file, don't you!?
There no magic to the XML file format.. That's kinda the point of it. It's like a CSV file, but with oodles of unnecessary gumf added into it, to make it more human readable.


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#38]
You do know it's just a pile of strings in a text file, don't you!?

please don't make these assumptions. Must everyone roll their own XML parser to use XML? I can do this just fine, but I believe coding smarter, not harder, is strategic to success. Re-use, not re-code.

Example: if I create a collada 3d importer using an external XML module, allowing end-coders to choose their own XML (diddy or skn3) breaks API compatibility. seeing how XML is commonly used, isn't a common API preferable over X different variations? I don't know, looking for better insight is all.

besides, i thought Mark mentioned this. if not, i'll retract the statement. there's no need to question coding abilities.


Raph(Posted 2013) [#39]
On networking, I did in fact mean WebSockets/TCP for web-based targets. I would love to do stuff with web-based multiplayer in Monkey.


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#40]
Example: if I create a collada 3d importer using an external XML module, allowing end-coders to choose their own XML (diddy or skn3) breaks API compatibility. seeing how XML is commonly used, isn't a common API preferable over X different variations? I don't know, looking for better insight is all.

While I understand why this could be very welcome in the oficial API, I honestly considere it a Non issue if you use private imports in your collada importer and make the the collada importer not dependant on anything external that the collada importer itself.


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#41]
I honestly considere it a Non issue if you use private imports in your collada importer

i'll retract the question. i just thought XML was mentioned before, perhaps i was mistaken, or perhaps Modman is the solution for these somewhat common dependencies.


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#42]
Modman is the solution for these somewhat common dependencies.
I would love it to be!


arcsrc(Posted 2013) [#43]
Thanks Mark! I'm really happy with the direction you're taking.


mjcamerer(Posted 2013) [#44]
Great to see a general roadmap! Thanks!


Raph(Posted 2013) [#45]
Something else that I suggest be added to the roadmap, perhaps longer term: full investigation of stuff like SpriteKit, Apple controller support, and TV out for iOS. I suspect this stuff is going to be important as Apple moves towards "console" with AppleTV.


Tibit(Posted 2013) [#46]
What is Modman? Sound like a much desired module system! Is there more info?


dragon(Posted 2013) [#47]
what is about bluetooth or wlan for mobile devices?
this is nice for 2 player games


muddy_shoes(Posted 2013) [#48]
perhaps Modman is the solution for these somewhat common dependencies


I don't believe it's fit for purpose in its current form:

http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=5399


impixi(Posted 2013) [#49]
Thanks for the roadmap, Mark. Looking forward to "mojo3d" and "mojo2din3d".


Xaron(Posted 2013) [#50]
+1 for Bluetooth!


tiresius(Posted 2013) [#51]
Very nice thanks for the roadmap you made a lot of people happy.


Difference(Posted 2013) [#52]
I forgot to give a massive thums up and several happy faces to:

* Improve/document native APIs to make it easier for people to add 3rd party add ons.
* Factor out a bunch of app config settings, e.g.: APP_LABEL, APP_PACKAGE, APP_IDENT, APP_ORIENTATION etc.
* Implement app renaming in a consistent way across all targets.



Here they are:

_
( ((
\ =\
__\_ `-\
(____))( \----
(____)) _
(____))
(____))____/----

:-) :-) :-)


ImmutableOctet(SKNG)(Posted 2013) [#53]
Throw in a couple of bug fixes here and there, and I'm sold. This sounds like it's going to be awesome; and I don't say that very often. The only thing I'm skeptical about is 'Mojo3D'... It sounds fantastic, but remember what happened to 'Max3D'? Neither do I.

I assume the 'Mojo2Din3D' wrapper will only be for 'Mojo3D''s supported targets, and the current 2D 'Mojo' implementations will be used for unsupported targets? Am I correct in assuming this, or do you have something else in mind?

Thanks Mark, you have no idea how ecstatic I was when I saw your first post.

Also, could you look into adding optional Visual Studio 2012 support at some point in the future? (For GLFW, and possibly XNA; assuming it's easy enough to get XNA working with it)

VS-2012 has had XP support for a while now, and the express version seems to be free (You're even using it for the Windows 8 and Windows-Phone 8 targets). Visual Studio 2010 always ran and looked better to me, but it's still another bloated IDE I'd rather not have.

EDIT: By the way, you might want to make this thread 'sticky', so it doesn't go anywhere.


dopeyrulz(Posted 2013) [#54]
I've done some investigation for using VS2012: http://monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=5485

Xna will only be compatible with VS2010.


SLotman(Posted 2013) [#55]
Also, could you look into adding optional Visual Studio 2012 support at some point in the future?

On GLFW it works here. I just had to open the "target" on VS2012 and save it again, no big deal.
(Hah! I see dopeyrulz post above is exact about this)


CGV(Posted 2013) [#56]
@Mark, could you please not ignore the Flash target when it comes to ads.

It's far from a dead market and it's significantly easier for indies to make money in the Flash market than on mobile but we need easy integration of the ad api's.

Specifically: Mochi, Mindjolt and Kongergate.


tiresius(Posted 2013) [#57]
Mojo3D might be something worth paying for in a finished form! But it sounds like Mark is giving a leg up to the gurus around here to fill it out and make it usable to a hack like me. :)


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#58]
for a non native english speaker like me, "Short term", "Next up" and "Ongoing" sound like the same thing. Care to explain wich is first, then, and latest ? thanks!


ImmutableOctet(SKNG)(Posted 2013) [#59]

Ziggy: for a non native english speaker like me, "Short term", "Next up" and "Ongoing" sound like the same thing. Care to explain wich is first, then, and latest ? thanks!


Short term: Coming relatively soon. (Probably sooner than "Next up")

Next up: After everything else is out of the way.

Ongoing: Currently being worked on / considered.


Grey Alien(Posted 2013) [#60]
So can someone please clarify: If I wanted to make a PC game to sell on casual portals or Steam, I'd really need it to use DirectX not OpenGL (so the GLFW target wouldn't be a good idea). Should I be using the XNA target instead? If so, what do I need to get that working? I know there used to be a free version of Visual Studio Express.

I would also definitely need ability to toggle full-screen/windowed mode and conserve textures, and survive ctrl_alt+del and suspend/restore etc. (like BlitzMax does). I really want to retire BlitzMax and just use Monkey instead fir my commercial PC games.


skid(Posted 2013) [#61]
If you want to publish DX games for casual games surely you should use the BlitzMax target, just because it isn't officially supported by BRL doesn't impact the fact it is possibly the best compatibility option you have in Monkey at the moment for legacy system support as required by casual portals.

You could always abandon the casual desktop market. IMHO games designed for desktop are fundamentally different from touch games, and targetting both is an exercise in failure. Same goes for targetting Android. If you game doesn't make $100 on iPhone there is absolutely no point spending the time releasing on Android when you could be working on your next iPhone game that makes you $1000 etc.


ImmutableOctet(SKNG)(Posted 2013) [#62]

Grey Alien: So can someone please clarify: If I wanted to make a PC game to sell on casual portals or Steam, I'd really need it to use DirectX not OpenGL (so the GLFW target wouldn't be a good idea). Should I be using the XNA target instead? If so, what do I need to get that working? I know there used to be a free version of Visual Studio Express.

I would also definitely need ability to toggle full-screen/windowed mode and conserve textures, and survive ctrl_alt+del and suspend/restore etc. (like BlitzMax does). I really want to retire BlitzMax and just use Monkey instead fir my commercial PC games.


In terms of getting XNA to work, all you have to do is download Visual C# 2010 Express and XNA from Microsoft; Monkey's target documentation mentions all of this.

On another note; the reason for not using OpenGL is driver support (I'm looking at you, Intel). However, if you want your game on Steam, OpenGL isn't such a bad choice. Steam is more of a gamer community than a casual community, and even the more casual users have good enough support for OpenGL. It really depends on where you're looking to sell your game.

The XNA target isn't a bad choice, but .NET has been known to be annoying to deal with, but places like Steam have users download 'redistributables'. So, either way you'll have issues, but XNA may be less of a hassle to you.

You could always have two different EXEs for your game (Probably chosen via some kind of 'launcher'), one created using GLFW, and one using BlitzMax/MonkeyMax or Ferdi's PopCap target. (For now at least)

As for screen changing in XNA, you could either wait for Mark to add it, or you could find some examples and use 'Extern'.

There are plenty of games on Steam which use XNA (Terraria, Magicka, etc). However, if you used GLFW (And you're using Steam), you could support Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, which would cover everyone on Steam. Supposedly XNA and C# can run on OS X and Linux via Mono, but I don't know enough about MonoGame to really suggest it.


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#63]
Same goes for targetting Android. If you game doesn't make $100 on iPhone there is absolutely no point spending the time releasing on Android when you could be working on your next iPhone game that makes you $1000 etc.

false.
http://monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=5509


SLotman(Posted 2013) [#64]
You could always abandon the casual desktop market. IMHO games designed for desktop are fundamentally different from touch games, and targetting both is an exercise in failure.

Well, Plants vs Zombies is a proof that you can target both with plenty of success. And there are many other examples of that.

In my opinion, if you make a game and you don't distribute it everywhere you can (and that includes desktop and mobile) you're just loosing possible customers.

I would love to get for example the DStatny's DX9 module on Blitzmax, that work pretty well and reliable to me - and create a Monkey target based on it. But for now, that is way over my head...


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#65]
Cool stuff, Mojo3D is what excites me, it sounds like it may be middle ware, that sits above various 3D APIs. One ring to rule them all, so to speak! :)


Redbeer(Posted 2013) [#66]
Thank you for the road map. This looks great and addresses many of the things I was hoping were in the pipeline.

Hopefully mojo3d will be done a few months before the end of the next US school year in June 2014 so I can do a small unit in my programming classes on 3D graphics programming.

Will you update the html5 only version when these things are done?

Unfortunately my school isn't in a position to purchase the 30 copies we'd need of the full version, even though personally I feel your pricing is very fair, we have a very fixed budget that doesn't allow for that kind of lump sum expenditure for what is essentially an elective course.


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#67]
Sounds like you should contact BRL and discuss it with them privately, maybe they can sort you out with a multi-user discounted bundle or educational discount?


Armoured(Posted 2013) [#68]
I think LVL and IAP are two important features to add to monkey pro


degac(Posted 2013) [#69]
Quick question about 'Monkey3d'.

'Mojo3d' - simple low level, gles2-ish 'immediate mode' 3d module for android, iOS, win8, html5 and glfw targets.


I know somebody is working on miniB3d porting, so what are/should be the differences with 'Monkey3d' (of course the support for any platform is the first one)?
And what does mean exactly 'simple low level'? (from 'Mojo2din3d' I undertstood shader support of some kind is integrated.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2013) [#70]

Ongoing:

* Fix android audio limitations issues.



Great to hear. I've outlined a few possible inklings of workaround ideas for the heap limitations of SoundPool in this thread, not having known prior to writing it that it was on the agenda:

http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=5577


DruggedBunny(Posted 2013) [#71]
@Redbeer: what Veggie said. BRL will almost certainly do an educational discount for you if you give them some details. Hit the Contact link at the top and choose Sales.


Grey Alien(Posted 2013) [#72]
Great, thanks for the feedback about Direct X and XNA all.

@skid: Yeah I found Android to totally suck in terms of revenue compared to iOS, but that is for casual games and thus affected by the demographic (most casual gamers I target buy iPads). Perhaps an "indie game" would do better on Android. I have friends who'd done great on it. Also, yeah I am planning to move away from casual download games for desktops but moving into indie download games instead (iOS is OK but peanuts compared to my PC revenue). So whereas I might not need to support so much legacy stuff for old casual gamer PCs, I'll still need Direct X support and a solid PC/Mac/Linux solution. I was rather hoping Monkey could be that...

@Sonickidnextgen A friend recently released a game on Steam and got so many issues with OpenGL (lack of drivers) that he has decided to convert the game to DirectX instead. This is what I found years ago in casual download games but hoped Steam user would be better (more able to use OpenGL), but it still seems that DX is safest which is why Monkey needs a decent DX target. Sounds like going through the BlitzMax target is best for now then, but it sounds a bit convoluted...


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#73]
@Sonickidnextgen: thanks!


Corum(Posted 2013) [#74]
Great updates, Mark. And I love the public roadmap idea. Many thanks!

About XNA target: has something changed since these news about its death?


golomp(Posted 2013) [#75]
Very good idea Mark !


Richard Betson(Posted 2013) [#76]
Wow,

Awesome stuff. I get side tracked developing, I finally check in and boom. Way to go Mark.

- Rich -


SlopeOak(Posted 2013) [#77]
Just want to add my voice to Grey Alien's requests for a DirectX (C++) target. I'm working on a rhythm game that does some tech trickery, and as far as I can tell, XNA will not play nice with C++ DLLs or libs.

Yes, the GLFW target works, but the driver issues that plague OpenGL on Windows are a major headache. Please consider adding a C++ DirectX target.

Thanks!


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#78]
if people are unhappy and need the DX target, i suggest trying to build GLFW and Mojo with Angle. Probably easier instead of building a new target.
https://code.google.com/p/angleproject/wiki/DevSetup


SlopeOak(Posted 2013) [#79]
That's my fallback plan, Adam. But I've heard from a friend that Angle introduces significant overhead, and resultant performance drop.

Have you tried it yourself?


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#80]
i did try plopping angle in (prebuilt libs come with Qt), but had strange problems with glfw. i wonder if glfw3 would work better?


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#81]
I think the delete build issue is easily solved with a 'build' option that deletes the build dir first. The current compile option can be relegated to 'quick build' :)


Wylaryzel(Posted 2013) [#82]
Hi Mark,

many thanks for the roadmap.

Would it be possible to update the roadmap in a way to show which planned features are already implemented and which of them are already worked on?

It would be additionally interesting what the planned ETA (can only be vague) of the 3D engine will look like and what could be expected from it?

Thx in advance
Wyl


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#83]
Would it be possible to add a system to monkey to protect assets and load from ram so basically we load in the datachunk into an array and then specify the handle to loadimage this then loads the image as if it was a file. This would also go for audio etc, the audio could be converted at creation time into something that monkey can use across the board making game creation easier as we just have the one datafile set.


Shinkiro1(Posted 2013) [#84]
Hi,
great stuff, especially the mojo3d stuff. I am excited to throw in some shaders in my game.

An updated roadmap would be appreciated.
Thanks.


blabz(Posted 2013) [#85]
Mojo3D almost sounds like ANGLE, but seriously,

Mojo3d I imagine would have some sort of "shader language" that would convert to GLSL and HLSL.

The 2 features that would really "complete" monkey in my opinion is Mojo3D, and Metadata. I really do want to put an emphasis on metadata\attributes because it doesn't get enough attention.


programmer(Posted 2013) [#86]
Any plans on iOS 7 native gamepad support?


taumel(Posted 2013) [#87]
5 wishes for Ted:

a) Some IntelliSense capability.
b) The ability to search for text within a help page.
c) An icon for CheckSource in the Toolbar.
d) Globals in the Debugger.
e) Additional memory representation of vars (Hex/Bin/Ascii) in the Debugger.


CGV(Posted 2013) [#88]
The Flash target needs an official preloader.

All Flash games need a preloader.

Please don't let the Flash preloader become another AppIcon situation.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2013) [#89]
I would like to second the pre-loader , nice looking or skinable monkey loading bar would be really cool.

it's something that should be flexible enough to use elsewhere as well.


dragon(Posted 2013) [#90]
is mojo.asyncloaders something for flash loader?

"Once the image has loaded, the OnLoadImageComplete method of the specified onComplete object will be invoked."

your game should not stop and you can create own loading bar


taumel(Posted 2013) [#91]
I'm looking forward to the next releases(s). It will be interesting to see how the shader/3d support will shape up. I just wish that monkey had a stronger focus on less officially supported platforms, like PC (Win, OS X, Linux) plus mobile (iOS and Android) and reasonable console options, once they show up. Targets like Flash and HTML-5 seem more to hinder the possibilities for the others.


rebelas(Posted 2013) [#92]
I agree with Wylaryzel above, not to write too much.


ImmutableOctet(SKNG)(Posted 2013) [#93]
I know this has been asked several times, but is 'Protected' a part of the roadmap? I'm in the middle of writing a module, and like many others, I've reached a point where I have a super class which needs to keep things private, and a derived class which needs to access private members. Normally I'd just use 'protected', but since that isn't a thing in Monkey, I'm forced to make things public.

Right now, the two best solutions I can think of are; keeping pretty much everything public, or using private abstract properties and having the fields in the derived class. The latter being far more realistic, and to some extent quite useful, and the former being bad practice.

In Monkey, the answer to this is usually the less organized 'All-in-one module' approach, where you take advantage of the classic Blitz styled 'Private' functionality. However, this could be avoided if we just had a 'Protected' directive.

You also have to take note that not all situations are solved by this method. For example; the module I'm working on requires users to create their own classes which derive from a base class in a module I've already written. As I'm sure you can see, this is problematic to say the least.

Here's an example of using private abstract properties for the sake of security:

The main file/module (No pun intended):


The module by the name of 'test':


And then finally, the 'abstracttest' module:


Don't get me wrong, I actually like this way of doing things, but I'd rather just have a 'Protected' directive. I'm not saying this needs to be added right away, but I do think it's worth adding to the roadmap.

By the way, Mark, I know it's been a while since this was first added, but private imports are a fantastic feature (Intended or not).


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2013) [#94]
Yeah, lack of 'protected' is annoying. In Java you have packages, but in Monkey there are only files, so there is no clean way to get the same effect. [Not that packages are a good solution either, protected or some equivalent is necessary IMO.]

Somebody will end up writing a C++-like pre-processor for Monkey to fix these things, and that would be evil ;-)


Supertino(Posted 2013) [#95]
Are we any further along with having full Google play services?

- Leader boards
- cloud saves
- Achievements

Could really use it (leader boards) for my next project.


ziggy(Posted 2013) [#96]
@Sonickidnextgen: I would LOVE to see that too. The "core" file of JungleGui where the basic Control, ControlContainer and Gui elements are defined is huge just becouse of this. Monkey code would be easier to maintain if we could have a Protected directive.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#97]
Things I would love to see that arent on the list are:
1) 64-bit support, we know its gonna happen on the desktop front so its best to get prepared for it by adding targets for it.

2) protecting assets, this basically means either storing everything in a encrypted file or some other way but its required.

3) incbin, its good for small projects to keep it all in one file.


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#98]
1) 64-bit support, we know its gonna happen on the desktop front so its best to get prepared for it by adding targets for it.

since this is coming up a lot in the BlitzMax forums, now would be a good time to market to individuals looking for a future-proof solution.


Wylaryzel(Posted 2013) [#99]
2) protecting assets, this basically means either storing everything in a encrypted file or some other way but its required.


Count me in for this one - would be nice if at least Joe Average couldn't easily swap or change the assets.


Xaron(Posted 2013) [#100]
2) protecting assets, this basically means either storing everything in a encrypted file or some other way but its required.


IMHO that's not a core functionality and should be done by users. Especially as it's very platform limited (e.g. mainly desktop)

What I'd love to see is:

Admob for Windows Phone 8 (as it's already there for Android and iOS)
IAP for Windows Phone 8 (as it's already there for Android and iOS)
Google Play Game Center


Sammy(Posted 2013) [#101]
Next up:

* Android NDK target.
* 'Mojo3d' - simple low level, gles2-ish 'immediate mode' 3d module for android, iOS, win8, html5 and glfw targets.
* 'Mojo2din3d' - backwards compatibility wrapper for mojo with additions, ie: 'mojo with shaders'.


TBH, if I had to make my own list of enhancements, Mark couldn't have chosen a better selection for me personally than the ones he has already lined up for the next major release. Good stuff! :)


Snader(Posted 2013) [#102]
Since a lot of developers are using Admob, I would love to see the implementation of Interstitials, like mentioned over here:

https://developers.google.com/mobile-ads-sdk/docs/admob/advanced


SLotman(Posted 2013) [#103]

Admob for Windows Phone 8 (as it's already there for Android and iOS)
IAP for Windows Phone 8 (as it's already there for Android and iOS)


+100.000 to that!


Supertino(Posted 2013) [#104]
I think... and this might be a little bias on my part cus I want to make use of leaderboards in my next project but I feel that Mark\BRL need to include full implementations of the each major platforms social, payment and ad platforms;

- Google Play services
- Amazon Game Circle
- IOS Game Centre (though I think this is more or less up to date already)
- Win 8

Be super if Mark or one of his peeps would set aside a week to bash out these additions. now I am sure they're coming and the recent IAP update was very welcome but there's so much more that needs to be done.


benmc(Posted 2013) [#105]
+1000000 for Interstitial ads from Admob.


Supertino(Posted 2013) [#106]
ah yes interstitial ads are nice, better than having to design your game around accommodating an on screen banner.


silentshark(Posted 2013) [#107]
+1 for Interstitial admob ads..


Snader(Posted 2013) [#108]
Admob isn't mainly focussed anymore on the Publisher ID:

ID of addblock: ca-app-pub-317670***846625/81***33964
Old publisher-ID: a1517*****4e49e

Maybe this can be addressed also?


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2013) [#109]
BRL really should charge extra for the IAP/Ads module.


Xaron(Posted 2013) [#110]
Yep I second that. Maybe additionally something like the asset store Unity has would be a good idea? Maybe a "module" store? I mean an official thing where Mark could get (let's say) 30% of the sales?


Supertino(Posted 2013) [#111]
Like a module store? where users and BRL could sell their monkey-fied IAP modules for various platforms and other modules for other purposes. I'd be happy to pay a few bucks for a useful modules.


EdzUp(Posted 2013) [#112]
Tbh to do something like that monkey would have to compile modules like max does so that can be put up, otherwise its just a case of copying and pasting source code.

i would love to see compiled modules being implemented somewhen as this would protect people intellectual property :)


Soap(Posted 2013) [#113]
Any movement on GLFW3 target?

http://www.glfw.org/docs/3.0/moving.html


ElectricBoogaloo(Posted 2013) [#114]
I've never played with Shaders, usually opting to bodge together random bits and pieces to create effects. Will be fun to faff about with them.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#115]
Just wondering what your plans are in regard to the next set of consoles, are you looking into an XBone target ? or PS4 ?, and given the continued decline of XNA and its seeming demise just around the corner I was wondering what your plans were if any on that front as well.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#116]
Mark could you please answer me a simple question: Will you add IAP and Admob for WP8 anytime (soon) or NOT?


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#117]
I do believe that if monkey is to take off in the current market place given its competition all the rough edges need to be addressed and sorted, things like:

1) having to redo all the paths every update iteration including colour choices

2) easier to setup targets, gone are the days of users traipsing all over the internet for tools and bits there are some tools like Unity that do make some of the things easier.

3) a better roadmap that has progress reports and what's going on.

4) clearly defined targets not a mish mash of here ya go targets but ones that work every time out of the box.

5) Admob across all supported targets

6) In App Purchases across all supported targets

7) move to GLFW3 to keep up to date with latest coding languages, also a more defined 'this version is required' to avoid the problems Blitzmax had with mingw issues.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#118]
I hate to sound like I want to pick a fight here but some people in this thread sound quite demanding compared to the amount of contributions made to the community and language itself. I would like to see some of my wishes get fulfilled myself but I don't start swinging around 'suggestions' that sound more like demands instead of wishlist requests, and in particular being incessant about it to the point of internet 'yelling'? Out-of-bounds, imho...

A few months ago I would've said we're all paying customers here, but now I'll say simply that the vast majority of us are and don't feel any more entitled to feature x than we did when we bought the thing knowing it wasn't there. If you feel cheated you should probably ask for a refund


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#119]
Firstly having used brl products for the past decade or so i have a feeling where this is going

secondly they aren't demands more like observations, monkey isn't in a one horse race anymore its in a place where the big companies make their money so it has to shine all the brighter to get noticed.


Wylaryzel(Posted 2014) [#120]
I was long time thinking to add a reply here or not.

Nevertheless, as I'm leaving a reply - I have found my answer.

First of all, I really like to use MonkeyX :-) And even while sometimes testing other enviroments and cross-plattform frameworks I come back to it. I think as long as I'm using the programming just for fun in my spare time. And herein I think is one of the strength of MonkeyX (beside the price).

But on the other side, there are some weaknesses where the other frameworks getting better and better.

First of all - again my opinion - is the very weak documentation. If Mike is stepping ahead and may write a new book with examples of the usage of the different functions, it isn't that big of an issue anymore. I'm using now Monkey for over an year (and I was never disappointed) but only slowly gain more and more momentum to find the various functions through a lot of try-and-error. This shouldn't be the case for any good language!

Second, I think alot of us are building their own framework with the same functionality (e.g. TileEngine, GUIs, etc) or using an existing one. Again, if we are not using an framework like Diddy or Ignition, we re-invent the wheel most of the time. In my opinion, there could be modules available maybe as plugins to better utilize the framework. This is again an area where compititors are getting better and better. This means, prototyping is faster in other frameworks as it is in Monkey.
Maybe with a better organisation of the different available modules from the website (or like JungleIDE is handling it with the modules) this would enhanced as well.

Third - as EdzUp was mentioning already - the roadmap should be updated more regularly. I don't think anyone would mind waiting for something as long as we know when to expect something. And if somebody couldn't wait, there is still the possibility to write their own library.

Long text short - I really, really enjoy Monkey-X, but I had already several times the idea to switch to another framework as it maybe would provide faster progress. And if you would do it for business reason where time is money, I think even if other tools are more expensive, in the long run it will be cheaper as it has enhanced productivity.

my 2 cents
Wyl


Raz(Posted 2014) [#121]
I've seen a couple of mentions of Mojo-X in a couple of threads http://monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=7941&post=78835 and http://monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=7898&post=78524 but I'm not entirely sure what it is.

I assume it's some of the things mentioned in the roadmap, but is anyone able to summarise what Mojo-X is?

Ta!


Skn3(Posted 2014) [#122]
Mojo X... hmm interesting, I wonder what potential awesomeness this is going to bring to monkey!


vmakar85(Posted 2014) [#123]
2Raz mb this link can help you Click here!


Raz(Posted 2014) [#124]
Kind of, ish! I guess it shows it exists, but I'm still none the wiser!


itto(Posted 2014) [#125]
Thanks for the roadmap, it's great to see in which direction the development is going! Just a suggestion, wouldn't it be better to use a tool more suited for the purpose, where people could comment on single features and better show the development progresses? For example I believe the free Trello would be great for this (the same developers use it to show its development status to public).


iamyellow(Posted 2014) [#126]
Hi all! I really love MonkeyX, and that's the first thing I'd like to say. The second is I'll still using it as long as it exists.
Anyway, the 3rd thing is that it's been a long time since Mark's first post on this thread and I'd like to ask him if there's some estimated time about the 'Next up' section, since I'm really interested in Android NDK and Mojo2din3d (aka/ie Mojo with shaders), I don't know... some state of everything... I noticed that most of the updates are bug fixing, more or less twice a month... I guess it's because a big thing is coming (Next up?). I also think that a time estimation will even help to hold Monkey users that are thinking in change to another framework since there're no big changes, or in other words... it feels like MonkeyX is not growing up / evolving. Hope this doesn't bother you, Mark. Also hope you answer :)
Thanks for your work!


marksibly(Posted 2014) [#127]
Alas, there is no ETA on 'next up' Monkey features.

The sad truth is, Monkey sales are not good and it's likely I will have to find some kind of 'supplementary' income soon - not easy for a guy who's never held down a real job! Well, since I was 18 anyway. This is not likely to improve productivity, but I do plan on at least continuing to provide updates/fixes and improvements to current Monkey, pretty much as I have been doing recently. But 'Monkey 2' (as it was evolving into) is right now on hold.

Also updated my blog with a bit more detail here: http://marksibly.blogspot.co.nz/


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#128]
That is a shame I'm sorry to hear sales are not as great as they could be. I'm surprised the Monkey-X related changes to site/demo didn't take root and juice up the sales. I'm sure lots of people will have marketing / business advice but as Monkey users we should get the word out as much as we can. This is such a beautiful language I'm sure we'd all like to see it continue growing.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#129]
That's sad to hear - I've been in that boat for more than once... not being able to fully commit to something and having to look for other sources of income is rather troublesome, and most of the time, depressing :(

I hope this won't affect Monkey too much - I can vouch it's the best language/environment I've used in all my programming life (20+ years of it), and finding another solution to replace it won't be easy.

Maybe you can create new targets and charge them individually? Just trying to think on something to help out... :(


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#130]
Thanks for sharing, Mark. I personally feel better when a product communicates with its community than not.

My quick thoughts:
- i'm surprised Monkey didn't charge for the IAP modules.
- the numerous options available to game programmers makes it difficult for Monkey to compete (Unity, Construct, GameMaker, etc).
- the IDE is fine, but you could have scooped up Mollusk or Jungle to offer a package deal to help make a more professional package. (also helps with delegating work)
- make shorter, easier milestones to help keep the "enthusiasm" up. ie, release Mojo-x in stages for each platform group.
- silence is deadly. makes a product seem stale. newsletters, blogs, interviews, post-mortems, help keep the community and word-of-mouth alive.
- the site re-do was a positive. you may not think it helped with sales, but it may have helped with perceived value of the product for those who are doing the word-of-mouth. also, the site re-do and monkey-x push could have been bigger.

For the community's assurance, I don't see Monkey going anywhere, it's a great idea and product that can survive a lapse or two. i'll still keep up miniB3D, fwiw.

But i do recommend that you, Mark, find supplemental income. it will help revive your perspective on Monkey when you apply your skills elsewhere. I suggest making Unity modules-- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. :^D


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#131]
Sorry to hear that Monkey is failing to provide a workable income. I can empathise with feeling a bit daunted about re-entering the world of employment and job interviews but I'm sure your skills will be in demand.

Like everyone else I've got my own ideas about why Monkey hasn't caught on and what could be done but I'll save that for another time. I would like to address the floated concern that posting your position will kill future sales though. It would be really useful if you could make a commitment to open source and liberate everything including mojo if you decide to pull the plug. At least then anybody writing tools/libraries knows they have a forward path.


Xyle(Posted 2014) [#132]
Thanks for the update and the info!

One thing I know that would definitely help with sales is getting the word out. As someone who has to touch computers more than once a day, constantly reading emails and looking up stuff online, the only reason I knew about MonkeyX was through the Blitz website and forums and that was from over a year ago when I was looking for deployment solutions for online games.

In my opinion, people don't know about MonkeyX. Looking at a marketing campaign can definitely help. As Adamredwoods said, "- silence is deadly. makes a product seem stale. newsletters, blogs, interviews, post-mortems, help keep the community and word-of-mouth alive." Posting information about Monkey X should be a daily routine. I've only been using it for a few weeks, but I see how easy it is to deploy to multiple targets, other people should get to see that too.

Posting game demos of MonkeyX on youtube would be a great thing to do, even making videos of the games in the examples would be great. As long as there is a MonkeyX splash screen.
Posting information about MonkeyX on other forums. Just to let people know its there and what it can do.

Being a longtime fan of your products, I would be heartbroken to see it stop! :(

Of course I will help any way I can. When I plugged my little bit about my game on other forums, I did let people know I used Monkey X to create it! I will continue to do so!


therevills(Posted 2014) [#133]
Sorry to hear about the lack of sales for Monkey... I try to push it myself to other developers to help.

I do agree that some modules such as IAP and targets should have been sold separately, it is really great as a customer that I can buy the entire system for a one off price but in the long run I would have been happy paying for the base system and buying the targets/modules I need separately.

What was Monkey 2??? If its really big have you thought of KickStarter? Something like $5000 or something to get it going again?


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#134]
Here we go again I guess. Judging by posts in the past, where Mark wanted to do something different than creating languages, it kinda looks like that hit him again.

About the income... I am a little surprised. Before we opened the forum for the free version users, we had over 1000 users. That alone would make a six figure income for around 2 years. Add to this the sales from the legacy languages. And I am sure he had some conversions since we have the free version. As a one man show, he is not able to live on that???? Newseeland must be very expensive. I can't imagine it is really the money thing but more a motivational problem again. He was there before and reading his blog post gives me the same vibe. Btw. I think with his "outing", he put the nail on the sales coffin right there. I would not buy Monkey now, knowing that its creator is on hiatus ones again.

About word of mouth, I agree. As an extension to BRLs own marketing activities. Which look like none existant. Did I do my share as a user? I think so. My book got into the hands of people over a 1000 times at least. My guess is way more as it was available for free for quite a while. Plus being on warez sites too. That was quite a publicity right there. I am thankful for gotten the chance to work on it. Without Monkey I would not have been able ot do this. And I still went on to support Monkey by maintaining/developing my framework and hinting Monkey a lot on other pages.

But...

... how slow things developed in the last time, my guess is, Mark didn't work regular working hours on the tools. At least not 6-8 hours a day. Mostlikely less. Man, I can only imagine what someone could have created working fulltime for one year on a product. A lot. But if you don't work on it, then a product looks dead. If you don't communicate, it looks dead. Just putting it out, doesn't work. The new website was nice but dull imho. Brown colour sheme!!! We have the only game dev releated website with a colorsheme that fits more for a old wood funiture store than a game dev site. And it has quite a few technical problems too. Taking this and the recent development of Monkey, it feels all together like some patch work. But not really like things are growing, improving, etc.

I am thankful to know now that Monkey has no future. Why do I think like that? Cause of what Mark has posted. It is the first official sign of things go wrong, goidn to stop. And it never fails to judge the outcome. Yes, people (us) can work on Monkey too. I know, I said that before too to convince people. But what is the expectations from the users? That there is an official solution. Supported by BRL. That is what the people want. Not something that is patched by a bunch of people who can't think as one as everyone see their needs as the most important ones.

Me being mainly a support programmer who needs a growing product to be motivated and have a growing user base to work for (for free), I will seriously question myself now, where I put my efforts into. fantomEngine gets downloaded 200-300 times each version. So I think I have a few users here and there. But if the creator on the main product (Monkey) does not want to work on it, then why should I support it (for free). Got stuff to think now. Maybe Unity is really the key here which a lot of people are hinting these days. Who knows.

To Mark: Sorry to be blunt, but do yourself a favor and find a nice job outside dev world hat supports your living. Don't create another dev tool. You are an awesome developer and really created great products. But people put their hopes/work/money/hours/etc. into your products and once again, you will leave them standing there. Wish you all the best for your future. Am I dissapointed? Hell yes, as I put quite some effort into Monkey. And the output was not worth the effort now. But that is my fault :-) Thanks for the good ride. Had a good time. But with your outing, for me you put Monkey into a coffin.


degac(Posted 2014) [#135]
Sorry to read about low sales. This is a bad news...

I must say I'm a big fan of MonkeyX as I still love BlitzMax for my needs.
The main difficult (for my) is the case sensitive typing... I have (a bad maybe) behavior to open IDE, start to write and press F5 to see the results. The idea to check every time what I wrote (and reading the error messages)... is frustrating! But this is a MY limit, I know.

About Monkey, some suggestions (Adamredwoods already posted about this)

- dont' start with any Monkey-2 project, at least until you dont' understood what's going wrong with the current one. Monkey2 only for desktop? It seems to me like a BlitzMax2....

- Monkey has too much targets: keep alive only some, the most remunerative ones (I think Android, iOS & derivates). Desktop, Flash (? I dont know), PSM etc could be put in standby or became paying target. With fewer targets, you have more time and extra-time will be (hope!) monetized.

- new Monkey modules: Monkey is targeted ONLY for games: it misses a UI (native) modules (like MaxGUI at the time). Maybe there are users that dont want to create the next flappy bird clone... but the new Telegram? If I want to create a non-game app with Monkey, I will found it very difficult and there are better solutions out there.
Moreover I modules for camera, GPS, bluetooth and so on could be interesting...

- you have not only Monkey in your pocket... you could see if there are some 'market niches' to fill with your actual resources (ie: BlitzMax modules? SteamOS is not a toy... if Valve invests time and resources in it, there could be something interesting for the future, and you have already a system ready & stable. I think it need to be 'fixed' where necessary - and Valve/Steam as market vector could have an impact on the sales of BlitzMax or Monkey...

- 3d: in the past you started Max3d-engine as separate modules. Then the project was abandoned. I dont' know (there's a high competitive market in this field) if a 3d module for Monkey-X (each for platform) and BlitzMax (or whatever...) can be a selling product.

- Unity-like tools: you will need so many time and resources to offer a valid alternative that honestly I dont believe you can afford it (it's a question of time and money, not of programming skills!)

- marketing: I must agree with other users. People (= customers) like to read about news, projects, newsletters and so on... I know this means time subtracted to 'production'. But must read this as 'time invested in sales'. At this point maybe you can resurrect newsletter (on monthly base) and ask to the community to maintain it: final words on contents of course are yours. YouTube & co are needed.

Just some ideas.
And of course just ask or post us!
(in your blog the previous post was in 2012!)


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#136]
Sorry to hear that things are getting tough Mark.

Most has already been said my only comment is to suggest a new free version, same as Unity, that is a feature restricted version that you can compile for any of the major desktop and mobile platforms. This must contain a splash-screen, indie level/sales restriction. There should be a new "Pro" version. The Pro version should have IAPs, 3D, Networking etc.

Oh, do a kickstarter, I've seen much less worthy game dev. projects do very well, Monkey would fly IMHO!

Oh, in the meantime, I don't mind throwing some cash towards a Donate button for your development of bug fixes/new features as a stop gap. I seem to remember that there is a service on the net that allows this to be a monthly fee? Maybe someone knows the name if this... NM I think it's this site... http://www.patreon.com

A good marketing man should pay for himself, literally, you have a great product, I am sure there are a lot of people who would jump at the chance to become involved with this end of things.


dawlane(Posted 2014) [#137]
Sorry to read about low sales Mark. But reading your blog will give people doubts about anything you do in the future.
I have to agree with degac and AdamRedwoods about many of the things they have written.

- i'm surprised Monkey didn't charge for the IAP modules.
Yeah a small charge for some additional modules and when it's a major upgrade a small 'upgrade fee'.
- the numerous options available to game programmers makes it difficult for Monkey to compete (Unity, Construct, GameMaker, etc).
People who use these tools shouldn't be even classed as programmers. Point and click game making and scripting for an engine in my view isn't true programming. These are tools for people who have little or no knowledge of programming.
- the IDE is fine, but you could have scooped up Mollusk or Jungle to offer a package deal to help make a more professional package. (also helps with delegating work)
I haven't used Mollusk so I cannot comment on this IDE, but the IDE has to be able to work with Windows, OS X and Linux or there is no point to it. Modifying Code::Blocks may be a solution here.
- make shorter, easier milestones to help keep the "enthusiasm" up. ie, release Mojo-x in stages for each platform group.
Not too sure about releasing Mojo-x in stages for each platform. It could lead to inconstancies. The biggest problem with cross-platform libraries is when something changes on that platform. Apple are bast**ds for doing it every time there is a new update of OS X or iOS.
- silence is deadly. makes a product seem stale. newsletters, blogs, interviews, post-mortems, help keep the community and word-of-mouth alive.
So true. But I still think that the name 'Monkey' wasn't a very good starting point to begin with. People will know of BlizBasic, Blitz3D, BliztMax. A name along the lines of BlitzX or BlitzBasicX would have been better.
- the site re-do was a positive. you may not think it helped with sales, but it may have helped with perceived value of the product for those who are doing the word-of-mouth. also, the site re-do and monkey-x push could have been bigger.
I don't know, I think it should have been more colourful. Brown and beige are just too bland and the icons are too Windows hate-ish and iOS 7-ish in style. The site could have done with a better way to browse the apps section and maybe a forum that's phpBB.
- dont' start with any Monkey-2 project, at least until you dont' understood what's going wrong with the current one.
Yes. Starting something else without fully understanding what's going wrong with a previous venture will lead to disaster for the next project. Any future code should be written with 64bit compilation in mind.
- Monkey has too much targets: keep alive only some, the most remunerative ones (I think Android, iOS & derivates). Desktop, Flash (? I dont know), PSM etc could be put in standby or became paying target. With fewer targets, you have more time and extra-time will be (hope!) monetized.
Yes there are too many Targets to deal with. In my opinion HTML,DESKTOP,ANDROID,iOS and maybe WinRT should be the ones to concentrate on. XNA is virtually dead if it isn't already, Ouay, PSM maybe but on the back burner or paid targets and I give FLASH maybe 5 years before it too is finally killed off as it has for Linux already.
- new Monkey modules: Monkey is targeted ONLY for games: it misses a UI (native) modules (like MaxGUI at the time). Maybe there are users that dont want to create the next flappy bird clone... but the new Telegram? If I want to create a non-game app with Monkey, I will found it very difficult and there are better solutions out there.
Yes the lack of a native GUI framework is a bit of a killer. The problem here is which targets, and will it use the OS's native rendering system or use a ready made frame work such as Qt/wxWidgets. Both Qt and wxWidgets frame works have advantages and disadvantages, either in what platforms it can run on and license issues. My view on this is to write a wrapper for Qt or wxWidges for desktops and as a paying native module for other targets.
- you have not only Monkey in your pocket... you could see if there are some 'market niches' to fill with your actual resources (ie: BlitzMax modules? SteamOS is not a toy... if Valve invests time and resources in it, there could be something interesting for the future, and you have already a system ready & stable. I think it need to be 'fixed' where necessary - and Valve/Steam as market vector could have an impact on the sales of BlitzMax or Monkey...
Yes I would have a look at Steam and SteamOS, but I still think it's early days yet.
- 3d: in the past you started Max3d-engine as separate modules. Then the project was abandoned. I dont' know (there's a high competitive market in this field) if a 3d module for Monkey-X (each for platform) and BlitzMax (or whatever...) can be a selling product.
This is another thing that would be a seller, and should be a pay for module, but then again it requires time and resources to write and maintain. I don't think that there are already available any fully cross platform 3D engines out there to even consider writing a wrapper for. The only free one that comes close is Ogre with support of Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, Android and WinRT. But Android and WinRT as in the Ogre 1.9 RC 1 unstable branch.

As a sideline, think about writing some games with Monkey and getting them out there as a source of income. They can also double up as advertising.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#138]
Another thought suggested many times before and that is ; CHARGE for extra modules maybe something like $19.99 for ones that are used to fill some gaps but for major things like 3d I would charge 39.99.

Take into consideration your trying to make a living here not be everyone's buddy, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made and charging for complete modules will generate income to move forwards. You did it with MaxGUI before bundling it with max so why not monkey. If you add the same ability to compile modules it would also allow others to do the same.


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#139]
Good idea Ed.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#140]
Maybe also get other coders onboard to help with modules etc for a small royalty payment they could also free up some of your time, for example someone writes docs, you write then underlying glue/language, someone writes rendering etc.

Another killer of monkey is the fluff, once you done the install you have to setup the targets, compile then bugger around with resources etc. For coders we just want to write code not do what the language should be doing behind the scenes. As I said many moons ago write libraries to standardise every platform for example PNG for graphics, ogg for sound and mp3 for music across ALL targets this will make it a one click compile system.

Make monkey set then icons and target specific data in code this is converted internally to desired scale and formats etc.

This may sound like its lazy but several of the competition already do this and not doing it will just drive people to somewhere that does.


dawlane(Posted 2014) [#141]
@EdzUp: I think those that do the conversion use their own custom optimized file formats internally. Just like XNA does.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#142]
Im just saying write simple loaders for the targets :)


Derron(Posted 2014) [#143]
- do coder advertisement (monthly competitions with useful prices - amazon vouchers or something not strictly limited to a certain OS, app direction)
- invest more time in social media and sites like indiedb ... no tutorials there, no (language) news ...
- communicate with your users instead of staying silenced except for some hours after you post something (dev news)
- add small bits people enjoy when visiting the page (NEW "did you know" things), involve users (ask what they miss/want) and if possible (sometimes it is just a small addition) introduce it to the language
- provide a better editor - or write something which integrates in something open (Eclipse is a bit "to much" in my opinion but it is a matured IDE)
- provide a better installer / assistant: users should just have to check a checkbox to have an utility install the requirements if not done yet. This is a "write once, use all time" functionality.
- instead of charging per module you could even think of charging per "target" (only possible if you really provide cross platform modules). So people gain access to everything they need on their targeted platforms


@ "cannot pay a one doing the advertisements":
- just offer X percent of each sale coming from him/her. There are surely other possibilities to finance this. Do not think of expenses at first. If your expenses are not getting funded by sales (afterwards) you might think about the whole thing again: that such a programming language might not be the thing "all" want today. So if you are in a niche: raise the price - but also raise the support, possibilities -> "benefits for the user". There is also the option to free everything but be one of the module producers - with your modules being not free but available for some dollars. So people can do everything on their own (your language has to provide the possibilities - the user the "logic") - or to save time, they buy your module. Also provide "commercial support".
All in all it is not easy to get "newcomers" on board - "serious" developers wont say "hey, lets try monkey for the next AAA game". The only audience you could try to convince are hobby coders (doing things for themself - but they wont buy a "package" just for some coding experiments -> all free except pro modules) and indiedevelopers knowing BlitzBasic/BlitzMax/... already. Monkey does not provide super features no other multi-target-devtool has, so the honest truth is: the reachable audience is already limited. Maybe there is a chance to convince "non coders" with easy-peasy-tutorials à la "even YOU can be a coder, let your dreams come true". Of course you cannot have something like the Flash-Editors which enabled "artists" (graphical, sound...) to create small good looking games but maybe you find a way to convince "newbies" to give monkey a try.


bye
Ron


erebel55(Posted 2014) [#144]
I hope you take the time to read all of our responses Mark.

I disagree with most everyone here, don't charge for modules, targets, upgrades, etc. The pricing model isn't the problem. I wouldn't have bought Monkey if you charged extra for add-ons.

The issue is 100% marketing. I think the majority of us came from the blitz community, so that says a lot about the lack of marketing for monkey. I understand you don't have money to support that, but a lot of marketing can be done for free or very little $. You should be advertising on the large game dev platforms such as gamedev.net and gamedev.stackexchange.com. You also need a core team of dedicated users, which should be many of us here. These users should be spreading the word of mouth on various different irc channels, forums, etc. We have our hopes and dreams stacked into this product as well; so it is our responsibility to help make sure it succeeds. I agree that you need youtube videos and things like that to showcase the ability of monkey. These could be added to the landing page for the website.

Now that jentos ide has been developed you may want to look into including that instead of purely ted.

Also, spend more time adopting modules that were created by the community.

Also, I think it would help if a irc channel or chat was maintained. I know a lot of people buy a product based on how good the support will be once they are in the trenches.

Please don't give up Mark, we are all counting on you.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#145]
Lot of discussions over at http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=102444#bottom too also loads of suggestions too :)


dragon(Posted 2014) [#146]
>>>The issue is 100% marketing

yep...
i used Blitz before...
I searched something for mobile Gadgets...
Many libs or systems like corona...

Finally i found HAXE
and MONKEY (only seeing it on blitzbasic-site)
I think here exist only 2 "meta-languages" for games today (monkey & haxe)

monkey is cheaper than corona or something (2 years ago)
it have nice syntax - and codes are open
and produce native apps

so monkey was 1st choice


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#147]
Where there's a will, there's a way, Mark.

You know what will sell- you mention it in your blog. Give us a strong desktop target with the extras needed to compete with BlitzMax and without any annoying requirements to fiddle around with target template code.

As others have said, consider some strategic partnership- Josh Klint is offering up to $5K and reckons you could garner a lot of support from the Leadwerks community for a 64 bit BlitzMax- and what's to say the code couldn't be based on Monkey?

There is a way- and perhaps it's not your ideal path, but believe me it beats a day job. Last thing you will feel like after a day in the office is working on Monkey.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#148]
I think here is simple solution:

Sell MONKEY for 99$ with 1 year update support
After this, each update year cost 49$

If here is a user base 1000 people and 50+% of them want to pay for updates, so you get 25+K$ per year.
With additional marketing, i think you can get some K$ more per year...

What i dislike is incompatible MONKEY 2 ... bad idea for us...


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#149]
i would just like to place this quote from Mark here:
I do plan on at least continuing to provide updates/fixes and improvements to current Monkey, pretty much as I have been doing.



Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#150]
"I do plan on at least continuing to provide updates/fixes and improvements to current Monkey"

To be honest, that's all I need. Monkey as it is does the job, so long as it will stay compiling for every main target. It's a nice language, easy to pick up and use, has a bunch of targets, Frankly, I'd as soon learn a new language as a new SDK - at least languages are designed to be somewhat logical!

Its website, and whether it is or isn't going to be the next big thing, don't affect its functionality at all. Who knows, sales may pick up over time. There's still nothing quite like it out there as far as I know.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#151]
#1: The name monkey is... well... google for monkey and you see what I mean
#2: Marketing, marketing, marketing!
#3: Have I mentioned the name? ;)
#4: Add something like an asset store where users can upload modules for sale. Take 30% from the sales!


samowitsch(Posted 2014) [#152]
Oh no, thats bad news ;-(

I like Monkey very much for its syntax (no silly semicolons at the end of each line (WTF?!) or bracket nightmares like in Objective-C(OMG?)) and multi platform features!
But fact is finding Monkey on the web is/was pure luck. In the past, i think 2 years ago, i was searching for a easy to read and easy to write language
and i stumbled over all the other frameworks on the web. Finding Monkey, was pure luck.

And at this point i was very unsure to buy Monkey. The info about Monkey was so rare, the version of the Monkey demo was miles away from the full version,
and buggy too. The screenshots on the Monkey site looks often like programming for kids.

The real potential of Monkey was not visible! But its there: New Star Soccer, Bloo Kid 2, Driller Bunny, Pirate Solitaire and all the other apps i don't know shows it.

Then i bought it and i don't regret it. Maybe it is the little bit wrong chosen name for the language. Maybe some keywords like framework or SDK in the name make
it clearer to search/find. More appealing real live App examples on the site would be a eye catcher.

But at the end i have no solution for this and hope Monkey lifes forever !! ;-)


bazmonkey(Posted 2014) [#153]
Well, I really love monkey, so hope this is merely a small bump in the road. I feel a little uneasy working with a framework/language that has an uncertain future. [posting the original message itself will surely put off new users - I suggest it is edited/clarified].

Personally I don't mind that monkey gets new features a little slowly. I'd rather it is stable across platforms, and not endlessly changing to add fancy features (like some frameworks I could mention).

@dragon has already suggested some of what I was thinking. Don't be afraid to make some changes. Change the payment method to have a fee for yearly updates (maybe $25) -- this is entirely appropriate, imo. You can't support a product like this for nothing!! Start it from this summer. I think paying for each feature/target would get a little messy?

If the main problem is (still) getting the monkey message out there, I expect marketing is partly the issue - Sorry to sound boring.... Maybe just more ad spend, but also contests and targeting more game jams, interviews, articles.

Ultimately, the demo version still can't let people see monkey on mobile. It would be a big change, but the demo could be expanded to all targets, for *non-commercial projects* only (encourage a splash screen). Or make the license not allow release on app stores. Yeah, I know that would be a big change, and can't be enforced. (Qt used to operate on 2 licences, commercial and non-commercial, basically on trust, no DRM).
Edit - iirc, GameMaker free version limits the number of *assets* - so, something similar is doable in monkey/trans. It would let people see monkey working on every platform.

Ted is still a *bit* lacking, although I like its simplicity and lightweight-ness. I think the lack of any context sensitive help and auto-complete is pretty awkward, esp if learning a new language.

Targeting those learning programming is always cool - they arent so 'invested' in c++ or whatever language and IDEs.
Also, I've seen frameworks that come with 'blueprints' for different game types, e.g. Match3, platformer, space invaders. Could sell/include stuff like that? Make it a community contest to donate them! The current examples are great, but perhaps a little disorganised for a total newbie.

Or, consider a Kickstarter/Patreon, but thats another story I suppose...

Another random idea - I notice that TexturePacker devs give out free licences to people who blog about their product.

I hope you are able to commit to supporting monkey v1, and we can continue to work with it for a long time to come.


Tazzy(Posted 2014) [#154]
Hi Mark,

This is really bad news. Monkey-X seemed like a nice product to me. I've bought everything you've ever produced (Blitz on Amiga, Blitz, BlitzPlus, Blitz3D, BlitzMax en now Monkey-X.
So it's a little disappointing to see the product is likely to be abandoned. I will continue using Monkey-X for my planned game and I hope you change your mind or at least the community libraries like FantomeEngine and Diddy will be kept alive. Monkey-X is already a nice base and I don't know, and don't want to buy, a comparable framework.


take care,

Tazzy


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#155]
I really don't know what else to say - but one thing caught my attention in this thread - someone mentioned youtube, and that's something to be thought about: I always faced videos like "games made for zx spectrum in 2010", "games made on GameMaker in 2013" - small compilations, showing the best that has been done with the tool - or to some platform.

This is something that could spark some sales... is there anyone in here good at making videos like those?


Samah(Posted 2014) [#156]
@dawlane: People who use these tools shouldn't be even classed as programmers. Point and click game making and scripting for an engine in my view isn't true programming. These are tools for people who have little or no knowledge of programming.

Have you actually used Unity? It's hardly point and click; the majority of your game is still C#/JS/whatever. You could not make a non-trivial Unity game with "little or no knowledge of programming."

@dawlane: A name along the lines of BlitzX or BlitzBasicX would have been better.

I agree. I was hesitant when I initially heard the name, because I always thought BlitzMax 2 sounded cooler, and possibly a little more professional?

@dawlane: maybe a forum that's phpBB.

This. Especially considering the Monkey forums were originally a poor man's clone of the Blitz forums. We've only recently got a preview button.

@Derron: communicate with your users instead of staying silenced except for some hours after you post something (dev news)

This has been the killer for me. Mark seems to be active on the forums for about a week after a major release, and maybe a couple of days after a minor.

@erebel55: I disagree with most everyone here, don't charge for modules, targets, upgrades, etc. The pricing model isn't the problem. I wouldn't have bought Monkey if you charged extra for add-ons.

I agree with you here. I'd rather buy a single package that does everything than have to worry about microtransactions (ok, maybe not "micro", but you get the idea).

@erebel55: The issue is 100% marketing. I think the majority of us came from the blitz community, so that says a lot about the lack of marketing for monkey.

Exactly. The bland website was a turnoff too. I showed Monkey to a guy I know (who is invariably a troll) and he said he would never use Monkey because the website was terrible.

@dragon: I think here exist only 2 "meta-languages" for games today (monkey & haxe)

What about this list? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17584717/2d-cross-platform-game-development-engines

@samowitsch: I like Monkey very much for its syntax (no silly semicolons at the end of each line (WTF?!)

Semicolons are fine. Instruction terminators make perfect sense.

Something I'd like to see in Monkey is a proper "module" repository with automatic downloads and dependency configuration (think Maven for Monkey). People could submit their own modules, along with a list of dependencies and which versions of Monkey are officially supported for it. HaXe has a nice module repository, if slightly awkward to use.

I'll continue to use Monkey for now, if only because I've enjoyed enhancing/maintaining Diddy as a side project rather than actually being productive and making a game. :)


Skn3(Posted 2014) [#157]
I've not been able to even step near Monkey recently. Too damn busy! So sad times to hear this news!

Monkey needs a team. You need:

web guy
Somone to communicate with the marketing guy and to post regular updates for users. Post on twitter/YouTube/blogs/email/etc

Somone to develop new web features and improve the community. Create a module market place. Handle subscription based payments. Deal with support queries.

core programmer
Mark. Responsible for fixing bugs, implementing new language features. Responsible for applying the blitz/monkey ideology into everything. Responsible for doing work on major modules such as 3D


module programmer
These days game makers need integration after integration after integration! There needs to be someone pushing out "official" modules e.g. XML... There needs to be someone making small tools, someone wrapping up the most popular 3rd party features such as lua, box2d, photon, chart boost, IAP, spine, etc...

marketing person
Somone to talk in panels, goto trade shows, speak with universities, schools, colleges. Someone to organise competitions, to offer promotions. They should be promoting monkey . Finding out new markets for monkey.


No-one can realistically do it all themselves....

Ever considered tapping into your community to contract some of the needed skills?

Kickstarter would be an option but from my experience you have to put a shit ton of work into your campaign and well it is still a massive gamble! I wasn't able to handle this all myself and I learnt the hard way.



I think the main Issue is that monkey leans way too heavily on the community to provide features. It is understandable considering that the workload on monkey is majorly increased due to the mass of targets. Monkey therefor offloads work onto the community and suffers massively because of it. Take me for example, I put a ton of effort into the community but I have fallen off the radar recently. I just have no spare time due to work. This is good for me, but bad for monkey. Relying on the community too much for features/marketing/etc is a risky thing to do.

Definitely needs some more official team members supporting it full time.


Samah(Posted 2014) [#158]
@Skn3: ...3rd party features such as lua, box2d, photon, chart boost, IAP, spine, etc...

As some of you may know, I'm an avid Lua fanboy. I would consider continuing/reimplementing MonkeyLua on an official basis if it were included as an official module.


impixi(Posted 2014) [#159]
Forget PC, mobile, HTML, etc, development tools – the market is saturated.

Time for … *drum roll*...

Blitz3D 2015
==========

Target Platforms (&)
-------------------------
* Xbox One
* Playstation 4

Features
----------

* Monkey X language (object-oriented, powerful, BASIC dialect)
* TED+ IDE (syntax highlighting, function folding, intelligent code completion, etc)
* [Insert modern 3D feature list here]
* [Insert platform-specific store/marketplace feature list here]
* [Insert platform-specific achievement/trophy feature list here]

Requirements
-----------------
Windows 7/8.1 64bit 8GB RAM minimum.
Xbox One / PS4 SDKs installed?
Xbox One / PS4 Development Kit/s?
Xbox One / PS4 Independent developer registrations?

Cost
------
$499.00 Introductory price. (Regular price $999.00)
$99 annual fee for future updates?

Personnel
------------
Mark Sibly: Language, compiler, 3D SDK
Contractor 1: TED+ IDE, Documentation
Contractor 2: Website, Support, Marketing

(&) A Windows 7/8 target would be nice, but since BRL is basically a one man show, and supporting all the PC hardware variations can be a nightmare, let's forget about it for now.


Would there be a market for this product? Unknown. Your competitors would be Unity3D, CryEngine, UnrealEngine, etc. All have their pros and cons.

Would Microsoft/Sony allow such a product? Possibly, but you might have to “jump through hoops” for it.

Could it stir your passions, Mark? Maybe not if you're feeling really "burned out". In any case good luck if you choose to assimilate into the “wage-slave” workforce. Someone with your elite coding skills should easily find a job. Might have to move, though. To Australia? (What's the demand for programmers like in New Zealand these days?)


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#160]
"monkey leans way too heavily on the community to provide features"

There's part of this that I can agree with but my issue with the community dev is that BRL's attitude to it has been to essentially just create a vacuum and hope that people fill it. There's been almost no encouragement or curating of community efforts at all. If anything the response to much of the community product and feedback has been to try and keep it at arm's length rather than figure out how to promote and support the ecosystem. I'd be inclined to say that Monkey doesn't lean heavily enough on the community, in the right way that is.

Unfortunately it sounds like it's too late for BRL to invest significant money and time into the product. I still think it's very possible to "save" Monkey and get it growing but the route would require more focus on organising, directing and cultivating community efforts. Mark has said he doesn't really do that stuff, so I'm not sure how much will there is to head in that direction.


Dylan at sea(Posted 2014) [#161]
I just read the latest post on markspace (the first post in almost two years) and I thought I'd come back to post my thoughts.

First I would like to say to Mark: you are an amazing developer. I thank you for the work you've done for so many years, and I want you to be successful and happy, whether that's continuing with BRL or going to work for someone else.

My disclaimer: I've purchased almost everything BRL has done, but I haven't been very active in the community (or with a BRL product) since 2004-ish, BlitzPlus. I loved BlitzPlus. I thought I would love BlitzMax, but after many attempts, I was disappointed. I have mixed feelings about Monkey, but I am still interested. The last time I got my feet wet with it was with version 66. So, this is my perspective with limited interaction during the last 10 years.

I agree with what people have said about the name Monkey, and about marketing/PR in general. For example, I'm much more apt to come back to the monkey website when I see blog posts. But the only reason I know about Monkey is because of Blitz (with history on the Amiga). Most game devs don't know about it. I work in the game industry as my day job. I've mentioned Monkey to many people (devs, producers, designers) from various companies, but none of them has ever heard of Monkey. Not one. But when I show it to them and what it can do, they're impressed.

I also believe that the Blitz/Monkey market has been encroached upon by lots of competition. Unity is the gold standard right now, but UE4 is going to be very significant. On the less technical side, people can make legitimate games with engines like Gamemaker, and Construct. In my opinion, Blitz used to be more suited to the newbie developer. The language had a smaller scope. It was completely documented. There was usually only one straightforward way to do something. Blitzmax, and then Monkey, have become much more complex. The scope is undefined, because of modules, and the language itself supports multiple programming paradigms, so there is always many ways of doing the same thing. This makes it much more powerful, yes, but it also makes it much more esoteric, and less approachable for the hobbyist. Some modules work with others, some don't. Some are supported, some aren't. Some have higher quality than others. It's a trade-off. What it's done is try to move Monkey more into the professional (indie) dev space that is served by extremely well-established and entrenched giants like Unity, and doesn't speak to the hobbyist coder anymore.

That's not the only trade-off either. The constant updates are nice in one aspect, but they're a double-edged sword, because they often change functionality, and they come with gotchas of their own. Support capability is limited. And just by nature of having to support a single language over so many targets (I do appreciate the Windows Phone target!), there are lots of complexities. It's not easy generalizing a language against so many platforms and feature implementations! I don't think any single person could have done it better than Mark, but I think he'll be the first to agree that each target adds more difficulty.

One things that frustrated me for years was a well-supported way to parallel/concurrent operations, whether through co-routines, threads/fibers, asynchronous operations, or whatever. I don't know whether that exists in a well-supported manner for Monkey now, but Unity has it, and it sure is nice.

Mark, you said you're not good at marketing. That's OK--one man can't do everything. But it really needs to be done if you want the industry to take Monkey seriously. Of course, you can't hire somebody if you can't pay them, which leaves two choices to continue forward: rely on the goodwill of the community (which has gotten you this far and may get you a little further, but probably isn't the only long-term solution) or increase the revenue from what you already have.

I would be glad to pay for Monkey updates on a subscription basis. This seems more than fair. You have a while ago moved out of the hobbyist area closer to the professional area, which makes it more reasonable to charge money per year of updates. You may also introduce a royalty model, where you get a small percentage of anything made with Monkey. At the very least, if you haven't done it already (I'm not familiar with the free version of Monkey) you should make it display a "made with Monkey" logo for every game released with the low-end SKU. And charging on a per-platform/target basis wouldn't be bad either. In other words, you should get paid more than once for your ongoing and future work.


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#162]
There's part of this that I can agree with but my issue with the community dev is that BRL's attitude to it has been to essentially just create a vacuum and hope that people fill it. There's been almost no encouragement or curating of community efforts at all. If anything the response to much of the community product and feedback has been to try and keep it at arm's length rather than figure out how to promote and support the ecosystem. I'd be inclined to say that Monkey doesn't lean heavily enough on the community, in the right way that is.
I agree with this. I don't keep up with things so much on the Monkey side, but it certainly goes for BlitzMax. I suppose there are various concerns such as losing control of the codebase, compatibility and the time needed to vet anything before it becomes official, concerns over maintaining code written by others etc, etc, etc- again it's a tall order for a one man band. I think there could have been some middle ground- bundle a few of Brucey's excellent modules, same with the community IDE (I talking Max again, but you get the idea).

Another problem is, a lot of us seem to have come to the Blitz language a long time ago, and every change of direction loses some of that community. Monkey's less desktop focussed, so that put a bunch of us off, myself included; although I did buy it and I like the language. BlitzMax I thought was a big language improvement, but even though a lot of the extra language features were optional it put a lot of the traditionalists off. You just can't win without new blood.


Derron(Posted 2014) [#163]
I would consider continuing/reimplementing MonkeyLua on an official basis if it were included as an official module.


What about warranty? What if people just buy things because of features MonkeyLua seems to fulfill but at the end doesn't (dunno if "regress" can get claimed from buyers).

Any "official" module has Mark Sibly as "contact person". Better he should take care of "do his best" to support semi-official modules. Modules he "advertises" with, but have to get downloaded separately (so with their own licence agreements). But all of this should be "eased" - so something like an official "BRL approved" 3rd party module page. All of this modules of course have to be tested by the core team. Similar to the suggestion above (Samah about Haxe).

Of course all of this "additional workload" does not bring in money directly - but doing nothing, will also not increase sales.

Man, Mark just got plenty of ideas for free from the community already. Instead of discussing with all of you (the ones who bought monkey - for a specific reason) he went back in his developer cave and will bring on the next life sign in an undistinct future.
People really wanting to keep their hearts projects alive should show more enthusiasm - else you really can give all interested a nail for the coffin and hold up a ceremony with ab big red switch to power off the whole enterprise.


bye
Ron


Pharmhaus(Posted 2014) [#164]

Monkey needs a team.



How about declaring it as a start-up and finding co-founders?
e.g. https://www.cofounderslab.com

It will be a lot easier to find people this way than saving money for years to hire someone.
All you have to do is look for the right match that fits both sides.

This one-man-show mentality is definitely the killer.



Anyway, beside the one-man-thingy i really have to say that you are doing a great job and that the language is well conceptualized.


Supertino(Posted 2014) [#165]
Shame Monkey wont see any (official) significant additions in the future but as it is Monkey is still quite feature rich so I'll continue to use it.

We all have opinions on why it's not as popular as it deserves but for me it;

- The name and Logo
- Bare bones bundled IDE
- Lack of or slow development of 3rd party modules, relying too much on the community to create these which is hard as the community is not all that big

Mark if you're going to reboot Monkey at some time maybe do a kickstarter to get a fund together to develop a website, invest in marketing and hire some dedicated help.

I love all your products Mark so if this is your last thank you for all you've done, from Blitzbasic on my Amiga 1200 and then rediscovering Blitz on the PC back in 2000. =D


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#166]
I may be the only one that thinks that Monkey still have lots of future. The fact that most of it is open source makes it sort of future-proof. My own experience "selling" Monkey to others has been that, when you explain them the source-to-source compiler, people usually think it won't work as well as it works, and they will end having to code mixing languages at some point, etc. then, If you make them use monkey for anything real, they come to (usually) love it. People is usually surpirsed how well it works and this is a bad symptom. I mean, if they're surprised, that means that it did not look as good as it is, and this can't be good.

Monkey will evolve and survive if this happens:

1.- Anyone talented gets the Open source part of it and leads an active Monkey branch. This has happened before to tones of open source projects that are still alive and doing well, after leadership of the project has changed from one developer to another.

2.- Mark gets an additional job, and that makes him more active. I've seen this before. When you have to work for someone else, it can sometimes be very stimulating. For me (and maybe just for me) when you have all the time you want to do something, you usually do it slower and, sometimes, you just don't finish work. With limited time and pressure, sometimes people can be more productive.

Kind suggestion to Mark: Have you considered making a kickstarter for Monkey 2 (or whatever it is called) and dual license it as GPL open source, and commercial closed source? This way, it can spread for free, and be licensed for commercial closed source projects?

Now I'll take the chance to make what I think and hope can be a sort of positive announcement for some people here. We've been working on a port of our whole IDEs framework to Java and, while it will still get some months(being optimistic) to be finished, we'll be providing a powerful IDE for Mac Os and Linux. The idea is that this new IDE will be compatible with Jungle IDE in the project file format and will have a free version too that will include a pre-build Monkey X version (based on the Open Source Monkey).

EDIT: Now, if Monkey does not have a good word of mouth, we should listen what are the mentioned problems, and solve them if possible. A target installer for each platform could be hard to do, but maybe it is the most important thing to add?


Goodlookinguy(Posted 2014) [#167]
I may be the only one that thinks that Monkey still have lots of future.


I think it does as well. So I don't have as bleak a view as some of these other people.

For me (and maybe just for me) when you have all the time you want to do something, you usually do it slower and, sometimes, you just don't finish work. With limited time and pressure, sometimes people can be more productive.


Get someone to fulfill the role of project leader. As soon as I did that things started becoming a lot more productive for me. Programmers in general have a tendency to lack leadership abilities (not all, but a vast majority from what I've seen, including me). They kind of just do whatever roles with whatever they were doing before. That's for the most part what Monkey has been doing as of late. I think the momentum was lost a over a year ago. I mean, the last item moved to the Bug Bin was over a year ago. That alone shows a sort-of problem with interest in even bothering to maintain appearance. I digressed a little though, still, what else can I say that I haven't said before in other posts. It's a lost cause to bicker over this. When people are in this kind of depression or rut they are seldom swayed by others in an attempt to justify a view of independence they see in themselves.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#168]
Well this might be a slow down but monkey is far from being dead! Being customer #1 :) I will continue using Monkey, even though being not only the first but also the last one. :D

Mark, this is a huge project and I can imagine how terrible your motivation must come along over the years. Keep it up, take a break and maybe you even get some help from the community. Monkey is a great tool, for multi platform one of the best out there, no doubt.


Skn3(Posted 2014) [#169]
There's part of this that I can agree with but my issue with the community dev is that BRL's attitude to it has been to essentially just create a vacuum and hope that people fill it. There's been almost no encouragement or curating of community efforts at all. If anything the response to much of the community product and feedback has been to try and keep it at arm's length rather than figure out how to promote and support the ecosystem. I'd be inclined to say that Monkey doesn't lean heavily enough on the community, in the right way that is.


Yeah that's definitely true. It worked well for blitzmax but that is because the vacuum wasn't as large, it shipped with a hell of a lot more functionality out-of-the-box.

Monkey is definitely a strong product, but I think it just needs some more man-power behind it and a re-think of who/how it is being sold.

I would back a kickstarter if there was a campaign.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#170]
Yeah that's definitely true. It worked well for blitzmax but that is because the vacuum wasn't as large, it shipped with a hell of a lot more functionality out-of-the-box.

Monkey is definitely a strong product, but I think it just needs some more man-power behind it and a re-think of who/how it is being sold.

I would back a kickstarter if there was a campaign.


Me too. And we have a one person here at LemonBytes only devoted to Marketing, full day, if that helps, we could count on her.


degac(Posted 2014) [#171]
@MarkSibly (I dont want to be rude, I know this is 'your site, your rules'... but

- a reply from you should really be appreciated: silence was a bad thing before, now it's worst.
- I don't want an immediate new selling/marketing policy, just an idea that something must/can be done differently (and the community is here to offer a feedback) and not just 'I will maintain Monkey... '.

to the Monkey's users:

I know one of the greatest feature of Monkey is the 'multi-target' support.
1. But honestly what are the most used targets?
2. What target(s) Monkey can 'lost' ?
3. From the point of view of a newcomer/newbee programmer, what are the weakness of Monkey during setup and use?
4. What tools should be provided in bundle with Monkey's? Integrated in the IDE or not?
5. What could be the 'must-needed' module for Monkey?
6. What are the prices user could accept for a 'repackaged' Monkey? What policy prices?

I do this just to have an idea for Mark and for us.
I have my opinions on some of the questions above, I just want to know the others.
BTW, I put myself in the shoes of a New customer and (maybe) a newbee programmer (people who want to create games but has no experience on programming world...). Professional users can find a solution of missing lib & installing everything needed. This is not the main target of Monkey.

Thanks.


Derron(Posted 2014) [#172]
@"to the Monkey's users"

Do not think about asking such questions until Mark has shown interest (eg. with replying to the thread) - else you just invest energy in something (and arouse interest/hope at others) which won't result in something.

@IDE
as long as an ide is not the best to use, it is better to have options to use other tools (so enable debuggers like gdb instead of a custom implementation). If your IDE is a true one and really feature blown ("advanced mode") you can do your own thing ... until then you just disturb coding sessions and frighten potential new customers (screenshots + "feature" list).
If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain. Means: if you (the dev "team") is not able to build up a really useful IDE, they should think about using existing editors/ides and build the necessary extensions to make the own language (monkey/blitzmax) useable in it.
For modules 3rd-party libs got used too (in Blitzmax: see "pub.mod"), so why invent the wheel again for IDEs?

bye
Ron


vmakar85(Posted 2014) [#173]
Wow! bad news = ((
I mastered a lot of text. huh!

To be honest I'm ready to buy a monkey (or, as it will be called) again!
While yes, the name of the monkey is certainly top of imagination and creativity, a couple of my friends are very silno laughed when they heard from me the name of the language that I chose as a hobby.

If dear Mark tries to take the continuation of (development) monkey (blitz x as better offers here) I will be ready to invest the money (if possible) in this case!

I am very glad that he had discovered a monkey - I could easily put the application in the play market - and can easily build it for all other platforms (xna c++(win\linux\mac) flash html etc) ...


Sorry if a bit unclear, Google translator =)


Skn3(Posted 2014) [#174]
Me too. And we have a one person here at LemonBytes only devoted to Marketing, full day, if that helps, we could count on her.


I should change my original comment to man/women-power :D

I am fairly swamped with projects atm, but always interested in the prospect of monkey work. If there is ever a need for a cpp/java/objc/html5/anything code maniac like myself then don't hesitate to email. I have had a fair bit of experience. Most recent client project was wrapping portions of the steamworks SDK...

Its an expensive thing for the "employer" though (contracting).. but you gotta spend money to make money...


CopperCircle(Posted 2014) [#175]
I also feel Monkey has a great future and think it could also be promoted as a general cross-platform development tool not just aimed at games, I have worked on several commercial cross-platform applications all written in Monkey and have commissioned skn3 to create several modules to help achieve the projects goals. I still think there needs to be a better way to manage user modules as they do fill in the missing gaps and if a new user does not know what's out there they could be left feeling the language is lacking.

I would back a Kickstarter campaign.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#176]
I think one thing that would help monkey is a few things:

1) A tool to setup android platforms and other platforms this would solve one of the issues. I am gonna look at writing one myself.

2) better docs


Samah(Posted 2014) [#177]
@Derron: Any "official" module has Mark Sibly as "contact person". Better he should take care of "do his best" to support semi-official modules.

Which is why I said official, not semi-official. If Mark wants to recruit and/or employ me to do a "this is the reference version of Lua support that Monkey comes with", I'm fine with that. I would never expect him to provide warranty for anything "third-party", hence the proposal of making it "first-party".


RetroRusty(Posted 2014) [#178]
This is my take on things. I'm by no means a seasoned programmer like a lot of you are on here, but I'm more than familiar with the Blitz Products as I own all of them.

I believe that Monkey really needs a name change. Monkey doesn't mean anything and has no resemblance to any of the the Blitz products. Blitz is a well known name and it would make sense to continue with that way of naming new products.

The fact that it doesn't have a good desktop target is another reason why perhaps Monkey hasn't done as well as it should have done. Why do you think that so many people are still using BlitzMax and won't buy into the Monkey way of thinking? There is no DirectX support and I know from talking with others that this is a major thing for them not using Monkey for desktop games. Even though the Monkey language has a lot more to offer than BlitzMax, the simple thing is that it doesn't offer, as in features, what BlitzMax does offer.I know that iOS/Android is a big market, but look at most of the really good indie games, they are all mainly for the desktop either as DRM free or through Steam.

There are twitter and facebook pages for Blitz Research, but they are hardly ever updated, and there is next to no contact from Mark on the forums and that is not a good thing. People like to hear from the developers of a product and that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I believe that Monkey could be a lot more than it currently is, but there are some changes that are needed that most of you have already mentioned. I really hope that Mark reads these posts and see that the community is trying to help as we want Monkey (or whatever it will become) to succeed and be the best it can be.


TeaBoy(Posted 2014) [#179]
Reading Mr Sibly's message he said he will still work on updates / bugfixes so it's not the end of the road :)

We all need money to survive so temporarily he may need something else, you never know this could
provide the motivation he needs, but I don't think motivation is the issue, we can't survive on thin air alone.

I'll be more than happy to pay for a 12/24 months licence that entitles the user to updates / bugfixes etc...
MAJOR updates could be charged for, so no problem there.

I still like the name though, perhaps incorporate JMonkeyEngine or minib3d (as standard)<- I'll gladly pay for this too!!!!!!, match made in heaven :)

I hope you continue Mr Sibly, your products are great, it's just a shame that success stories don't
mention the products they use more often, *cough*New Star Soccer*cough*


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#180]
I would tend to be in the party of optimism too. Monkey does what it is supposed to, and very well - and even if Mark dropped all development tomorrow, it is open enough that the community would certainly keep it patched and working for many years. Maybe Mark needs a break as much as anything.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#181]
I'll be more than happy to pay for a 12/24 months licence that entitles the user to updates / bugfixes etc... MAJOR updates could be charged for, so no problem there.
Me too! It's sensible to get paid for work. I'm very surprised that he's been doing well without this until now, but I supose he's got a good reason to do it like this.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#182]
it is open enough that the community would certainly keep it patched and working for many years


REMEMBER: Monkey is released under the zlib/libpng license
It is not possible, that Monkey can die...


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#183]
That's the language, though. The licensing of Mojo is more restrictive. And while the language is nice, Mojo is the meat in the sandwich.


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#184]
I am optimistic about the future of the language too. Even though I'm old and crusty I do wish there was more youthful hooplah which would generate interest and keep people motivated to get involved and participate in the community. Newsletters and whatever other social media requirements should be part of the equation for business success.

This sort of "is it over" thread in Blitz forums (linked above) is also happening regularly in the TGC forums regarding DBPro's future. Both company threads talk about the "glory days" when people were actively hacking demos together and trying to one-up each other with screenshots, community competitions, etc. It would be an interesting article to research and determine how the tide of the community/market for indie-coding tools is moving.

If Mark changed the payment model for continued support, I would be on board as long as it didn't break the bank. :)


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#185]
But there's nothing stopping people to implement a custom open source implementation of Mojo using any of the already cross platform layers, such as SDL. in the worst scenario, we could still be using Monkey and improving it.


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#186]
But there's nothing stopping people to implement a custom open source implementation of Mojo using any of the already cross platform layers, such as SDL. in the worst scenario, we could still be using Monkey and improving it.
Problem is, most of us are not competent or not interested in helping out. Most people buy something like Monkey to avoid the headaches of implementing this stuff.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#187]
Problem is, most of us are not competent or not interested in helping out. Most people buy something like Monkey to avoid the headaches of implementing this stuff`
Of course, I was not thinking on most of us, just some of us.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#188]
These are all things I think that are relevant to a first impression. I've tried to keep my responses limited to that, since that's all that's important to getting new customers.

The good:
-Monkey's name. Ignore the haters, this language needed a clean break from the words "Blitz" and BASIC to get any serious attention from new people. I probably would've never given Monkey a second glance if it was called BlitzMax2, because BMax feels outdated, outmoded and obsolete. So what if it can't be googled yet? Tell that to Python or Squirrel.

-The price and pricing model. Again, nearly perfect. No one offers a greater value proposition. You could make "Pro Demo" versions that have gimped desktop/mobile targets that force a Monkey preloader (complete with URL) in there, easy marketing to other gamedevs. Don't kill the value proposition with suggestions for pricing models similar to your competitors; you'll just lose one more thing that helps Monkey stand out.

-The language. Its syntax is the best thing since 1980s ROM BASIC in terms of ease-of-learning for its time, and it has almost everything a modern language should have in terms of features. Easily better than Haxe's syntax IMHO, and it teaches good principles in a way that Python doesn't necessarily do (like strong typing).


The bad:
-The marketing. Monkey's marketed like the internet version of a mail-order catalog item. Practically the only customers AFAIK are Blitzers. "Word-of-mouth" isn't a magical pill, you basically have to make your own with seeds. Most of these Blitzers have long since stopped being evangelizers and have become strictly businesspeople. Their contribution is minimal and mostly limited to promoting their own business. Paid promoters are a bit out of Monkey's price range, so somehow there needs to be a way to hype up the fanbase so that they promote for you. In the meantime, it doesn't help by limiting the channels from which Monkey can be sold. Steam isn't what it used to be now that they let everyone through the door, but it DOES give Monkey some fresh eyeballs, and there will certainly be people around to help write up a good sell page in exchange for a small one-time fee, or cut of the initial profits. Do sales, give out coupons, or hold promos on popular gamedev sites. Work with top developers to promote Monkey in their interviews.

-The communication. Mark, sometimes you are very well-connected to this community, seem responsive and read people's posts. Other times, you seem aloof and in outer space on some other planet where no one can reach you. I understand that not everyone can have an audience, but it goes a long way towards people seeing you as down-to-earth if you posted more public updates, or maintained a blog that did that on a regular basis. I subscribed to your Twitter account just so I could get more info about what you're noodling, even if it's not Monkey-related.

-The lack of good support. You basically get what you paid for, here, but because Monkey isn't mature yet, it doesn't have a whole lot of top-tier modules that solve "every" problem common to most game developers. The first party libraries solve most of the biggest problems, but the 3rd party frameworks aren't really established (and are either poorly-documented or require you to pay for them or their proper documentation). Not a problem for veterans, but a problem for noobies for sure that ups the learning curve.

-The lack of a thriving ecosystem. It's every man for themselves here, pretty much, with a few scraps tossed here and there from time to time. Collaboration is practically nonexistent (or is transient). Attempts were made to resolve this with the Recent Apps section but it's not well-updated or particularly well-integrated. A more automatic system, combined with an integrated point-of-sale system like the Unity Asset Store would help turn the ad-hoc forum system into an actual storefront that give noobs a better impression of the language's support. Right now you have to lurk the forums to figure out what's "best for you" for everything.

-The IDE. It's a good attempt, but ultimately, the IDE is one thing that's been a big let-down of practically every Blitz language. I'm spoiled; I grew up with VB/VS, one of the easiest-to-use IDEs around. Only Jungle comes close on the Monkey side to this experience, and it's still a bit quirky. Don't dunk too much more time into the IDE; Instead, partner up with the major IDE providers to make package deals, and keep Ted around for the "No IDE" option. Put Ted on GitHub as a separate project, and let other people make it better.


The ugly:
-The setup. Setting up the demo version's a breeze, but setting up the targets for the pro version turns off all but the most dedicated coders. Not everyone's a "true-blue" programmer coming into MonkeyX. They just wanna get up and go. While it's not necessary to make an IDE that babies you (like Unity), at least having automated install scripts/modules with a front-end could go a way towards helping improve user perception. "Getting Started" tutorials should be more accessible (read: Fun) and get people excited to wanna start programming with Monkey. This might mean having a Banana which encapsulates a simple (but complete!) game, fully commented and documented. Like Hartlef's book, but without the commitment to his framework. Any "gotchas" in the way of this should be worked out at the core level, abstracted away from the new user. (Like, say, inconsistent audio support.)

-The documentation. It's a mess, it's sparse, and Monkeydoc is incomplete. Params should be implemented, and would be better served being updated and curated from a pool that comes from the community. This would mean setting up a wiki-like system, making it CC0 (or similar), and pulling all the best stuff from the Wiki into the official docs in a semi-automated fashion. Pushing back to the wiki should work similarly. See MSDN for a good example of curated and good docs; just don't copy their labyrinthian organization.

-Bananas. Many included bananas are out of date, and only serve to give rudimentary understanding of the language. Many are written by veteran Blitzers in the old style, barely-commented and full of unhelpful varnames and even type suffixes which make the language look unclean. Some are buggy and shouldn't be used because newer versions exist that you'd only be able to find if you were looking for them on the forums. The examples should be a shining example of the "Best of Monkey": Simple, concise, clean and effective. Some Bananas just need to be re-written to a more modern coding style, perhaps, but others need to go.

-Monkey's new logo and site design. It just doesn't look good to me. Well, I should say, it could look -better-. The original site design was indeed pretty outdated-looking, but the logo was great and a fresh break. I don't know what the new site WANTS to be, with its rigid font choices juxtaposed with flat, but not-totally-unshaded vectors, but it comes off a bit weird. Like someone tried to stuff a monkey in a suit, no pun intended. The previous design had some outdated design choices, but the logo was playful, and the color scheme wasn't bad on the eyes.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#189]
That's the language, though. The licensing of Mojo is more restrictive. And while the language is nice, Mojo is the meat in the sandwich.


No, the restrictive license was removed...



readme.txt:

For more Monkey fun, please visit: http://www.monkey-x.com

Monkey is released under the zlib/libpng license.

The zlib/libpng License

Copyright (c) 2013 Blitz Research Ltd
.....


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#190]
@dragon: But Mojo files are (c) Mark Sibly, as you can see by opening them. that also pplies to the native parts of it.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#191]
But Mojo files are (c) Mark Sibly


nope... this do not change zlib-license...

(previous, this was explicit defined)





typical zlib template (including copyright):

Copyright (c) <Year> <Name>

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.




in other words, zlib must include copyright - it is not possible to make it "copyleft"


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#192]
Dragon, BRL has a different view on this. The always said that Monkey and mojo are two seperate things.

If your claim was correct then what about all other 3rd party modules that you place inside Monkeys module structure? Do they get all of a sudden under the zlib license? I don't think so.


Derron(Posted 2014) [#193]
As long as your individual code files does not contain a licence, a "no explicit licence mention" is assumed.

Even with a "licence header" Mark might still have the right to do whatever he wants to do with his code: except his country does allow giving away "authorship" and he PDed it (in this case he is even more in the position to do whatever he wants with the code). And of course a file provided under a certain licence can be used from others (if allowed). Newer revisions of these files then might be under a different licence (except "unchanged" parts of that code). Another option is dual licencing - which would be problematic too if the author cannot revoke licences.


@Nobuyuki
"Nice" list.

Concerning "installation helpers" - even cocos2d has install shellscripts which setup requirements/dependencies. Think if Mark kindly ask there are surely some people offering their help on this topic ... but if nobody asks, nobody will answer.


bye
Ron


dragon(Posted 2014) [#194]
it is a clear situation
readme.txt say zlib

3rd party libs (not monkey - if any?) have own licenses


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#195]
Dragon, I think you're missing the historical context. Previously the Monkey source was release not under zlib but simply as public domain and the mojo directory contained a licence description that clearly stated it wasn't under the same PD terms:

"Mojo is copyright 2011 Mark Sibly.

This software is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the copyright holder prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise."

I don't know when the licence for "Monkey" was changed to zlib and the mojo licence text removed from the distribution. I don't recall Mark ever stating that mojo was now under a more permissive licence and he doesn't include the pro targets in the public repository. It seems likely that the impression that zlib applies to mojo may be unintentional but I'd be interested to hear Mark's position. Certainly if everything, including mojo, is now under zlib then maintaining Monkey as a platform into the future becomes an easier task.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#196]
i know this,
but again, copyright and license are 2 different things.
for now, it is defined as zlib.


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#197]
I have no problem understanding the difference. I didn't write that they are the same. Please save the didactic commentary. The point is that Mark previously clearly put mojo under licence terms that weren't zlib compatible.


ordigdug(Posted 2014) [#198]
I just checked by downloading older versions and the license terms changed at version 70g to zlib/libpng. I do notice that the monkey-x github repository does not include the mojo\native\ files for PRO supported targets. I would assume those are under another license, but I do not see it stated anywhere.


Soap(Posted 2014) [#199]
Marketing solution: setup affiliation. Users will solve the marketing problem on their own if they have an incentive to do so. BMT Micro has good affiliation setup which is LOW COST and EASY to do. It should take absolutely no more than a day if a custom solution is not wanted. You could also setup your own affiliate system like this company has in a pretty simple way: http://sendy.co/affiliates Give 30% to affiliates, and they will make sure that Monkey sells way more. If you set this up I'd take all of the 30% the affiliation made and spend it all on buying more add space circularly.

Do not give up until you do at least this.

Second thing is to make a static home page landing page, and put it on git for us to edit. I will gladly donate my time to improve it, but I need to be able to. If those of us who are skilled with marketing improve the landing page it alone will increase sales too. You gave a facelift to the site, but the landing page still is not as strong as it could be at increasing conversion rate from visitors. It needs to do much more than it's doing now. It needs focus on selling and nothing else. It needs to anticipate and resolve any concerns people have. Build up everything so when people visit the page they can know if Monkey is right for them, and have all of their concerns answered in one place so they can buy comfortably right then and there when they first visit.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#200]
What ever it means, Mark made Blitzplus available on GitHub

http://blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=102473


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#201]
Well, I would like to know how far monkey 2 is evolved.Maybe see some demo's to get people excited. I would like to know how much time and money he needs to finish it. Although aware of the risk I have no problem to pay in advance.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#202]
+1 on Playniax post.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#203]
+1 too :)

as for docs i would write them like b3ds docs with a indepth information and if possible a code example showing its usage :)


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#204]
Blitz2D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D SDK ... abandoned.
BlitzPlus ... abandoned.
BlitzMax ... abandoned.
Monkey X ... abandoned halted.

Always the same, and one of the main reasons BRL gets fewer customers for every new product.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#205]
As marks post points out he hasn't abandoned it he will still release updates, blitzbasic 2d was superceded by blitz+ which was again superceded by blitzmax with maxgui.

Blitz3d is still going is feature complete and received an update through mark for the win8 slowdown bug

yes updates are few and far between and there are loads of issues BUT monkey X hasn't been abandoned :)


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#206]
Also, i'm curious to know how many actions have been done to promote Monkey outside of the brl ecosystem.I mean, promoting it on other dev forums, advertising, etc. If the answer is that nothing has been done, then Monkey is a great success.


Skn3(Posted 2014) [#207]
Blitz2D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D SDK ... abandoned.
BlitzPlus ... abandoned.
BlitzMax ... abandoned.
Monkey X ... abandoned halted.

Always the same, and one of the main reasons BRL gets fewer customers for every new product.


Its all down to how you sell the product again. Take unity or flash as examples; they never have "abandoned" products because they just keep releasing under the same title forevermore. If you looked at the architecture of either of these you would see they are essentially complete new products throughout their lifespans. So in reflection you could state that "flash 1 - abandoned, flash 2 - abandoned, flash 3..."

Maybe monkey could simply be renamed to "Blitz" and stick with that title forevermore. Even if there is a monkey2, monkeyX or monkeyPro don't bother with a complete re-branding. Your name is everything and to keep renaming your product dilutes the value of that brand.

If you create a sub-brand then it only has a limited shelf life before it becomes stale and you need to reinvent yourself. If you just keep your 1 core brand then you can just refresh it periodically with major releases. You would gain much more mindshare with a single brand and each time you major release, you have the ability to draw back old customers.

Look at coke, it tries and tries to re-invent its brand names over the years but only 2-3 have really stuck. Imagine the amount of time, money and effort that went in to get those names to stick. As a one man band Id imagine you don't have that kind of time, money and effort to get the monkey name to take hold...

Currently monkey releases often but with that you never get a sense of occasion. For us people that are already customers we get much excitement over frequent releases but to be honest we don't matter nearly as much as those oh so important new customers. Sure there is a thin-line where you need to make your core customers happy, but monkey shoots itself in the foot with tiny updates. If you limited releases to say every 3-6 months (apart from show stopping bug fixes), you could create a fanfare of NEW FEATURE ADDED, JUST ADDED IAP, CAMERA MODULE ADDED IN MASSIVE 2.0 UPDATE..... every time. With that you can attract new customers simply by promoting the major updates on development communities.


degac(Posted 2014) [#208]
BRL's products are 'mantained' until there is some userbase. It's the BRL's normal production cycle.*

And when the product itself becames 'old'... there is always the open-source way or putting on line the source code (like the last case of BlitzPlus). Of course if there is an interest, someone can pickup and update/fix if necessary. Otherwise it becomes informatic archeology.


* The abnormal thing is see a ProductX that every year has an 'update' X+1: there are very few cases that X+1 has real improvements in features/capabilities (not only in programming, but also in every field: graphics, office, OS and so on). I can understand fixing updates AND after some years a newer version. But not every year... Of course if you consider the money... it's another history.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#209]
The abnormal thing is see a ProductX that every year has an 'update' X+1: there are very few cases that X+1 has real improvements in features/capabilities (not only in programming, but also in every field: graphics, office, OS and so on). I can understand fixing updates AND after some years a newer version. But not every year... Of course if you consider the money... it's another history.
Yes, but there is (was?) a roadmap so there are major additions to be delivered where a subscription model would make perfect sense to me.


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#210]
Monkey X is NOT abandoned or even halted. It's 'Monkey 2' he was talking about.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#211]
Mark said there won't be any new features developed by him. So I won't expect anything more than the usual little bug fix updates. I understood his statement like that he is putting Moneky on the same level as BlitzMax now. But I could be wrong and everything is just fine there is nothing to worry about. Who cares anyway :-)


degac(Posted 2014) [#212]
@Ziggy
Maybe my post was misunderstood... some product doesnt' require AT ALL a new 'release' (x+1)... this is just an excuse to make money!
A proper roadmap was fixed only some months ago (or at least public!).
Before the amount of updates was very high, than an user could thing that Monkey is 'still in beta' status. From my point of view as user I consider this a very good thing, of course! This mean that the 'producer' is still working and checking its own creature.

Just to clarify, I will consider 2 class of updates: minor and new release.
Minor is just bug fixing, correction, stability and so on. You could choose to sell a product and have this class of 'updates' forever (like BlitzMax, Blitz3d), or just ask an annual fee (but this means you MUST offer minor updates even for the problem with 1 users...)
New release (for me) means something really new: a complete rewrite of something (ie: faster drawing routine), newer functions and so on. Of course we can consider the 'new release' as a 'new product', and of course asking for a 'right' price (you are not rebuild it from scratch, just changed something, but there's a 'study' behind it).

I think Mark could/should apply these approaches (mainly the second) both for Monkey AND modules AND targets.

@Playnax

You are right, but Mark stated the Monkey will be have only updates/fixes and improvements (as until now).

ps: just noticed the last post of Mark on his blog.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#213]
I like the idea of BlitzX 1...2...3 etc like Unity 1...2...3 this would give the idea of continuation and a product that's moving forwards. This is also the same for loads of products like Leadwerks 1...2...3 :)


Why0Why(Posted 2014) [#214]
I like the idea of Blitz X myself. I would be willing to pay again for an update that has 2D in 3D and shaders.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#215]
Jeez, all these veterans wanting to return to the "good old days" with a rename to something Blitz. I thought we were supposed to get fresh blood in here?

Full disclosure: I'm one of the few active members and supporters of Monkey who didn't actually come in from the blitz community, so my opinion is somewhat biased. My only flirt with brl before Monkey was in the early 2000s as a BB2d beta tester. But now I code Monkey full-time!

Monkey needed to prove to people that it was different from the reputation things with the name Blitz had in it over the years; that it was a serious player and not a toy language. The fundamental paradigm shift in the language that I'm assuming started with bmax was supposed to be symbolically complete with Monkey, and that shouldn't be understated.

The community of veterans shoots itself in the foot sometimes with its demands to the detriment of new users. Sometimes I think it's a shrinking island, like lord of the flies, where like I said everyone's mostly only looking out for themselves -- we're actively trying to avoid that, while also it seems that unfortunately we're being a part of it at the same time.


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#216]
do not rename Monkey. it would be a bad idea.


Brucey(Posted 2014) [#217]

Blitz2D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D SDK ... abandoned.
BlitzPlus ... abandoned.
BlitzMax ... abandoned.
Monkey X ... halted.



Oh wait, I can play this game too!

Visual Studio ... abandoned.
Visual Studio 97 ... abandoned.
Visual Studio 6.0 ... abandoned.
Visual Studio .NET (2002) ... abandoned.
Visual Studio .NET 2003 ... abandoned.
Visual Studio 2005 ... abandoned.
Visual Studio 2007 ... abandoned.
Visual Studio 2008 ... abandoned.
Visual Studio 2010 ... due to be abandoned 7/14/2015.

So, what was your point exactly?


Skn3(Posted 2014) [#218]
Jeez, all these veterans wanting to return to the "good old days" with a rename to something Blitz. I thought we were supposed to get fresh blood in here?


I wouldn't say its a return to the "good old days" but clearly at least 50% of people talking here seem to think the name is hurting the success of the language. If it was 1 person shouting out in rage about the name, you could easily overlook it. With so many people voicing the same thing over and over, surely it must have some involvement in sales slumping?

So I think its not about returning to the old, more of trying to focus on a name that actually means something to potential customers. A brand that people recognise and already have some concept of.

If you were faced with two chocolate bars to decide between:

- One was called "Chocolate bar brand that you have either tried before and enjoyed or sounds appealing because it sounds awesome just from its name. e.g MEGA TASTY BAR"

- The other was called "Brand you don't recognise and which sounds interesting but the name doesn't relate to chocolate a great deal. e.g. TREETOP BAR"

Which would you choose?


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#219]
You make a good point, Brucey.

Previous to Max and Monkey, the old products had to be shelved for good reason. They just weren't built on an extensible technology.


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#220]
There is another problem I have experience firsthand over the years. Why would someone learn Monkey if most or all companies are looking for C, C++, IOS, Android, Unity etc. programmers to hire or in other words the industry standards? I know they don’t know any better but engines like Unity have taken over the market and small gracious products like Monkey get crushed by these giants. That is why I like the independent work so I can choose what I want to use, but not everybody have that luxury.


arawkins(Posted 2014) [#221]
@playniax I agree with you and that is one of the biggest hurdles I've found getting other developers to check out monkey. Asking a developer to invest and learn something new is a challenge. If you want to get developers to deviate from industry standards you have to have a very compelling case. I think Monkey was/is close, but for the reasons outlined by everyone in this thread and Mark himself in his blog post, I don't know if it will make it over that hurdle.

I think it would be great if Mark could make Trans work with an industry standard language, so you could write in C# or JS, as well as Monkey, and then use Trans to publish out to target platforms. Then you are just selling developers a well-made tool for source code translation, instead of an entirely new language. Monkey could live on as an open source language, which Trans could optionally use.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#222]
With so many people voicing the same thing over and over, surely it must have some involvement in sales slumping?


Not necessarily ! In fact, I would argue that it's a sign of a different problem - a lot of these people are the ones who are stuck in the past, have been around forever and are pretty heavily invested in the status quo, whether they realize it or not.I wouldn't say it's necessarily malicious, just that there are many factors involved with that. For example, a lot of people have nostalgia for the old names that may be coloring their judgment somewhat.

Edit: please excuse my poor proofreading, I'm using voice dictation on my phone right now.anyway, what blitz means to a lot of people is associated with toy languages, so starting with an unfamiliar name may actually be an asset rather than a liability. if the name itself starts off rather innocuous,they may be willing to give it a look simply because it is unfamiliar, and that's when we have our opportunity to show them our feature set. there are a combination of factors necessary to make this work, however I believe that marketing based on the old reputation is generally not a good idea considering how strongly some of you have expressed your (I'm sure well-intentioned) criticisms of BRL in the past.


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#223]
The word "monkey" is known everywhere in the world, in all non-english speaking countries.
It is often associated with funny little animals that are mostly seen as not being very intelligent,
compared to the world-ruling homo sapiens. They are cute sometimes, like little babies... playing all day.
Monkeys are generally seen as dumb and backwards, compared to superior humans, so the
word "monkey" is sometimes used as a cuss word / dirty word for not-so-intelligent people.

Person1: "I'm programming with Monkey."
Person2: "What?"
Person1: "Yes, Monkey. It is a new programming language/system."
Person2: *Smiles* and doesn't take it seriously.


We don't have such big associations with "gnu" or "python", as with our "dumb ancestors".
"Python" is something powerful. "Ruby" is something beautiful.
We generally don't take monkeys seriously. Nobody wants to be a "monkey coder".


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#224]
@danilo

Utterly effing ridiculous. Next you'll be telling me that Squirrel isn't legit either (even though Valve uses it instead of lua). I think Ruby is a stupid name and I thought the same of Python --when I was a teenager. Were adults now, so gimme a break!

The language makes its own reputation, barring any direct connection to something already computer related.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#225]
Tbh when i here python i think of monty python flying circus and think of a group of programmers walking around like the ministry of silly walks.


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#226]
Monty Python is the reference for the naming of Python so it's unsurprising that you'd be reminded of it. Monkey's name is not an issue in and of itself. If you take the name and add in the "kiddie" visuals of the icon and website it's more of a problem. Add the fact that the language retains BASIC syntax structures - a language with a "training wheels" reputation* - more of a problem. Then add the general appearance of the demo apps. It's the combination of some or all these things that puts people off even downloading the free version.

The fact is that all of this stuff can be fixed or made irrelevant by providing a core compelling case for the capabilities of the language and improving the product itself. The name and logo would be embraced as quirky if the product blew people away. I'm not saying that I love the name (I particularly dislike the weak 'X' suffix re-brand) but I can't believe that it's the correct thing to focus on as the core problem with Monkey's pull for new customers.

* Please don't be tempted to respond with an argument about the validity of BASIC. This is about marketing.


therevills(Posted 2014) [#227]
@Danilo
Blitz2D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D ... abandoned.
Blitz3D SDK ... abandoned.
BlitzPlus ... abandoned.
BlitzMax ... abandoned.
Monkey X ... abandoned halted.


Lets put a bit of context around some of these projects:
* Blitz3D released in 2001 ... 13 years ago!
* BlitzPlus released in 2003... 11 years ago!
* BlitzMax released in 2004... 10 years ago!


TeaBoy(Posted 2014) [#228]
Monkey2 should happen me thinks, to market this baby???

Remember 1995 Mr Sibly? GLOOM ring any bells? yeh!! GLOOM recreated in Monkey2 to show off Monkey2's 3D capabilities!! (if any) :)


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#229]
Nah don't call it Monkey2... call it Pigsy.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#230]
Gloom was more of a Wolfenstein clone IIRC. 17Bit actually did a real Amiga DOOM (can't remember what it was called). but the limitations of bit-plane technology and a relatively slow processor were obvious. Not that any of that is relevant, all those games would be trivial to build now, not just in Monkey but in a host of languages/environments. Tech marches on, and you have to march with it to some extent.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#231]
Angry Pigsy?


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#232]
EdzUp[GD]:
Tbh when i here python i think of monty python flying circus and think of a group of programmers walking around like the ministry of silly walks.

You see, people associate something with names. Now ask a linguist what people usually associate with the word "monkey".
What first comes to mind is for sure not "power", "powerful", "serious". It's the animals people watch at the zoo, laughing about them.
The small and silly little animals that we don't take serious most of the time. Although they may be, we generally don't see them as very intelligent.
Most people usually do not have such associations with Gnu, Squirrel, Rabbits, Frogs, Python, Ruby. Pigs in a game may be funny,
but I wouldn't use 'Pigs' as the name for a serious programming language or similar serious products. But enough about the name, just wanted to
explain why I think it's not the best name.

Many suggestions have already been made about the product itself. Don't know if it's already too late, or if it will help.
I already said my opinion about the "IDE" (Editor) month ago. I am watching BRL products since I bought Blitz+ back in
round about 2000. Only few weeks later came Blitz3D, and I decided to not pay again. Instead I got PureBasic, wich
is still actively developed. It was Amiga and Windows back then, and is now Windows, Linux, Mac. 32bit and 64bit,
ASCII and Unicode modes. It is one good example where a product does not get abandoned, instead it is enhanced
and updated without an final "it is done" attitude.
Think about an up-to-date cross-platform Blitz3D with DirectX 11 and latest OpenGL support. It could still be the
top thing for indies to make desktop games. It is not, because it was just stopped, in favor of something different.
The new thing, BlitzMax, seems not to be that widespread, compared to Blitz3D back then. Again abandoned, in
favor of something entirely new. As we see, the new thing, Monkey X, is even lesser widespread. Some of the
problems (like the simple editor/IDE) are the same like 10 years ago. A good programmer like Mark Sibly should
be able to make something more advanced. He seems to have the skills, but the basic editor was an external
contract project and gets not enhanced anymore (small changes only if really necessary)?

I also wonder about simple things, like preferences files within the application directory instead user settings
directory. After installing new test versions, you can't just go, because a fresh install can't find the SDK's and
all the external stuff. Polishing such small things is also important in a professional product.
Add a dialog to the editor to set the SDK directories, and save this preferences to the user's home or app prefs directory,
so the next version can use the same preferences file. Saves the users some time with every new version.

I also recommend to put some syntax-highlighted code examples at the information page
at http://www.monkey-x.com/Monkey/language.php, to actually see what the language looks like, and to present
some of it's features visually. It says "Object-Oriented", "Classes", "Inheritance", "Generics", "Native code support", ...
Just give interested people in a hurry some quick examples in code, for all this features, to show
how easy it is to do and achieve something with Monkey X.


Supertino(Posted 2014) [#233]
Not that Mark has said he's abandoned Monkey and we're maybe a little worried or disappointed for no reason but.... I'd support a monkey reboot (if that's what's needed), I'd support a fundraising kickstarter so Mark and others can work on expanding Monkey adding much needed functionality and so on, but I'd want to see;

- a different more apt dare I say serious product name
- a richer IDE
- a website that can impress and sell the product
- full documentation of every single call and function, maybe a wiki the community can help build
- less targets to begin with, concentrate on HTML5, Desktop, IOS and Droid.
- integrate and support popular and must have modules such as IAP, Ads, Game Centers, Physics, 3D, XML


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#234]
Tbh all monkey needs is an ide which has a configuration section for setting up monkey, one for setting up your project (including icon change etc). Finally modules for 3d etc

after that even the standard monkey we have now would be brilliant, most of the glitches and complaints are about the configuration etc.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#235]
Most irritating for me is just the absence from Mark in this thread. All these ideas are good but most probably nonsense without a response...


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#236]
Supertino:
I'd support a monkey reboot (if that's what's needed), I'd support a fundraising kickstarter so Mark and others can work on expanding Monkey adding much needed functionality and so on, but I'd want to see;

- a different more apt dare I say serious product name
- a richer IDE
- a website that can impress and sell the product
- full documentation of every single call and function, maybe a wiki the community can help build
- less targets to begin with, concentrate on HTML5, Desktop, IOS and Droid.
- integrate and support popular and must have modules such as IAP, Ads, Game Centers, Physics, 3D, XML

I would like to add a small request: a "feature requests" forum category, where new ideas
for enhancing the language and libraries could be wished and discussed. Many people have great ideas,
and BRL could make use of this resources.

I agree with Supertino and I am ready to spend 100 Euro for a restart,
and wouldn't mind a 50 Euro yearly fee (upgrade or subscription for free updates),
if some things get changed little bit and the product continues and gets enhanced.
Having an income of 50,000+ Euro a year should be some motivation to work 8 hours / workday
for the customers (in the sense of customers, including communication with them), and if more customers come
when the product is more professionalized, it would mean even more income.
I am not ready to pay anything for products with an uncertain future, so it should be made relatively clear
what the roadmap and future plans are.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#237]
Tbh all monkey needs is an ide which has a configuration section for setting up monkey, one for setting up your project (including icon change etc). Finally modules for 3d etc

after that even the standard monkey we have now would be brilliant, most of the glitches and complaints are about the configuration etc.
Agree. I've been working lasts months on something in this direction, but can't give details just yet, as it's everything on a very early status, looking for institutional financial support, etc. But as soon as I have more details, I'll share them here.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#238]
" After installing new test versions, you can't just go." But if you don't like them, you can trivially revert.


paulscottrobson(Posted 2014) [#239]
Well, I'm a relative newcomer.

Monkey is an excellent product. It isn't very well known. I don't think the name matters, as long as its not a swear word in Spanish or something. (There was a car called the Vauxhall Nova (GM in Europe), No-va is Spanish for doesn't go). The IDE doesn't matter that much, it's never going to be Visual Studio, there is at least one good product out there and a lot of people are happy with TextMate or Sublime Text anyway.

The documentation is not that great. You can figure a lot of stuff out from examples. The Hartlef book is very good, even though I think it switches to FantomEngine maybe a little too early. But it is excellent, one of the best written tutorials I've come across.

Developers are concerned about product life though. This applies to everything - Corona, Gideros, Marmalade, Cocos-2D and all the other variants. I asked a while back 'What happens if Mark Sibley is run over by a bus' which some people thought was an odd question - it was a bit metaphorical perhaps but it is important. People have to eat and if there is insufficient income to support Mark, then his family comes first.

Apple especially continually bollox around with stuff, and the build system requires tweaking. Will this continue ? This is the problem with some products - yes they are great, but is the support there ? No-one wants to write shedloads of code that they then have to dump because it is some system that vanishes overnight.

Moving onto github is a good start. Perhaps it should be spread further. If there are enough core developers interested, could we collaborate to reduce Mark's workload. A bit like the Linux kernel - Torvalds doesn't actually write much of it now (if any ?) and he has a job in his own right (i think ?) as well. But he coordinates and makes decisions.

I probably couldn't help with the build stuff for iOs or Android or HTML 5. But I'm a programmer and a teacher, I could write tutorials, code examples. Someone else, possibly Mark, could edit it. Other people could 'sell' it, work on something to lure people in. Perhaps the free version could be modified so it does allow people to generate for iOS/Android etc but the project size is limited. Other people could work on the modules. Could (for example) a deal be done with Mr Hartlef/Packt to include (say) the first chapters of the book as a tutorial pdf ? (this would hopefully generate sales of the complete book as a knock on ?) I wouldn't want any money for doing it, the survival and enhancement of the product would make it worthwhile.

I think it would be a terrible loss ; but I'm looking at using it for developing stuff, and Corona, and the blog post does make me wonder about it. There is a lot more to system choice than 'is it a good system/programming language/API'.


Pharmhaus(Posted 2014) [#240]
I have to admit i am not very productive right now because I'm checking every 15 minutes all the Monkey-X topics around to see if BRL made a major breakthrough.
Even if i believe in marks great programming abilities I kind of fear that things will go along the 'BRL way' without any change in direction.

This is a typical problem suffering companies have.
Instead of realizing that the direction is wrong they try to compensate this problem by working overtime which obviously will not work.
(Think of Kodak who tried to beat digital with analog cameras...)

Doing the right thing is 1000x more important than how you do it.
And Monkey really needs marketing.

sadly, I have 0% experience in marketing (and also don't know anyone who does) and I also never started a Kickstarter campaign nor do I live in the right country to do so.
I'm willing to pay someone who has decent marketing experience a small amount for harassing(!) BRL so that some progress in the marketing direction will happen.

Maybe someone can arrange a deal on a per-sale basis? (Or knows someone who would be interested in such a deal?)
Since there are almost no sales (sorry for that) it wouldn't make a big difference for mark (only for his ego).

I don't know what BRL is doing at the moment but beside innovating and designing languages I sometimes get the impression that marks needs a partner with a first-step mentality who is not so shy as mark but more offensive and extroverted.

Could someone do the first step toward BRL, please?
I just fear the other way around will not work...


vmakar85(Posted 2014) [#241]
Hi all ..

I mastered reading a couple of pages, I sit here and wait for any response from Mark.
I think it would be nice to talk to people.

In any case, I hope that a way out of this problem exists.
I like amateur (hobby) the programmer, will be very difficult to look for another similar tool.
I already had to buy a library and ide, will be sad if they cease to develop.

Really looking forward to new things in the ignition (UI), the phantom engine. perhaps a new book =)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#242]
I think if people put monkey logo ie the face and word monkey in their sigs not only on this forum but ALL forums they use, with a link to this site it might drum up some new customers.

after all its loads of small steps that lead to massive leaps :)


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#243]
The Hartlef book is very good, even though I think it switches to FantomEngine maybe a little too early.

Thanks Paul for the kind words. And sorry about the switch you have mentioned. During the writing process it became clear that, without some kind of framework, I would break the page limit big time. Something the publisher was big time against it. As I didn't want to rely on external modules/frameworks, I thought creating fantomEngine was my best solution out of this problem.

Really looking forward to new things in the phantom engine. perhaps a new book =)


fantomEngine will be developed further, I made my mind about it yesterday. My todo list is simply to big to ignore it :-)

About a new book, I still have to think about it. Mark's announcement put a dent into my future plans supporting Monkey. Also that they didn't display it on the website anymore kinda upset me. But hey, their loss, not mine. I will never make another dime besides the initial money I got from PacktPub for writing it. Maybe I will write one on a smaller scale, I don't know. People have asked for a general Monkey book before. As Invader Jim's video tutorial basically cover everything and do a great job, I wonder if a general Monkey book would be well received. Writing such a beast takes time, time and more time. Maybe I should do a kickstarter or something like this to see how many are really interested.


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#244]
A decent language, API reference would be fine by me.

As far as Kickstarter goes I am sure the community would not mind chipping in here to create a kickass pitch.


simonh(Posted 2014) [#245]
Also that they didn't display it on the website anymore kinda upset me

Not an intentional snub. We've just added a third-party products page to the Store section, and we plan to add it to that.

Also, we featured Fantom engine and mentioned the book on the modules page when we redesigned the site.


benmc(Posted 2014) [#246]
I think the other engines out there gain traction because their free versions REQUIRE that users put a "Made with Monkey" in their splash screens before the game ever starts. It's a paid privilege to hide the tool you are using.

Right now, who knows how many cool games out there are made with Monkey, and it seems silly that if they were using the free tool, we don't know. It should have to say so.

That being said, I wouldn't mind any of the following:

1) An annual membership. Either for a premium forum maybe, or just to use Monkey. I wouldn't even flinch at $99 a year to use Monkey. $199 would make me think for about 30 seconds, but I'd still do it - and then slap myself for taking so long to think about it :)

2) I'd chip in to a kickstarter too, but that seems like just delaying the inevitable.

3) How much money does Mark need to keep Monkey going per year?

You see, I've dedicated the last couple years of game making to Monkey now, and the thought of switching tools makes me sick to my stomach. In fact, one of the reasons I almost DID NOT use Monkey was because I thought that exactly THIS would happen. The fact that there wasn't an annual fee made me think it would die just as soon as I got used to it, and sure enough......

An annual fee, in my opinion, gives people a warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that as long as they are paying for it, it will be there. If you want to stop supporting it, you stop taking new subscriptions, and let everyone else's run their course to the end of the term, or give them a nice "you have 1 year" warning, or whatever.


erebel55(Posted 2014) [#247]
simonh, it's a good start.

There are a ton of useful products and modules buried in the forums. I think it should be more obvious to someone who hasn't purchased or dug through the forums that there is a lot more to offer than what comes ootb.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#248]
Thanks Simon.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#249]
Hell i was thinking of a big monkey logo at the start of Star Rogue as a 'made with monkey' sort if thing. The only issue i had was that with the media freely visible anyone could put anything there and change the whole game.

the freely available media thing always was an issue and monkey is the only BRL language where you couldn't do ya own loaders etc what with the cross platform mobile nature of it all

i might look into external data files though :)


JaviCervera(Posted 2014) [#250]
I think that, as some others have suggested, Monkey X would need a reboot.IMO, the first thing that should be done is to use only a C++ translator, and discard all the targets that cannot be built from C++ code. By replacing the Android target with Android NDK and the HTML5 target with an Asm.js one, we could still build for most of the platforms that Monkey X currently runs on, but with an addition that I think is a game changer: We could link to libraries written in C++ and have them working on all platforms. This means that I could make a game with OpenGL ES 2.0 for graphics, Bullet for physics, Lua for scripting, and have it all running on a web browser. Right now, you know that if you include a C++ library in your project, you are limited to the targets that use the C++ translator.

Another thing, a subscription model would make a lot of sense. You pay $99 and all the future updates appear on your account for one year. After that, no new updates appear, but you can renew the subscription and have access to the latest and greatest stuff.


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#251]
From latest blog...
I'd also like to reassure Monkey users that when/if I one day 'retire' Monkey (ie: stop selling it), I will also be releasing the full source code to the currently proprietary bits of Mojo in a similar way. Ditto Blitz3D/BlitzMax...

Take that, you Monkey nay-sayers flinging poop at the crowd! (j/k)

This retirement of Monkey won't happen for a long time, I would bet.
So lets continue to show our support, keep giving suggestions for improvements, and make lots of cool games with a Monkey splash screen ourselves. :)


Tibit(Posted 2014) [#252]
I think Mark is pretty spot on about the "problem" with Monkey sales - there are lots of small obstacles that get in the way of productivity for non-experienced programmers.

My Marketing advice
- Market position - decide what Monkey should be "best" at. In my opinion: "best" for 2D Indy Game Making, but this should be discussed!
- Do a Monkey "Restart"
- Start a fundraiser for this "Restart" here on this site when a viable goal for continued development has been discussed with the community, everyone has a say but maybe more votes to those willing to "pay" for the restart
- Make mojo free for non-commercial use aka unlimited demo. Argument? Larger community, smaller barrier in, great choice for gamejams, beneficial for module makers, security for developers and more <3 for everyone
- Charge for commercial publishing (where money flows), renew yearly + donate possibility, discuss with community first
- Open up for rename possibility, discuss with community

Ideas for Monkey Direction
- Discuss what Mark wants/should focus on
- Improve community contribution even more
- Let community deal with IDE? Seems to be the reality anyway. Do anyone *really* need the TED darling anyway?
- Focus on HTML5, Desktop, IOS and Droid? Polish from project setup to publish, make it easy to get started and to publish.
- Add a project module add/remove tool (like Composer for laravel, or the Curse ModMaker for Wow) to support all the great Community work being done
- Let some from the community help with updating and curation of mods, tutorials, docs, examples, targets and to collect ideas and suggestions and make summaries of what the community wants.


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#253]
Make mojo free for non-commercial use aka unlimited demo.
Terrible idea; that's tantamount to giving the product away to the majority of your potential customers. How's Mark going to eat? I heard it said one one of these forums that anyone that hadn't released anything commercial should just quit complaining about any perceived issues with Blitz. My retort was that was a bad idea as those without a commercial release were undoubtedly the majority and BRL's bread-and-butter as a result.

To clarify, that comment was by some random forum member, not BRL.

I agree with the comment on letting the community deal with the IDE. I think if Mark would trust us, we could do some good work here.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#254]
Make mojo free for non-commercial use aka unlimited demo.
Terrible idea

Agree, terrible idea. It's a niche product, it has to have a price. If it could be delivered as a version that includes visible splash screen of "made with Monkey X" in a way that's not ultra easy to skip, then maybe. Otherwise I would advise against it. But, anyway, everybody giving advise. I guess it's rather easy when it's not your own company.


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#255]
- Market position - decide what Monkey should be "best" at. In my opinion: "best" for 2D Indy Game Making, but this should be discussed!


Totally disagree, if Monkey had been shipped with 3D I feel its market position would only benefit. It's almost a prerequisite for any currently successful game coding dev. system that supports modern hardware. What I do feel though is that I feel and Mojo3D should have been a paid extra for those that wanted it, also the IAP modules should be a paid extra too.


Desperado(Posted 2014) [#256]
Monkey X would need a reboot. IMO, the first thing that should be done is to use only a C++ translator, and discard all the targets that cannot be built from C++ code

The way Monkey X outputs to several languages is an awesome feature that makes it special compared to other cross platform development technologies. I think it would be a terrible mistake to remove that functionality!

Monkey X is a great product with tons of potential. I don’t think it needs a reboot and instead hope it continues to evolve. I'm going to keep using it regardless.

I’d recommend switching to a yearly license for continued updates & support, and charging much more for companies with revenue over a certain amount.


benmc(Posted 2014) [#257]
This is a mess.

Might as well say what I disagree with too:

The C++ thing. Very against. I LOVE that I jump in to the Obj-C, C#, and Java to solve the little quarks.

3D? I think there A LOT of devs totally fine without it, and it's not a prerequisite.

Agree with:

Monkey needs a focus. It needs to be dramatically narrowed. I think too often it's gone off on a tangent to solve problems that only serve a small audience, and while this is great in the long run, Monkey is still young, and it should perfect a handful of things, everything else can wait.

Why not just support HTML5, Flash, GLFW, iOS and Android? This gives you web, desktop and mobile.

I've also seen a lot of strange language enhancements come before the important stuff to the gaming business like serving Ads and IAP.

So. Like I said. A mess. Nobody seems to agree on anything.


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#258]
Why not just support HTML5, Flash, GLFW, iOS and Android? This gives you web, desktop and mobile.

I wouldn't like to remove the Windows targets (Windows 8, XNA).

For me the many targets were the reason to license Monkey X, because
I use Mac OS X, Windows 7+8, Linux, iPad mini 2, Google Nexus 7,
Microsoft Surface 2 /RT, Windows Phone 7+8, Nintendo Wii (missing target ;)).

if Monkey had been shipped with 3D I feel its market position would only benefit. It's almost a prerequisite for any currently successful game coding dev. system that supports modern hardware.

I agree, and at the same time I read discussions in the BlitzMax forums, where the
guys are still waiting for proper 3D stuff. Why should it be different with Monkey X?


paulscottrobson(Posted 2014) [#259]
Might as well add Ouya because I think it's very similar to Android.


degac(Posted 2014) [#260]
The main problem is not Monkey-X itself but its own 'low' sales and revenue (from what I understood by Marks' blog post...).

Just consider this: (officially price at 1st may 2014)

BlitzMax $79 : you get 3 targets (Windows, Linux, Mac) + GUI module (previously it costs 20$ IIRC)
MonkeyX $ 99 : you get 12 (!) targets (Win-Win8, Mac, Linux, HTML5, Android, iOS, Xbox,PSM, Ouya)

20$ of difference to have 4 times the supported targets? Even considering some targets 'derivates' (Ouya is Android based) keep ALL THIS updated is time-sucking!
Or you fix the price to 299$ (example) or just sell some targets as 'default' (ie: Android, iOS, HTML5) and the other as paid target (15$ 19$? I dont know).
There are very few solutions to pay the bills at the end of the month!
Having 'more' users dont' change the situation and the budget between time-resource invested/results will be negative.

Honestly look at the forum (the target forums):

OUYA 4 threads, 55 posts
PSM 25 threads, 142 posts

these are niches market. The time Mark spends to find and resolve a bug or whatever is for a relative low number of final users compared to Android o iOS.
Many users have already posted interesting solutions: it's a mess maybe, but if you resume all, there is already something quite well-defined.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#261]
I think the problem is mark is fighting with marketting, he said years ago after the guildhall debacle that he wanted to keep BRL small, in hindsight this was a bad idea.

if anything brl should advertise, get the community to advertise if needed.

as for the ide i like Ted but just need a few bits like setup of monkey and a target window for setup and changing of icons.


degac(Posted 2014) [#262]
if anything brl should advertise, get the community to advertise if needed.

Well, this could be a strategy (not the best one in my opinion)... but Mark should define what advertise/offer!

I was thinking to create a solution for Monkey like BlitzMax Companion at the time: one program to have in 'one-box' everything needed to install and setup. It's not something impossible to do.
But nowadays I have very little time to do anything (with Monkey or with BlitzMax...) and moreover I'm using a limited internet connection (100MB total at day! I can't do quite anything!) so testing it could be very complex (the various SDK are MANY MB to download...).
Moreover I have only Windows to test with... so Mac is out!

ps: I just re-read all the posts from the beginning (very few...) on Mark's blog. There are very intersting things (like the idea to assign marketing function to someone else... year: 2010).


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#263]
Yeah i do agree that something needs to be done, and on the marketing front if we all splashed it everywhere not only would it help BRL but would help us as mark would have more time to give the products that we use.

yeah i was thinking of writing two tools one for setup and one for target editing so it would alleviate the problem for now i can compile for the main 3 when i get win32 working again (coff error atm from vc++)

i don't want to see BRL get smaller or become a part time affair the main reason is simply, when this happens and people come home tired after a hard day the last thing they want to do is code. Ultimately in the end when more money is made from a 9-5 than sales something gets left behind.

i am not saying this is the case here but it will always be at the back of peoples minds especially with the blog post.


quantum(Posted 2014) [#264]
I've been away from Monkey for 6 months... so just catching up!

Wish there was a site like kickstarter, but where a project can offer several mini-projects to be funded separately. That way Mark can try to fund each of these mini projects the community has asked for (e.g. 3d module). It's the only way he'll know if people's suggestions are viable or not. Talk is cheap, and he needs cash to continue working on Monkey!


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#265]
Monkey needs marketing, 3rd party tools and support! It's that simple! This should result in more sales. Also Mark needs to keep making money from his customers so a 'buy once and lifetime free updates license' is not a good business model. We have been working very hard and a BIG update is coming very soon from Playniax. Experience leads to new insights so we have reworked the framework from top to bottom! Most important new features are a ready to use basic game GUI, box2d support and sold separately, a R.U.B.E. importer! We are also updating our website, setting up a forum and member area where you can register your product and download updates.Future plans and already in development include desktop style GUI components for creating tools and apps, advanced A.I module, isometric engine, games and more…

We have big plans to keep releasing updates and modules. To help in our maintenance of the core engine and maintain a steady flow of add on modules we have recruited another developer to the team.Stuart Tresadern (TREZ on the forums) brings years of development experience to the team with core development skills in C, C++.C#, Mono and JavaScript and of course Monkey X.

More information about the details will follow soon!

In the meantime enjoy this little Ignition X + box2d + R.U.B.E. demo teaser!


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#266]
Really looking forward to Mojo3D. Though I'd hate to see that be the end of MiniB3D as that module has had a lot of hard work put into it that would go to waste. What's the difference between the NDK target verses the current Android target?

Also looking forward to using shaders, though I'm not looking forward to learning how to use them, a lot of work, and I hope there will be an active sub forum where people will share their monkey shaders, ie 3D cell shading / outlines, dynamic realtime 3D shadows, photoshop-like filters, etc.That would make things easier for people like me who'd rather not write everything ourselves. :P


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#267]
I've only been using Monkey-X since August last year, and having come from a procedural background into OO programming was a challenge. Had the docs been better and the support been better, I'd have had a better experience. I am a very patient person and very perseverant. However, I cannot see many other newcomers trying out Monkey-X to be as patient as me before giving up and going elsewhere.
As previously mentioned, what BRL need is a dedicatd marketing person, web / forum person, a core developer and modules/targets developer.
IMHO, I think setting up a Kickstarter campaing with a clear plan on what the product will offer is the way to go.

In addition to a Kickstarter campaign, having a proper Forum system will help immensely. What's currently available is frankly terrible.
Finally, a Bounty system would be almost as good as a Kickstarter. Create a list of items people want, can be voted on, and put bounties against those.
Many people will want support for XYZ targets and others will want work done on specific modules. Either way, if there's money being put towards that, it's going to provide the incentive to get it done.

I am more than willing to pay for annual updates, will definately back a Kickstarter campaign and will definately put money into bounties for specific issues that many of us are currently having to deal with/work around.

Either way, the reason I went with Monkey was simply because it was the most affordable product that provided such a large range of platform compiling. Write-once-deploy-on-many-platforms is simply the best solution for someone like me that's not a veteran coder. I am not interested in learning 50 languages to get my product into many markets/platforms. Monkey allows me to do the impossible right now.

So thank you Mr Sibly. I hope you take all the great advice people have offered here and give it some thought. All you need to do is take a seat, think about what you want to do with BRL and the Monkey brand and get it done. Either way, I love Monkey-X and will continue using it for some time to come as frankly, for me, nothing else comes close.

To do my part, I will ensure Monkey-X is advertised in all the games I make.


quantum(Posted 2014) [#268]
Kickstarter is not a magic bullet. A lot of work needs to be done upfront and there's no guarantee of any return (if the project goes unfunded). I've had personal experience of 100s of forum users saying they will back a project and them not following through once the KS is live.

That said, I'm sure if a popular module (3d?) is chosen then it should easily make $10k ($40 x 250) and keep Mark busy/fed for a few months!


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#269]
@quantum I agree. Kickstarter is definately not a magic bullet. However, it will lay a clear and defined guideline of what will be done and at what stages of time throughout the year etc. Having a defined route is better than just mulling about where nobody knows where Monkey-X is going.

I have backed well over 10 Kickstarter projects over the last 1.5 years (between 20usd - 300usd) and have no issue backing BRL if they do decide to set up a Kickstarter project as it's to all our benefit in the long run.

I also previously failed to mention that I am also in agreement that an annual fee for updates is the way to go. It clearly works for other products, so why not. Even so, Monkey-X will still be more affordable to most. I for one was put off by the high costs associated with Unity, Gamemaker pro etc. as I am a single hobbyist/part-time game "indie" developer building up to making games for a living full time, but also a full-time contract web developer and if required, I can definately help out where needed.


Tibit(Posted 2014) [#270]
I agree with Sensei about the beginner experience - that is exactly what I have seen among pretty much everyone I have shown Monkey too - they love the language but get stuck at small issues, eventually they give up and complain to me it is no good then turn to unity and end up in the same boat of issues.

Might be solved to a large extent with better instructions, docs, better error message, tools for module management, starting new projects and publishing, or what do you think?

@Monkey going free - I see the points being made. Maybe the hobby programmer should be the real target, and mainly not professional indies?

@Monkey3D - I agree it would make Monkey better, but considering the effort Unity or UnrealEngine spends on making 3D awesome and optimized for devices, I'm not sure that is a wise one-man-team goal. Tough I guess Blitz3D proves that wrong - maybe because the target market should be hobby programming?

@Kickstarter - you still need to market a kickstarter campaign and they take a cut - don't you think "crowd funded preorder" on this & the blitz site would do better?

(btw no Offence meant by Hobby programming, I think it makes a lot of sense actually, and that does not mean you can't make professional things - it just isn't the core user focus.)


quantum(Posted 2014) [#271]
@Kickstarter - you still need to market a kickstarter campaign and they take a cut - don't you think "crowd funded preorder" on this & the blitz site would do better?


We thought about doing this instead of a kickstarter, but the admin of handling refunds - if the target was not achieved - would have been horrible! Say BRL failed to make the (say) $10k then they would have to refund 100s of backers. It's probably easier to let Kickstarter handle it as it's only ~10% (in fees & credit card processing).

I use the 3d module as an example, although it's not something I'm interested in. Therein lies the challenge, what's the most popular monkey feature request that'll make good $$$ through kickstarter?


Arjailer(Posted 2014) [#272]
I hope this thread is just people blowing off steam, and isn't full of people who actually expect Mark to reply to 11 pages of unsolicited suggestions and advice.

Anyway, I bought Monkey about 2 months ago having never heard of this fabled "Monkey 2", so personally, as long as Monkey keeps getting bug fixes I'll be happy enough.

All the best for the future Mark, whatever that may entail!


Sub_Zero(Posted 2014) [#273]
I have 5 suggestions for you mark, that I think will work for you:

* Put up a donate button :) (Yes I'm willing to donate!)
* Do the yearly subscription fee thing
* Do kickstarter
* Send the demo or a full version with monkey-x splash screen and a getting started guide to some pc magazines/pc news website/programming news website, like you used to before
* Seriously consider doing BlitzMax64 (team up with brucey?) I know this will produce income... Still, a pc is the preferred choice device to use. And you could do the yearly subscription fee thing here also


grovey(Posted 2014) [#274]
Marketing, support, and community is where it is at.

I would be willing to pay more if it means it will keep bread on Mark's table, and the furthering of the product. I do feel that marketing is the number one issue with Monkey. I would not have known about it had I not already been a customer, and owned BlitzMax and other products. A splash screen on the free version is a great idea, submit the brand to as many as are willing to listen. Get the community more active, small competitions, more exposure of folk's creations, newsletters, etc...

Mark, I am sure you can see from all these replies that people are invested in your product(s) and that they care, and are willing to do their part in helping out.


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#275]
"I hope this thread is just people blowing off steam, and isn't full of people who actually expect Mark to reply to 11 pages of unsolicited suggestions and advice."

I doubt anyone expects Mark to reply individually to every suggestion but why wouldn't they expect a response in terms of him expressing his intentions?

Frankly, Mark is bloody awful at this stuff and this thread is a classic example. This whole "Roadmap" thread is the result of multiple requests for BRL to actually provide information on the future of the product. He finally posts a roadmap, people are happy. Then people ask for small clarifications and updates but those just go ignored for months. The next thing he posts is the "this isn't working out" post with a link to his blog and then he buggers off again. The next thing relevant to Monkey (the undertaking to open-source it if he ceases sales) he posts on his blog and doesn't even bother to put a link here. I don't see anything unreasonable about the user community expecting more of a response.

Just to give another angle on the whole "make us pay more" thing. I'd consider paying more for more. I wouldn't consider paying more for more of the same. If BRL offered up a new Mojo with shader support with a price attached, I might be interested. If Mark pitched ideas for building the community and/or improving the product in ways that would make it more attractive and that had a price attached, I might be interested. If BRL simply drew a line under the current product and announced that future updates would be under a subscription model but everything else stays the same, I'd toddle off to Haxe and/or Unity. BRL's income is clearly an issue but simply throwing money at Monkey won't change why it isn't selling well enough now.


degac(Posted 2014) [#276]
Totally agree with muddy_shoes, even if I am not a full-time Monkey user.
You cant' change the rules without offering something interesting.

About Kickstarter and so on.

The idea of a Kickstarter project (should) to reach a minimum user base to 'launch' a product or service - still in WIP (this of course in my opinion).
Monkey is (relative) mature product (even Mark stated he will offer bug-fixex).
Monkey2 is (was?) what exactly? A chimera between Monkey&Bmax targeted only to PC target? Too late... Brucey is building is own 'translator' to compile bmx source to C++ (and therefore for any hardware). Oh, yes Mark could do it (or join forces with Brucey) and sell an upgrade for Bmax. Nothing bad at all.
Investing time in a new language (nowadays) is no more convenient...
So just choose what already exists and focus on this (or these).

Moreover Kickstart is not available in all countries...in Italy it can't be used.

In my opinion Mark should simply (!)
1 . determine what he want to sell in Monkey (a complete set of targets, just some of it+extra payment for target+extra payment for modules), as already posted by many users
2. find what are the most important (and required) enhancements for MonkeyX (it could be modules or targets... MojoOnSteroird, Monkey3d, MonkeyNet...) - I will focus on modules that have a 'decent' user base... no for exotic one (ie: MegaDrive target...)
3. fix the price for everything: annual fee for for update (if he want), new selling price for Monkey (or for target/module)
4. AND at the end start a marketing campaign OUTSIDE the BRL sites. Yes, in this case a 'donate' button could be used (as the 'donate' is to finance the campaign)

To be honest the actual business model is over. Look at this example (numbers are not real)
Actual user base (pay user): 1.000
After marketing campaign: +100 (in a year)
Income: 100*99 = $9.900 ... cut the costs of marketing

I dont think this income is enough.

scenario 2: with annual fee (ie: $ 10 for 'old' users, $ 20 per newest)
Actual user base (pay user): 1.000
After marketing campaign: +100 (in a year)
Income:
100 * 99 = 9.900 (the first buy you have the 'annual fee' included of course!)
1000 * 10 = 10.000 (annual fee - old users)
First year: 19.900 (- mktg costs)

Second year (in the worst case there are no new sells....)
1.000 * 10 = 10.000
100 * 20 = 2.000
Total second year: 12.000

Second year (with new 100 users)
1.000 * 10 = 10.000 (annual fee for old users)
100 * 20 = 2.000 (annual fee for new users)
100 * 99 = 9.900 (new 2nd year users)
Total second year: 21.900

* Marketing is not ONE SHOT thing... it's something MUST keep on time. So Mark should change his mind on this. A 'lucky shot' on the re-launch of Monkey (thanks God, community or whatever...) doesn't guarantee the future (of Monkey or any other products).

I know this are numbers... but reality I think it's worst.


simonh(Posted 2014) [#277]
I doubt anyone expects Mark to reply individually to every suggestion but why wouldn't they expect a response in terms of him expressing his intentions?

He already has - Monkey isn't selling well enough, he's going to find a job, and he will continue to provide Monkey bug fixes.

What more needs to be said?


Arjailer(Posted 2014) [#278]
I doubt anyone expects Mark to reply individually to every suggestion but why wouldn't they expect a response in terms of him expressing his intentions?


But what would he say that he hasn't already said in the blog posts? Seems to me that he's probably already said all he has to say right now: "sales are bad, I need to cut back on development to get a paying job, I hope to keep updating as I've been doing, if things get too bad I'll open source it".

At no point did he mention wanting ideas for new business models or marketing.

Give his some time and space to get himself sorted out - we should be offering Mark our support at this time*, not being openly critical (and at times hostile) as this thread has been at times since his announcement.


* and I don't mean offering to throw money at Monkey - he needs a sustainable income, not a quick cash injection


degac(Posted 2014) [#279]
He already has - Monkey isn't selling well enough, he's going to find a job, and he will continue to provide Monkey bug fixes.

At no point did he mention wanting ideas for new business models or marketing.


Ideas are free.
If he want to read and use them, he could find (a partial maybe) solution to his problems.
It will best to claim and not saying any useful?

And - to be honest - he will continue to provide Monkey bug fixes is not a great idea, if he doesnt want to get thing worst.


Arjailer(Posted 2014) [#280]
Ideas are free.
If he want to read and use them, he could find (a partial maybe) solution to his problems.
It will best to claim and not saying any useful?


I'm just saying that expecting Mark to respond to unsolicited suggestions (as some people have indeed been asking for in this thread) is pretty unrealistic.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#281]
Mark: Did Monkey2/MojoX have you facing burn-out? Take a sabbatical. Come back in like a month or 2 with a fresh perspective.

Recharged batteries can do a lot of good; people usually don't feel like they gotta kill something because the grind's too much if they're able to get some time to cool off after a crunch. But, if it's important work, it is definitely something that warrants coming back to eventually (and usually, better before getting lost in the wilderness while on that sabbatical).


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#282]
"What more needs to be said?"

If "All I'm going to do is bug-fix and tinker with Monkey from now on. I'm not interested in ideas for further changes to Monkey or in how the community works." is the final word then that needs to be said.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#283]
Simon,

.. he will continue to provide Monkey bug fixes.


To me that sounds Monkey development is on the same level as BlitzMax or very similar. Do you agree?


Arjailer(Posted 2014) [#284]
If "All I'm going to do is bug-fix and tinker with Monkey from now on. I'm not interested in ideas for further changes to Monkey or in how the community works." is the final word then that needs to be said.


And maybe he hasn't made that decision yet? Give him time and space to work out what he wants to do.

Remember that this isn't just a product and a community, it's also Mark's livelihood and his life-long dream - he's probably no happier about this situation than anyone here, but he's having to face-up to the realities of his situation and I can imagine that might be heartbreaking :-(


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#285]
"the realities of his situation"

I'm very sensitive and sympathetic to the realities of seeing a financial cliff coming up. That doesn't affect whether users of Monkey should have an expectation of getting a response to their natural reaction to what was posted. It certainly doesn't change the need to communicate with people who share a common interest with you, it actually makes it more important. If his frame of mind is that he just wants to concentrate on getting a job for a while and isn't going to reply here then that needs to be said too. I'm sure everybody would understand.


Supertino(Posted 2014) [#286]
I don't think anyone is being aggressive or too critical of Mark as has been suggested by some, the fact this thread has 284 post's shows how passionate the monkey community is, We're all saying we'd support this or that initiative giving our honest thoughts and ideas. What would be worse few replays with show of concern or support?

Sure Monkey is not going to stop working tomorrow but we've all a vested interest in the future of this product and we don't want to see it stagnate and die, Whatever Mark needs to do he should go do it but I hope in a few months we can get an update regarding Monkey and future plans.


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#287]
From what I read, we just shouldn't expect any new things for now, just small bug-fixes.

All we can do now is accept Monkey X at its current state, create more add-ons on our own,
and play with the open sources that are currently available.
If that's not enough, move on. Monkey X is nonetheless a nice thing to have in the toolbox.


grovey(Posted 2014) [#288]
I do agree that Mark should at least say something (yes I know he stated the facts earlier), it would only take a few minutes to jump on here and report back on the situation.

I realize that my copy of Monkey will still work, but personally I like to know that I am using a product that is supported and improved upon with new features, and that has a thriving community. If those two things go away, I will move on.

As mentioned already, folks are willing to help out here with advice, and monetary supplement. The users here seem committed, it would be nice to hear back from Mark about his thoughts on what people have said and suggested.


rebelas(Posted 2014) [#289]
Open source with donation is the solution, including mojo2D and possible mojo3D of the future. There is no other way. In market economy, there are always forces beyond our control. Open source provides control over what engineers like their world to look like. Think about success of gcc or PHP. Let Monkey be a language like gcc. Gcc for system programming, PHP for server side scripts, Monkey X hides all low level engineering layers and finalize division between system programming and application programming. We have to fight with special interests that hurt the industry by common interest.


degac(Posted 2014) [#290]
Mark has to live with its own products.
Donations... well, excluding Wikipedia and Mozilla foundation - please - show me an example.
PHP was the right tool in the right moment (the explosion of the web)... nowadays you have little space to move.


rebelas(Posted 2014) [#291]
Blender, R, and many data mining and scientific packages , list is like forever, they are reshaping the world.


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#292]
See http://haxe-foundation.org/
- support the whole ecosystem by funding core technologies
- provide a single point of contact for Companies
- offer Paid Support Plans ensuring that somebody will always be available to answer the phone when you need help
- You can Donate any amount you wish
- If you have a specific need or wish to sponsor an existing project, check out our Bounties Program
- Need help? We also offer Paid Support Plans

Of course this is completely different from selling licenses for a fixed price,
but somehow it seems to work and is common for Open Source projects.


degac(Posted 2014) [#293]
I still don't think opensource is a valid solution for Mark. He needs money to live (as everyone). Quite clear.
He stated clearly that if it can't maintain Monkey, the code will be released as open source: then everyone could do what he/she want.
Honestly if there is that community for a paid programming language when the world seems plenty of free offers... there should be a reason or not?


rebelas(Posted 2014) [#294]
Monkey codes looks a lot better than haxe here:
var x0 : Float = Std.parseFloat(neko.Sys.stdin().readLine());


Tibit(Posted 2014) [#295]
One reason why Mark could be hesitant to OpenSource, add a donation Button, take pre-orders or do a kickstarter might be that he is afraid to disappoint because he cares a lot about the community.

I'm just guessing, but from previous discussions I have the feeling he cares a lot, and that he don't want to sit there with a broken promise, or feel an overhanging pressure to deliver to expectations.

I think however a fundraiser or donation campaign can be created without any broken promises. I think many here would be willing to take the risk and are intelligent enough to get that such investment comes with uncertainty.

In the end the workplace alternative probably expect rigid working hours, high quality of work and preassure to deliver results anyway.


quantum(Posted 2014) [#296]
I still don't think opensource is a valid solution for Mark. He needs money to live (as everyone). Quite clear.


I agree. I don't think the monkey community is big enough for donations to pay Mark's bills. OSS donations work for PHP as it's 1,000s of times more popular than monkey. This isn't a dig, it's just reality!

I still think a kickstarter is the ideal short term solution.

We need to create a thread for: "I would pay $X for Y via kickstarter", then Mark can measure demand for the most popular features and/or lucrative, and start the right kickstarter.


rebelas(Posted 2014) [#297]
Mark's skills is high, he can have a well paid job. This is why open source can help us. Open source donation is not for his income, it is for keeping Monkey alive.


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#298]
We need to create a thread for: "I would pay $X for Y via kickstarter", then Mark can measure demand for the most popular features and/or lucrative, and start the right kickstarter.
Problem is, he didn't say he wants a kickstarter or donations or anything. Shouldn't be a big thing to add a Paypal button
somewhere on this site or on the github site, if he likes the idea. If he wants a kickstarter or pre-orders for Mojo3D, he will tell us.
He could ask the users what features/modules they want the most, or offer writing add-on modules as contract work, etc. - if he likes.

Maybe it is just little bit too much for one guy to write a decent super-cross-platform 3D engine. It is little bit more complicated today,
than with DirectX7 back in Blitz3D times. And expectations are much more higher today, too.
Looking at some other cross-platform 3D engines out there, development usually took some years with very small teams.
Don't know if that could be one of the problems. Just wondering... (what happened with BlitzMax?)


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#299]
Just wondering... (what happened with BlitzMax?)


Well early after Blitzmax's initial release Max3d was mentioned, mark even posted screenshots etc (I think there even was a demo). After a few months of total silence people started asking how far along it was and got more silence. Finally Max3d was released as open source incomplete as mark had no time for its completion and put up for the community to finish. Let's just say by this time minib3d was in the pipeline and it got forgotten and buried.

This time round mojo3d got mentioned and although mark is more active here it's a bigger undertaking than max 3d which was just what the desktop target is today. Now we hear that mark is to only provide fixes so what about mojo3d?


quantum(Posted 2014) [#300]
Two points:

1. I think people are suggesting donations, kickstarter, etc as a way for Mark to continue working on Monkey full time RATHER than get a full time job elsewhere. If the latter happens then I would imagine monkey would be very rarely updated, which is understandable.

2. Let's forget Mark making a 3d module for monkey. I was just using this as an example for a kickstarter. I'm sure there are other in demand modules, such as a monitization module (IAP, ads, etc)


Sammy(Posted 2014) [#301]
As I understood it Mojo3D wasn't a fully fielded 3D engine, more of a cross platform 3D API abstraction layer, it would have allowed us to develop 3D applications, like 3D engines, a lot easier with Monkey. Also If the Android NDK had been implemented the C++ integration would have been viable across the major platforms, allowing for easier use of some of the popular open source 3D/2D and physics C++ libraries with Monkey.


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#302]
Regarding getting the Monkey-X image/marketing improved, have a look at http://www.appgamekit.com/
What I like about that is that it is clearly laid out, it has all the useful links to what the most commonly asked questions would be, videos, tutorials, and so much more.
If the Monkey-X website was to improve the website to provide similar features, information and excitement, I'm sure it will change the impression of first time visitors too.
I for one find the above website much more appealing. It was clearly well thought out IMO. Monkey-X can be so much more.
I also notice they are active on Twitter and Facebook and have done a Kickstarter and provide options to donate money and more.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, all the ideas and suggestions previously brought up in this thread, has clearly worked for this other site. So why not for Monkey-X?

Just my 2 cents worth.
Peace out.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#303]
Never saw that before. It certainly looks like Monkey has competition now - App Game Kit at first glance seems a very similar proposition. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - a niche with two products might well get more than twice as much interest!


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#304]
I get about two three emails a month from TGC


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#305]
I took a look at it and well... it's not near the power of Monkey but you can clearly see what a nice looking website can do.


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#306]
AGK came about around the same time as Monkey so it has been around a bit. (I evaluated both at the time, and just had to make a break and go with the nicer OOP language, compiling native API and not running emulated.) Even though TGC is a small company they have paid marketing people, one I think is full time and I believe another gets paid something to push out a newsletter every month.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#307]
Yes, at a second glance it's clear that Monkey is a good deal more powerful. But as the OP said, nice site.


nikoniko(Posted 2014) [#308]
Sensei wrote:


I had it. No support html5 and windows phone.


Qube(Posted 2014) [#309]
Yes, at a second glance it's clear that Monkey is a good deal more powerful.

More powerful in what way? - Do you mean that Monkey compiles to native code where as AGK is byte code?

I bought AGK yesterday and I must say I've not had so much fun coding in a long time. It's an incredibly easy language to pick up and feature rich enough to get on and code your game. Sure, it's a little quirky but what language isn't?. The IDE is pretty decent, the docs are very good and running a few tests on my iPhone shows it's no slouch either. I also bought TexturePacker which outputs a SpriteAtlas and accompanying text file which works with AGK making that whole side a complete breeze.

AGK reminds me of the simplicity of Blitz3D. No fancy language malarky which in the end makes zero difference to your actual game. It's very much a "just get on and code" language.

Regarding getting the Monkey-X image/marketing improved, have a look at http://www.appgamekit.com/

I don't agree that a good looking whizzy pop website necessarily helps with sales and marketing. So long as it's clean and functional then I don't see how it will significantly help. Sure you'll get the odd person going "Oo, this site looks nicer so the product must be better"

Anyway... So, what do I think is wrong with Monkey and how could Mark ignite life into BRL (just my pointless personal waffle opinions with no offence meant in anyway)

1.. Monkey??? - Not the best of names. I would of stuck the Blitz<whatever>, it's a word many coding hobbyists are familiar with from well over a decade+
2.. OK, I'm a hobbyist game coder, I want something straight forward to make writing games fun. I come across a site with a potential language and I read "CLASSES, INHERITANCE, GENERICS, INTERFACES, REFLECTION, OBJECT-ORIENTED, MODULAR". Great! I may as well just use C++, see-ya.
3.. Too many platforms supports. All you need is Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and possibly HTML5
4.. Take a step back and remember what made Blitz, Blitz3D and even BlitzMax so loved? - They were all clean, simple and straight forward languages. Not some bizarre C++ hybrid that's been in a mixer with BASIC. I'm sure this is one of the reasons why it's not as popular. The fun has been taken out.
5.. A 3D engine. No need for the next Unreal engine but a little more updated version of Blitz3D would be perfect.
6.. Kerb the vocal elitist minority of the Blitz community. I've been a Blitz member for over a over a decade and it's gone from a fun helpful community to having some vocal stuck up loud mouths that never actually produce anything. It's bad for new comers.
7.. Mark.. You need to be more active in the community. We all love to hear from you and know you're around. You're a hobby coders celebrity and your audience awaits.
8.. Don't be afraid to charge. Pay once for a lifetime product doesn't put food on the table and pay the bills. Charge for modules / add ons. Example Blitz<new> = X amount. If you want the iOS add-on it's X amount, same for Android, 3D etc.
9.. MOST OF ALL - Keep the language simple and fun to code in. Word of mouth will do the rest. You have a very good customer base to start with.

That's enough waffle from me. Ok guys, blast me down :p


TeaBoy(Posted 2014) [#310]
I bought AGK, the only thing going for it is that box2D is supported as standard. I dont particularly like the fact you must use eclipse and the ADT plugin to build an app also there is alot of bloat as standard such as facebook built in, sure you could hack it out but why should you have to?

They are working on AGK2 now,IMO TGC are the worst offenders for dropping products in favour of something else. I like there marketing but without that and fancy graphics they would not be as successful.

After their new product FPSC Reloaded then what? FPSC Reloaded 50 cal edition? People spend alot of money buying these products, I'm still waiting for a DarkPhysics update which they soon dropped after all the marketing crap.

Monkey is far easier to setup and can adapt to changing trends far better than most products.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#311]
I agree withCube here on AGK. I got it when it came out and it has a feature set which I love. All there. What I didn't like was Windows only dev environment.

Teaboy: TGC needs to stay alife, just like Mark. And I think it isn't a one man show there in England. So they charge... for a new product, for new features, for whatever. But they are working on things. Look where Monkey is now. In the same boat with BlitzMax. There will be bug fixes when Mark finds motivation and time to do it, but that's it. Sounds a lot like BlitzMax to me. The life span of AGK 1 and Monkey is about the same. But TGC is bringing AGK2 out now. People could have gotten it very cheap during the kickstarter. If the users wanna play cheap, they have to deal with an old product. Simple as that.


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#312]
1.. Monkey??? - Not the best of names. I would of stuck the Blitz<whatever>, it's a word many coding hobbyists are familiar with from well over a decade+
2.. OK, I'm a hobbyist game coder, I want something straight forward to make writing games fun. I come across a site with a potential language and I read "CLASSES, INHERITANCE, GENERICS, INTERFACES, REFLECTION, OBJECT-ORIENTED, MODULAR". Great! I may as well just use C++, see-ya.
3.. Too many platforms supports. All you need is Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and possibly HTML5
4.. Take a step back and remember what made Blitz, Blitz3D and even BlitzMax so loved? - They were all clean, simple and straight forward languages. Not some bizarre C++ hybrid that's been in a mixer with BASIC. I'm sure this is one of the reasons why it's not as popular. The fun has been taken out.
5.. A 3D engine. No need for the next Unreal engine but a little more updated version of Blitz3D would be perfect.
6.. Kerb the vocal elitist minority of the Blitz community. I've been a Blitz member for over a over a decade and it's gone from a fun helpful community to having some vocal stuck up loud mouths that never actually produce anything. It's bad for new comers.
7.. Mark.. You need to be more active in the community. We all love to hear from you and know you're around. You're a hobby coders celebrity and your audience awaits.
8.. Don't be afraid to charge. Pay once for a lifetime product doesn't put food on the table and pay the bills. Charge for modules / add ons. Example Blitz<new> = X amount. If you want the iOS add-on it's X amount, same for Android, 3D etc.
9.. MOST OF ALL - Keep the language simple and fun to code in. Word of mouth will do the rest. You have a very good customer base to start with.


1)yeah I still like BlitzX, blitz reminds me of the Amiga heyday and Blitz3d
2)agreed its not a good sales routine plastering c++ on it
3)100% on the nose :)
4) yeah blitz3d was the best, I think the problem was the jump to max where ya needed external tools to get it working
5) yeah that's 100% exactly what I wanted and asked for, heck I even tried to create it myself with max and opengl
6) most of the 'old guys' have been here from the Amiga days, yeah we are vocal me probably more than others. We all have put back into the community like my networking system, monkey font stuff etc along with loads of other code.
7) yup +1
8) it works for TGC, Unity, Unreal etc
9) yeah basically recreate Blitz3ds command set even if the background engine is nothing like blitz3d

Yeah every person/customer in here and Bb.com has put something into the whole thing if blitz3d sold more than everything else it would be nice to know how much by, if its sold more by a factor of 2+ over all the others combined there is the answer. If another version done better then create another one of those.

I think we all just need to be on the same page moving forward as a community together...


dragon(Posted 2014) [#313]
quote from AGK:
Any devices that you want to do this will need to be running the "AGK Player" App. This app is available from each appropriate app store as a free download


sorry, but AGK solution is NOTHING compared with monkey
You need this player and it interpretes your code...
HOLY SHIT!

This is nothing for high number of downloads...
it is a TOY...

same solution like AIR - but AIR is installed more than AGK
and i dislike this AIR as extra download (extra show-stopper)


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#314]
dragon I think it is possible to use without that player when you compile it for release. At least this is possible with their Tier 2 product (C++ instead of Basic).


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#315]
Dragon, if you think people need to download the player upfront to try your game, then you are wrong.
Why do you consider it a toy. because it is interpreted? If that is the reason then I guess many games/engines which use LUA
are also toys for you.

When you publish your game with AGK, you bundle your media and your byte code with it and publish it like any other regular app.
TGC also has an online build service for Android/Ouya PAK files. You don't even need to hassle with the Adnroid SDK.
Besides that, someone from the community has also build an offline tool for this. If you have a AGK player installed on your device,
then you can do onthefly testing via WIFI in your local lan. Similar to Gideros Studio or GameMaker Studio. Awesome feature I say.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#316]
Xaron, you can code in Tier1 (interpreted) or use the Tier2 SDK in C++.


Qube(Posted 2014) [#317]
sorry, but AGK solution is NOTHING compared with monkey
You need this player and it interpretes your code...
HOLY SHIT!

The AGK player is just so you can stream your game onto a device without having to compile and install.

If creating an iOS app, for example, you still need Xcode and a Mac to compile the Xcode project for it to run on an iPhone like any other app. You do not touch the player. Yes it's interpreted (byte code) but I've not come across any speed issues / downsides. I don't care if it sings a song in the background so long as it does what I need it to do.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#318]
ok...

i think here are only 2 good solutions

1) app with script (lua or other)
->corona, AGK

2) cross-code-compiler
->haxe, monkey

2nd solution is always more complex than 1st...
but give you more freedom + speed

other solution: c++ is not good, if you need js, flash...

i like 2nd solution,
because i develop only on 1 device
and port later - but updates need more steps...
what i really dislike today




btw: steps to create ios app
http://www.appgamekit.com/documentation/guides/52_ios.htm
android:
http://www.appgamekit.com/documentation/guides/33_android.htm

as you see, monkey is not so bad...


degac(Posted 2014) [#319]
Well, so what are the pro of AGK compared to MonkeyX? Or viceversa?
So Mark can choose where to improve (if necessary).

About point 2: in BlitzMax many OOP things are 'encapsulated' in function (like CreateList, CreateMap etc) to help beginner users. I understand that interfaces are quite difficult, and ovveriding can create confusion (at least to me). But I think these features *can* be used, not always must.

Personally I HATE case sense instructions: I find it a lost of time while typing... there's nothing 'modern' in this 'feature'.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#320]
i think here is a big bubble...

mark's niche solution: easy to use language for games...
it was good for decades...

but (ios,android) markets opened the road to develop many games...
and the devs needed libs, sdk's...

so here are many many of hem today...
much more than few years ago...


he did the right decision to create something for mobile...
monkey language is easy...
best language that i ever seen

but... he can not generate new users,
because here are many libs, sdk's...
and monkey is unknown....
the trend is more toward scripts


i can understand if he drop monkey and create something new and better...
but monkey is mature and do not need "big shifts"...
only updates, missig features etc...

and MARKETING...
unity and corona did good job


if i open monkey website or apps...
here are no AAA-Games or B-Games... listed in front...


EdzUp(Posted 2014) [#321]
It seems AGK is what everyone is was hoping something that worked out the box without the external SDKs and fluffing around with getting it all working. As others have said there are literally LOADS of tools now so things like monkey really have to shine.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#322]
Regarding AGK... I wouldn't touch anything from TGC since I tried Torque once. It was a bag full of bugs and slow as hell - bad enough for me to see it was a lost case.

BRL products otherwise, solid every time.


MikeHart(Posted 2014) [#323]
I wouldn't touch anything from TGC since I tried Torque once.


Slotman, that was a good one. You should direct your feelings towards a different entity. GarageGames had created Torque. They still working on it and made Torque3D and 2D open source last year. And they are still going.


Danilo(Posted 2014) [#324]
removed


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#325]
please stop advertising in this thread for other companies. it's not helping.


spintop(Posted 2014) [#326]
please stop advertising in this thread for other companies. it's not helping.


Hi, I think that discussions about other softwares should be ok in this forum. They did not advertise those softwares. They only wanted to give good suggestions to the Monkey X's company and help Monkey X's developers. Monkey X's staff needs to learn good things of other similar softwares in order to improve.

Actually, I remember that I read an old thread in AGK's forum several months ago. Their users said that Monkey X was a better and a nice software! Their moderator and staff didn't blame or warn them. I think that it was a nice discussion. Their staff also tried to make some improvements on the development of AGK later:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=209554&b=41


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#327]
I notice some people complaining that Monkey-X supports too many target platforms. I do not agree with that. I for one love Monkey for that very reason. However, I think to improve things for everyone, perhaps Monkey should be sold with HTML5 and maybe Desktop as default, and then you pay for the targets you want. If you only want desktop targets, you don't have to buy anything else. If you want mobile platforms, you buy each one you want, ie iOS, Android etc. And if you want the more specialised ones (which may cost more due to less sales or somethign), like Ouya or PSM, then you can buy that too.
This way you only spend money on the platform targets you are interested in. And again, each target can have an annual fee to maintain, update, improve it, but since you're only paying an annual fee for a platform you purchased, the cost is less in that sense.
So, as an example:
Monkey-X yearly updates (standard Monkey, which is HTML5 and desktop): $59.99 p/y
Targets:
iOS, Android: $19.99 each p/y
OUYA, PSM: $29.99 p/y
etc.
On top of this, BRL can also charge for modules and their own updates, so if you're interested in using Box2D, it costs maybe $19.99 and $9.99 p/y for example.

My point is, by breaking down each target platform and module to individual products, you will be able to sell each one and their updates to those that are interested in only what they want.
Many people often complain about features they have to pay for that they never wanted or use. This solution makes many people happy. BRL can also use these sales breakdowns to see what is popular and what needs improving to MAKE them popular, NOT to discard due to lack of interest.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#328]
+1 Sensai


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#329]
I think a pricing model like that would go against everything mark holds dear, he's stuck with his system for more years than I care to count I do not see him changing that now and I also do not see that having any major impact on sales at this stage in the game, possibly if it had been that way from the start it may have helped but I doubt it.

The way I see it and as I have said before many times now, monkey's major issue is that it simply cannot keep up with the perceived competition in the form of unity, gamemaker and other well funded and well teamed tools, mark I think we will all agree is a genius, but he's only one man he simply cannot keep up with a 10,20,30 man team, the state of the IDE and the Docs are fine examples, in a normal team situation there would be actual people assigned to develop these over the course of the tools lifespan and not just something that has to be done to a bare minimalist standard, in both those regards mark did just enough to make things work which is exactly what he had to do so that he could actually work on the language.

This gap between what mark can produce on his own and what these big perceived competitors can pump out is only going to grow over time, i really cannot imagine what mark's next move might be, when faced with these ever growing monoliths.

in an ideal world mark would simply Hire a 10+ man team assign one guy to the docs, 2 to a new and fully featured ide and keep the rest for working on and advancing the core language and its targets, but I think we all know he's not got the money for that, so what we need are really rich people with more money than common sense to invest in him.

Mark if I ever win the national lottery I will be that dude.


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#330]
This is where I think using Kickstarter to fund more team members will help to realise that idea. In addition to that, donations and bounties will boost it too and then finally selling modules and targets individually and annual fees will keep it maintained. At least that's how I see things. You won't ever know unless you try, as the saying goes. Worst case scenario, Kickstarter fails, but so what. It will still generate more interest in Monkey and BRL in general.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#331]
I think a test Kickstart to fund the development of a new fully feature rich ide would be a really good idea, if that succeeds then subsequent kickstarts to expand other aspects of the language could be viable, but a single kickstart to do it all at once I think would struggle to gain ground.


navyRod(Posted 2014) [#332]
I as a newbie agree with the above , I have purchased all of Marks products over the last several years and just dabbled with it and never really created a full application on my own
but I am wanting to now . I would hope to see this flourish and would be willing to donate to a kick starter especially for good documentation and support for newbies such as myself.


dragon(Posted 2014) [#333]
The way I see it and as I have said before many times now, monkey's major issue is that it simply cannot keep up with the perceived competition in the form of unity, gamemaker and other well funded and well teamed tools, mark I think we will all agree is a genius, but he's only one man he simply cannot keep up with a 10,20,30 man team, the state of the IDE and the Docs are fine examples


Blender vs Maya is same story...
But blender is still here and is a great "product" for free...
You see - it works...


Derron(Posted 2014) [#334]
The main developers of blender get paid for what they do:
http://www.blender.org/foundation/development-fund/

So you cannot compare that. To compare the users of the then "opensource monkey" should sponsor development by spending money on certain aspects of the monkey-pack. If the feature/aspect is funded - the according developer (in that case) Mark should work on it. So he has to calculate in advance, how many hours the development will take. This disables the "ahh today I will code a bit, tomorrow, hmm will see"-attitude (I know that well :D).

So: while you and me enjoy blender for absolutely free, others donate (+ silver sponsors - which in the Monkey-world would be commercial developers "giving something back" - or wanting specific features which then all benefit from).

All in all the "userbase" of Blender is somewhat bigger and therefor chances are way higher to find users willed to sponsor something/donate some dollars.

bye
Ron


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#335]
Being both an experienced BlitzMax and Monkey coder I have to say that for the type of games and apps I want to make Monkey has everything I need. Take Defenstar for example, it was written in BlitzMax and Ignition but I started porting it to Monkey (using Ignition for monkey) and I am sure Monkey can handle it. So if you want to create 2D games then Monkey (or previously Blitzmax) would be my first choice. Ignition for Monkey has even surpassed Ignition for BlitzMax on some levels so its shows what a higher level API on top of monkey can do. And if that is not enough, there is always the possibility to write native code for Monkey targets. I read clearly that mark intends to maintain Monkey, providing updates, fixes and improvements and honestly that is all I need.


RetroRusty(Posted 2014) [#336]
So what alternatives are there to Monkey that are pure code and cross platform and one that uses DirectX for desktop? Yea I know that Monkey doesn't use DirectX, but I hope that eventually someone will program a target for that.

I know I could use BlitzMax for desktop games, even though that's not being updated any more, but what if I would like to convert the game to work on the Ouya or a different target?

I was just about to sink my teeth into Monkey. I started to watch some of Invader Jim's tutorial videos and they were beginning to make sense. But now I ask myself, should I continue on with them? It seems the official statement from Mark is that he will only now work on bugs and at best, minor features. If that is the case then what do you suggest I do? Is there any chance that DirectX support will come to Monkey at some point? Is anyone really going to spend time on that target if the language isn't being updated now?


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#337]
I think the monkey XNA target is DirectX.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#338]
nvm some one else said it better.


wiebow(Posted 2014) [#339]
What I want/need is a somewhat ready to go package. Don't get me wrong, I can setup the targets and get stuff going (I created a nice Boulderdash clone on Android etc), but I later realized I do not want to make mobile games, using touch interfaces. I think it seriously dictates what kind of games you can make, and that's not where I want to go. I want to use input devices like the keyboard or joypad. If Mark has mobile (phones and tablets particularly) as his focus then he has lost me as a customer. Well, I will go back to BlitzMax, basically. :)

I should not have bought Monkey, I realized after some time playing with it. Mark has always released 'ready to go' packages, and Monkey is not that, but I expected it to become one over some period of time. I was expecting it to get the Blitzmax functionality (at least) because it is a BlitzMax successor!! Now, it does not seem that Monkey will turn in to what I want. Note that this is not the fault of Monkey, but of me, I should not have bought it.
I am glad I got to support Mark though. He's made my coding life fun again by offering complete packages, ready to go, no fuss. I do not want to interface with native code etc. I'm glad he has abandoned the principle of 'if one target does not support 'x' then no target will get feature 'x' '

I think Monkey has too many targets. It needs more focus so it can do the fewer targets REALLY well, to make the clutches and native code interfacing go away. I love the language evolution though, I miss them when using Blitzmax. :)

I wish Mark all the best and I hope he will find time / heart to work a bit more on Monkey. Maybe having less time will force him to focus more on specific targets. I'm selfish: I hope that target will be desktop, but the Monkey should remain alive, name change or not.


degac(Posted 2014) [#340]
Well, to be honest Monkey was sold as 'a simpler' BlitzMax. I don't think Monkey was planned to replace BlitzMax (at least on desktop target!)
I think Monkey should focus only on mobile target (as main), leaving desktop target to BlitzMax. 2 products for 2 different markets. Everyone happy.

As already said a re-thinking of Monkey's business model (nothing free, drop of some targets, paid additional targets and annual fee) should (and could) be done.

I dont' see any point in spending time (and money) to create a 'new' IDE: just cooperate (or buy a license) of Jungle (for example!) and bundle it with Monkey.
If I should give more money to BRL I hope is not for 'another' IDE but for something related to the language/features.


wiebow(Posted 2014) [#341]
Like I said, looking back I should not have bought it. :)


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#342]
without meaning to be rude, there is simply no way I would pay a monthly or annual fee for monkey, and if Mark ever went that route he would lose people like me in an instant.

I dread the day that I need to chose between paying for additional targets and or month/annual fee's for monkey, or doing the same for Unity or GameMaker because I will pick either Unity or GameMaker, their communities dwarf monkies, their support does as well and their development of their respective suits puts ted to shame.

I stick with Monkey because its the best fit for me and my income, the second that changes I will have no choice but to look some where else.


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#343]
If Monkey had a built-in level and entity editor for the IDE, that would help a lot. People in general (with exceptions) prefer having to code as little as possible and do whatever they can in a visual editor of some kind, because it makes the development process less dull (staring at raw text is very tedious) and the more visual assets and requiring less typing, more clicking, can make development not just more pleasing, but much more rapid, and a lot more work could be done in much less time. If this ever came to the official Monkey IDE, that would get Monkey to actually stand a chance against Unity, GameMaker, Stencyl, etc. Even Visual Studio's hardcore C++ IDE includes a decent visual editor, but why nothing similar for Monkey?

[Edit - @Qube]

1) Increased Price + Paid Modules = No Thanks.

A) Hobbyists can find other engines or hobbies...
The reason I'm moving away from GameMaker:Studio and into Monkey-X right now is due to the security of paying once and I can stop there with peace of mind. Game development is a hobby for me like many others here, and I won't invest but so much money into a hobby when I can simply just find a different hobby. I need food and clothes. I don't want to wait until my retirement that may never happen to pursue game development, not worth it. There are also stable, free, open source engines that have a lot more to them than Monkey has right now.

B) Mark would piss off his customers...
Especially all existing users who've already been promised this wouldn't happen, and with lifetime updates garenteed. It would also effect potential buyers. One of the greatest things about Monkey right now is how cheap it is. If it were pricy, no one would buy it in it's current state.

C) Monkey is worth its current price but no more than that...
Monkey needs to head for the direction all other game engines are going - i.e. native GUI editor, realtime particle editor, realtime 3D editor, builtin box2D physics, realtime shader editor, or, what about at the very least just a simple yet flexible level / menu, tile, and entity editor? Monkey has none of these things and every other engine I've tried before, whether free or paid has at least three of these things. If Monkey-X kept up with the times then yeah I could she the price change. If Mark hired more developers that would help too.

2) Less target platforms? Why?

I'm especially shocked you think Linux, Win8, and Windows Phone shouldn't be supported. To drop support for a target because you have no choice, like in PSM's case, I understand, but to remove official targets just for the heck of it will probably upset some customers too. The more platforms supported - the better; the less - the less customers. Sure, dropping platforms can give Mark more time to work on other things, but would that ultimately help Monkey and its users? What about the people who bought monkey with a specific target in mind to develop for, and Mark spontaneously dropped support for it?


erebel55(Posted 2014) [#344]
I agree Taiphoz, I would be gone as well.

Anyways, I think Mark probably has enough to read on this thread. We will have to wait and see what happens. Hopefully he continues with the updates, as he has been.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#345]
If Monkey had a built-in level and entity editor for the IDE, that would help a lot. People in general (with exceptions) prefer having to code as little as possible and do whatever they can in a visual editor of some kind, because it makes the development process less dull (staring at raw text is very tedious) and the more visual assets and requiring less typing, more clicking, can make development not just more pleasing, but much more rapid, and a lot more work could be done in much less time. If this ever came to the official Monkey IDE, that would get Monkey to actually stand a chance against Unity, GameMaker, Stencyl, etc. Even Visual Studio's hardcore C++ IDE includes a decent visual editor, but why nothing similar for Monkey?


Don't underestimate the effort for such an environment. Actually I did choose Monkey because it has NOT such an environment. When I want to do visual development I use Unity. Monkey is much more easier to handle!


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#346]
@Xaron

It would be nice to at least have a way to switch on/off an interface like that in the preferences, that way passionate coders and lazy morons like me would both be happy. :)


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#347]
I stick with Monkey because its the best fit for me and my income, the second that changes I will have no choice but to look some where else.

No offense intended, but if a $30 annual update license or somesuch thing would break the bank and cause someone to leave, then it would seem like they didn't like the product in the first place and not interested in supporting it. I know I'm probably well off by world standards, but saving up $30 would require me to bag my lunch to work for a couple weeks instead of the cafeteria.

I could understand not wanting to pay $ yearly for minor bug maintenance updates and no new features. But the last year has seen several features added to Monkey, along with some interesting future plans (that are not guaranteed, of course).

I don't think BRL would do annual update fees anyway, it does not seem to be their style, so the point is probably moot.


Midimaster(Posted 2014) [#348]
It would be interesting, how many percents of the user earn money with their apps and how many are hobbiest.

Hobbiest don not want to pay again and again... Professionals would like to pay for continuity and guarantee of continuity.

Did you ever think about of system of (voluntary) succes based fees?
0% if you earned below 320 $
1% if you earned below 1000 $
2% if you earn below 3200 $
3% if you earn below 10000 $
4% if you earn below 32000 $
5% if you earn below 100000 $


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#349]
Wiebow: " I later realized I do not want to make mobile games, using touch interfaces. I think it seriously dictates what kind of games you can make, and that's not where I want to go."

This is a valid choice, but I got Monkey in the first place because it CAN make those kinds of games, and hit every target with them. It is a little like Java, there are consequences of multi-targeting, and if you want pure desktop it is not the best option (though quite a nice language). It is a matter of horses for courses.

With regard to monetisation, I said a long time ago that Monkey should have been $180 and stayed there. It would have sold almost as many copies IMO.

I am not crazy about on-going update fees unless they are rather small. But I would consider paid module releases legit. To me, it seems like a very plausible monetisation option would be a supported documented 3D module based on MiniB3D, obviously with appropriate profit sharing. Actually it seems like the most obvious thing that could be sold.

The language is fine as it is, it has annoyances but they all do. Forget about JNI and stuff. We don't need to hit the metal (and with the Monkey extern system we can make modules that do that if we have to), we just need a multiplatform thing that is a nice language and works and has the libraries we need to actually make games.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#350]
I think one of the mistakes made with this new overhaul was to make the desktop target free. It was very fine when the free version was only html5 - and I guess at least some people who would pay for desktop (people who don't care for mobile) now gets it for free.

As for my mistake of thinking AGK was by the same people of Torque - sorry. But again, its the same people who made DarkBasic, isn't it? DarkBasic had an awful IDE, an even worst language and performance wise, Blitz3D was way faster. "But Darkbasic has/had shaders!" - so what? It was slow as hell...


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#351]
@Slotman

Desktop wasn't as fleshed out as mobile at the time, and it was probably a deliberate move to increase exposure amongst people who otherwise wouldn't have looked into the language due to its commercial roots. I think it was a good move, if you see focusing more on those types of modules and selling MojoX on Desktop to be a good move, which is what I'm presuming was Mark's strategy at the time.

The problem is that there is almost no one who seems to want to promote this language for what it is, and so many people who are holding back because they want leverage on what it should be, to them. It's a lot of old people who are mostly toxic and don't contribute to the "new thing" anymore, the way I see it. They want the control, and it's still expressed even now with demands to change fundamental direction on the project and bring it more in line with either 1. Something more like what existed in the BMax/BB days, or 2. Something they see from competing packages -- as if either of these things would actually bring in a new market. No, it's a stop-loss strategy at best, and Pyrrhic fiefdom-vying at worst.

Semi-related:
I may sign up to the affiliate program to see if I can promote Monkey in my limited way, probably offering it up when describing my open-source things on github (in README.md similar to how skn3 and I already take donations). I haven't looked into it yet, but if there's a way to prove to the affiliate that a particular user resulted in a sale to BRL, I'd probably try to incentivize affiliate sales as well (perhaps including one of my unreleased libraries, frameworks or whatever originally written for commercial titles with any copy of MonkeyX purchased through the affiliate link). Since I'm very much in favor of the current pricing model, I'm more than willing to do this myself to spread the language's adoption. Moreso if MojoX ever comes to fruition and is still backwards-compatible with the existing Monkey language -- Mojo libs can be given away, MojoX libs can be affiliate-sponsored gimmes to paying customers. More people should probably try to spread adoption of the language this way.


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#352]
All this nonsense about monthly subscriptions and paid modules is just hogwash. If monkey wasn't so cheap like it is no one would use it. Unity and GameMaker beat this hands down as it is, and to say the price tag should be extended at any amount blows my mind. Mark might as well make monkey pro (w/ all targets) freeware and public domain.

after all it's just a raw text editor with no interface or decent debugging, just text that compiles, no resource or project management, you set paths to your sdks in notepad opening a text file instead of using a simple preferences window which should take care of that within the IDE, Monkey's (and all alternative) IDE's are so bare bones there's hardly a thing to look at. You can't even set your game's icon without third party tools.

Name one thing Monkey has that other engines don't besides how cheap it is. Now look at all the things Unity, etc can do that Monkey can't - that's an endless list. In short, the price is perfect the way it is, to make it any bigger that wouldn't be good for anyone (especially Mark). I don't comprehend why anyone would want it changed.


Shinkiro1(Posted 2014) [#353]
It would be nice to at least have a way to switch on/off an interface like that in the preferences, ...

Yeah ... right.

Name one thing Monkey has that other engines don't

It doesn't have a lot of things the others have (yes, that's an advantage)

I don't comprehend why anyone would want it changed.

Sustainability.

There is nothing wrong with increasing the price / changing the model.

It's preferable to compete on quality, not on price.


Raph(Posted 2014) [#354]
Monkey's chief value propositions are:

- eliminating porting
- covering web, desktop, and mobile -- and potentially, the new generations of consoles
- doing it in a relatively future-proof way, since you get a native project as output
- at low cost

For anyone who is not operating in a cross-platform development world, there is no doubt that other solutions will be better. A dedicated desktop solution will be better for desktop dev. A dedicated mobile solution will be better for mobile dev. And so on.

The other characteristic of Monkey is that it is lightweight for rapid prototyping. This is a huge benefit for certain types of workflow.. It is many times faster to stage up something in Monkey rather than Unity for 2d work. (For 3d, of course, Unity destroys Monkey).

The other crossplatform solutions out there -- and I looked at all of them! -- have various tradeoffs. Believe it or not, Monkey is actually the broadest x-platform support on the market. That is a unique offering. Reducing platforms means that the product enters competition with narrowly targeted solutions. For example, if I were doing mobile-only dev, I would choose Corona. It's Lua, so I already know it; it's got more active support; it's got a larger community. If I were doing 3d, Unity is the only game in town.

I think any solutions to the marketing issues Monkey has have to focus on the unique value it offers, above all.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#355]
Take Unity binaries on mobile... an empty project will take 6-7Mb. Now look at Monkey's 'empty' project compiled size. There you will see the advantage Monkey has over Unity.

I see nothing wrong with the pricing model myself. I don't think raising the price will make a difference - It started on a higher price tag, do you guys remember that? I think that *new targets* if ever created, should be sold. So everyone would still get all targets currently available - but new ones would be sold. For example, There will be "unified binaries" for WP8/Windows 8 - a new target for this would be great, and I'll gladly pay for that.

And I love the way Monkey is. Could use a #TARGET_NAME (so for example, I could differentiate from HTML5 and FirefoxOS in code) but other than that I don't have any major complaints.


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#356]
@SLotman - I agree new modules being separate purchases I have no problem with, I was mainly referring to annual fees and having to pay again for the modules we already bought. The file size is a really good point, too.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#357]
Take Unity binaries on mobile... an empty project will take 6-7Mb. Now look at Monkey's 'empty' project compiled size. There you will see the advantage Monkey has over Unity.


Actually it's 9MB with Unity 4.3. And that's just the empty project!

Unity uses a completely different approach. I wouldn't use Monkey if it would be like Unity. I like Monkey because it's more a programmer's approach. I know Unity very well and I'm impressed with its 3d functionality even though now as Unreal Engine 4 is almost free this will change drastically because UE4 runs just circles around Unity.

I prefer Monkey for 2d solutions. And I've tried virtually everything out there. Don't like Corona, their pricing sucks and their limited native support. With Monkey you can do everything because you have access to the native project it generates.

I prefer Unity for 3d solutions. But hands down, their free version sucks for mobile development, because you don't have access to static batching and optimizations and their profiler. You run into performance issues pretty quickly.


Midimaster(Posted 2014) [#358]
MARKET RESEARCH
======================

It is nice, see you all talking about the roadmap of monkey. But - the owner is Mark - he should decide where to go to and where he can make money with it. We can follow and pay him for his product. Or leave...

Perhaps we should deliver him more possibilities of earning more money and not of adding more features... His problems are not ideas but money!!! Why should he copy Unity? It already exists. Monkey is Monkey and it should remain what it is.

I would strongly recommend a market research about the use of monkey:

Who uses Monkey? Why? Which targets are prefered? Where is the potential for more money? Which features whould we pay for?
Who would pay? How much?

We need not single voices but analyses about the community.

Does Blitz-Research know something wbout the customers? Perhaps it would be very helpful to investigate....
Who is able to start a online survey with a questionaire?


PAYMENT
=================
We will not find a general payment mode, that makes all the users happy from "privates" to "commercial" users. So why not offer different pricing models depending on sales we reached with our (monkey based) apps? Perhaps users with much sales should have more influence on features and roadmap than private users! In a model with 5 different tpyes of licences Mark would see which type of user needs which feature.

5 licences:
free - no right to publish - no influence - 0$ + no anual fee
private - right to publish non commercial apps - no influence - 100$ + no anual fee
business - right to publish commercial apps upto total 9900$/year - small influence - 100$ + 10$ /1000$
professinal - right to publish commercial apps upto total 99000$/year - big influence - 200$ + 200$/10000$
ultimate - right to publish commercial apps above 99000$/year - big influence - 300$ + 3000$/100000$

QUESTION TO ALL COMMERCIAL USERS
===================================
What option would like you prefer?

1. Mark stopps development of Monkey?
2. Mark demands anual fees?


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#359]
I think Monkey STRONGLY needs a good show case! No offense but going to the apps showcase here: http://www.monkey-x.com/Apps/_index_.php

Well uhm... most of us are coders so the graphics are not always the best but potential customers might look at these pictures first and hit the back button of the browser immediately!

Maybe we could choose some better pictures? I should post my apps in that section as well I guess?...










AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#360]
I think Monkey STRONGLY needs a good show case! No offense but going to the apps showcase here: http://www.monkey-x.com/Apps/_index_.php

for that page, the easy fix is to place one "featured" app at the top, one that looks nice. i like seeing what others are up to, i wouldn't want to see things taken off.
...but this is all under the marketing department, which has been criticized plenty.

@Xaron, what is the puzzle game called? my son would love playing that.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#361]
What's really bad now is the effect of this "depressing blog post". Man I even have potential customers now who would be interested in Monkey but won't buy it because they think, Mark will screw it. Damnit. Now that's the inverse of effective marketing. LOL

Mark, if you read this, do yourself and us a favour and say something. Leaving it as it is is NOT good.

Edit: Adam, look here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cobblecrowd.toddlerpuzzle
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toddler-fun-puzzles/id863057995
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/toddler-fun-puzzles/730e7489-b222-4958-bbe2-44924d386812

Beside iOS these are free versions. The lite version for iOS is still pending... Cheers! :)


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#362]
@Midimaster - those prices you listed are so rediculous it's worse than GameMaker. Monkey is one of the least capable of doing anything engines out there, you will need much more than file size and a microscopic performance boost to get anyone paying that kind of money for Monkey. Do you take pleasure in the thought of obliterating my chances of using Monkey? Do you like burning a hole in everyone's wallet (and yours)?

Lastly, I doubt a single person has made that kind of money from their games using monkey (not counting the 1 out of a million lucky people) so anyone who plans to make money in mind for using Monkey - with that price tag - 99.9% of everyone wanting to make money with their games would actually be losing it (and tons of it) by buying monkey to begin with, on top of the appstore fees (Apple, etc) and with an invalid garentee of earning more than $100 in a year that's so vague it in almost every case won't happen.

I'd strongly prefer to risk monkey to become vaporware than to garentee it's price being so crazy no one would waste their money on it. A negative risk is always better than an ultimately destructive garentee.


Ironstorm(Posted 2014) [#363]
@Xaron: Maybe you want to showcase some of your apps in the front-page-slider? http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/posts.php?topic=8263
I think this one replaced the featured-app section.


Whiteball(Posted 2014) [#364]
Has anyone actually read through all these posts and sat down and thought how it may look to Mark now?

I just love the way everyone suddenly has an opinion on what is right/wrong, good/bad and what everyone else should/shouldn't be paying and yet before Marks comment no one ever mentioned anything.

If these so called bad/wrong things are actually bad/wrong why do you all feel compelled to speak up now and not before?
Mark threatening to take all your toys away is he?

Maybe, just maybe that's why he doesn't respond. Perhaps he thinks all this rhetoric isn't really for his benefit but just everyone trying to protect their own interests.....


John Galt(Posted 2014) [#365]
I just love the way everyone suddenly has an opinion on what is right/wrong, good/bad and what everyone else should/shouldn't be paying and yet before Marks comment no one ever mentioned anything.
Most of this stuff's been mentioned a bunch of times. If not directly regarding Monkey, then regarding Blitz languages in general.

The majority of posts here look like they're made with the best of intentions, to help Mark out.

Perhaps he thinks all this rhetoric isn't really for his benefit but just everyone trying to protect their own interests.....
We all share a mutual interest that Monkey does well. I don't see a conflict of interests here although of course we may have different spins on what is the best route.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#366]
Agreed, the ideas may be going off in all directions but it is just an indication of peoples' interest and commitment.


Raph(Posted 2014) [#367]
You're right though. Sometimes piles of unsolicited advice is not what someone needs.

Mark, what can we, the current users of Monkey, do to help?


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#368]
He's probably become a sheep herder in western Mongolia by now.. :)


Tibit(Posted 2014) [#369]
I wanted to help out and have started working on improving the docs, I'm fiddeling with a HTML mockup now.

Great docs can hold a new users hand and boost the productivity of those more experienced - maybe it makes a difference, maybe not, but I know I'll be happy going for it anyway.

Will share more details once it looks more inspiring.

One question that keeps popping up is: What more can be done to support all module makers in this community that create so much value for all of us?

Would a module manager help? An improved module repository? An curated module list?


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#370]
@Tidbit

I hate most people's ideas with regards to a module manager. Ziggy has a decent idea for including metadata to let IDE's check for module updates themselves. Seems pretty hard to screw up, and doesn't require submitting to a false hierarchy gatekeeper in the form of a secondary repo/app framework. To be fair, though, the documentation on it is lacking, and only Ziggy uses it, so there's that.

I would like to see monkeydoc forked or improved so that we can add the features we think are missing from the docs to its automation process. For me, that would mean supporting parameters (method args). Jungle's docs system is incompatible with Monkey's, so there I don't think we need to re-invent the wheel. But generally speaking, the same solution can be applied to both problems: Allow rich metadata within modules themselves (or as headers/stubs/whatever included with a module) that allows for easy automated documentation and update-checking.

Some other things the docs could really handle better are preprocessor directives and code samples, but maybe those should be kept out of the docs system, and simply leave open templates for this so the generated docs can be dumped on some wiki core (with the examples and other things filling out the template blanks, again auto-magically based on the latest/greatest community source)


muddy_shoes(Posted 2014) [#371]
@Tibit

I would say that module development would benefit from clearer structure, discoverability and routes to "publishing" a module. That likely includes something like a searchable module repository, a module manager/installer and things like tutorials/coding/documentation guidelines. I'm tinkering with some ideas to address these needs.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#372]
I'll add that if there's a canonical place on the web to contribute and maintain listings for modules that can be hosted at professional code-repo places (like bitbucket or github), I wouldn't be opposed to it. However, it would have to be nearly fully automated and self-serve for me to not be opposed to the idea. That's just me, however. I want to dump something and leave it and not worry about the place becoming a wasteland/desert because the gatekeeper decided he or she didn't want to maintain the list anymore.

The Monkey website could really be a lot of these things (module listing repo / app news+hype machine / asset store / interactive docs), but I don't think there's anyone behind the wheel at BRL who can take over that very large responsibility right now (nor should they be expected to or criticized for being unable to do so at this point, mind you!). Someone with lots of free time/resources should look into that. Maybe fuel it with affiliate link $$ or something.

I used to have a lot of fun contributing to the Clickteam-related products community about a decade ago because they had those things, news+hype sites with enthusiasts, a reasonable source for information in an accessible way, and at least 2-3 good forums. Back then you didn't need to build a perfect site to get people to drop by though, of course. Still, might not be outside the realm of portal-in-a-box solutions to achieve, even today. (I'm not a web guy so no actual truth should be inferred from this assumption)


Raph(Posted 2014) [#373]
There is a canonical place: http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/modules.php

That said, there's a tremendous amount of useful code that isn't on there. Some of it is modules, but there's also a lot of code found in the Monkey Projects and Monkey Code forums that isn't even in module form. It also often isn't hosted on a site like github, but just pasted into a thread.


Midimaster(Posted 2014) [#374]
So you will tell me, that nearly nobody of us earned money with monkey??? Oh!

We strongly need a research about the customers of monkey! If Mark wants to sell more, he needs to know more about his community. Are you all not willing to participate in such a research?

Time-killer-games said, that the price structure is ridiculous... Why? Can you please specify your arguments? In my model all "low eraning users" will not need to pay anything. Only intensive users like me or Xaron would need to pay more. Not before we make the monkey, but after!
And everybody can estimate his earnings or pay voluntary more to get a "better licence state"

With Unity I would have to pay 75$/month and additional 75$/month for each target. That's much more than my suggestion

Let us suppose the structure is like that.. 1000 users divided in...

900 private users = 0,oo$
---> but 20% of them want to support mark with upgrading to "busines licence" = 1800$ a year

90 business users between 0 and 9999$ (like me) ~ 2000$ a year
---> but 20% of them want to support mark with upgrading to "pro licence" = 3600$ a year

9 pro users between 10000 and 99999$ and (like Xaron?) ~ 4000$ a year
---> but 20% of them want to have the "ultimatel licence" = 6000$ a year

1 ultimate user over 100000 (like siread) = 9000$ a year

this earns >25.000$ as anual fees. And everybody who reaches the limit to the next licence level will be happy to be able to pay more, or?


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#375]
I agree Midimaster. I mean you have pay yearly fees of $99 for the Appstore. If you can't afford that you can't even deploy there, so what's the point of whining because of $30 p.a. for Monkey for instance?

There are Monkey users out there who actually make money, the most prominent obviously is Simon who made millions using Monkey. Well I'm quite way lower but over the last two years I made something about $30,000 which isn't that bad. It was more in the beginning but at the moment I have some steady income of about $500-$700 per month from my Monkey games.

I don't know if Mark is happy about this here but I asked him if I may just donate him some percentage of my income from Monkey but he refused it as he's "not comfortable with it". Can you imagine what a nice guy Mark actually is? I mean he really has scruple to charge money from guys like me who earn money because of him. lol.


V. Lehtinen(Posted 2014) [#376]
I don't know much about the history behind BB/BMax and Monkey... But reading on this page and seeing things about annual fees sounds terrible. As been said already, Monkey can offer you a simple, plain, dull, incapable TEXT-editor. I don't think there's a lot of people who are willing to pay anything for that. If there would be any annual fees, I'd say Monkey should have a really good IDE like JungleIDE is now (with some preferences as mentioned by others). And then, getting updates on that IDE and Monkey run-time would be great things to pay for.

Also... I haven't seen any advertisements for Monkey - didn't even see them for Blitzmax, even tho it was more than worthy of advertising. I think most of the community here have just accidentally found Monkey (and BB/Bmax in the old days) while googling alternatives for other languages. Is Monkey even mentioned anywhere else than on it's own homepage and BB-sites?

Get the freaking word out there! You don't need to start milking people just because you have failed to advertise Monkey...

Anyway. My suggestion for sustainability money-wise is something like royalty-system. Every game/app/engine (or anything made with Monkey) sold, Mark would be able to get small percentage of the game's price. I have no idea how this could be done, but money-wise it would be something like a jackpot for Mark.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#377]
LOL 30 grand, most iv had from admob is £13.00, to be fair my games thus far have only had about 200 downloads so I cant really complain about that, I really do need to pimp my stuff more but I suffer the same "Crap at marketting" that Mark suffers from :)

As for paying more for monkey, let me clear, its not that I do not want to, its that I cant, so any price changes would push me out of the community so obviously I'm against it, with that said if I was financially solid then I would have zero objections to paying more..

As for those developers who are actually paying bills from monkey and still having a little left over they already have a mechanism for supporting Mark and that's to simply buy more monkey licences, I would be willing to bet that not only has some of you done this already, but I would be willing to bet that at least a few of you that have are sitting on a handful of licences just wasting away in your e-mail in box, have you guys ever thought about actually handing them out to people who might actually use them and join the community ? or better yet give them to some one to use as a prize in some small game jam style competition, just a thought.

I'v not bought extra monkey licences yet as I explained above iv not been in a situation where its been possible, but in the past I have done with both Max and B3D, think I might have gotten BlitzPlus even tho I never used it once as well. I think that was a while ago tho lol.

I think as some one said above, lots of suggestions, suggestions are good it shows that people care, at the end of the day its down to mark to sort through it all and see if there is anything that he can apply.

ALL THAT BEING SAID!!!!!!.. in terms of Marketing, has anyone at all mentioned the fact that we have a nice new theme(which I still think is far to light and pale) and a swanky looking feature slider on the front page and absolutely NO ONE!, has as it appears made any effort to actually do anything with it ?, that could so easily display some of the better stuff from the apps section, if voting on apps was enabled with a total votes per month period from time of visit then it would be fully dynamic and people could vote up the apps that look cool so that they automatically show on the front page, it seems like such a wasted and yet relatively simply thing to do and its just sitting there not even animating, stuck on the monkey logo..


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#378]
@V. Lehtinen: I agree the IDE is just... simple. It's the underlying tool which is the gem! I really think Mark should bundle the Jungle IDE with Monkey even though Jungle is Windows only.

@Paul: Well you gave me an idea I've never though about! When Mark refuses payments like revenue share I just could buy more Monkey licenses! Wow, why on ... I did not get that earlier? LOL

Regarding that anual fee, well yes, it might be a bad idea but I still think $30 per year is NOTHING for what Monkey offers. One could do this voluntary but as it looks like Mark even do NOT want to have my money. ;) So maybe I end up buying more Monkey licenses.


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#379]
@Xaron; We're working (been last two months) on a Mac and Linux port (mostly rewrite) of out IDE dev framework. We hope to have something similar to Jungle Ide for the mac in some months. We have a very complete docking engine working, and a simple but functional syntax code editor component. I hope we'll finish soon, but it's not exactly an easy development!


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#380]
I can imagine! :) That's nice to hear even though I use Windows mainly so for me this is not an issue but for a "bundled" IDE it should be cross platform. Have you ever contacted Mark about this?


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#381]
Have you ever contacted Mark about this?
Yes, and I think he was happy to know it. It was before the monkey anouncement he did some weeks ago.


V. Lehtinen(Posted 2014) [#382]
@Paul: That Game Jam idea... Oh my god! It would be like...awesome! Think about it... People who cannot afford the Pro license could be able to stand up and join the Jams - this would also draw much and much of people to join and start with the Free Monkey version... It would really be a great opportunity to people who have been dreaming about getting Monkey Pro and start developing on a platform they've dreamed about.
Game Jams like this would be also arranged by Mark himself - it would be a superb marketing tool!! Yay, more people!!

As this comes to a new suggestion: monthly game jam that has that pro license as a first place award - and JungleIDE for the second place? D: This could be marketed so easily, because... let's admit it; people like free stuff. In the same time, it would be a motivator to those who almost have quit using Monkey - it would bring them back! Stuff like this could easily be advertised in GameJolt, IndieStatik, IndieDB, Reddit....and so on.
Think about it! *super excited*


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#383]
and JungleIDE for the second place?
I'll be happy to donate some licenses to winners, if we get a decent number of participants. (which I hope it should be easy to get if proper advertisement is done). First price could be MonkeyX Pro + Jungle Ide . There are also some nice products like the Playniax framework, not sure if they would be interested in participating.


V. Lehtinen(Posted 2014) [#384]
I'll be happy to donate some licenses to winners, if we get a decent number of participants. (which I hope it should be easy to get if proper advertisement is done).

If done right, it would spread like wildfire...!

First price could be MonkeyX Pro + Jungle Ide .

Depending on the size of the event (well, we ain't gonna beat Ludum Dare even if we wanted... :D), prices could be something like this:
1st price: MonkeyX Pro + Jungle IDE
2nd price: MonkeyX Pro
3rd price: Jungle IDE

The Jams could even be for specific platforms or with specific theme. Skies are the limit - only if we think we have a limit!


ziggy(Posted 2014) [#385]
Depending on the size of the event (well, we ain't gonna beat Ludum Dare even if we wanted... :D), prices could be something like this:
1st price: MonkeyX Pro + Jungle IDE
2nd price: MonkeyX Pro
3rd price: Jungle IDE
This will bring non current Monkey users a bit out of the box. I would provide a list of prices, and the winner chooses first, then second winner chooses next, etc. Maybe someone that already owns Jungle Ide is insterested in Monkey X, or someone that already has Monkey and Jungle is interested in any other thing we could be able to add to the list. And obviously, any newcomer could choose whatever he/she wants.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#386]
One thing the community could do is clean up and re-organise the 'bananas'. Even organising them into folders according to theme instead of the author's handle would help a lot!


Why0Why(Posted 2014) [#387]
I think a Monkey game jam is a great idea! I am sure that Tony would throw in an Ignition license for a prize.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#388]
Monthly as well would give a steady flow of people, really hope the people with their hands on the stearing wheel can sort something out, how would it deal with people who do not need a licence tho, if they win I guess they could pass their licence onto friends or something, or have it split with a category for free users with a pro licence as a prize and a catag for pro users with jungle as a prize??

just a thought, all of this would require support from mark and mark would be or should be the guy picking a monthly topic for the jams. PLS MAKE IT SO! lol.


V. Lehtinen(Posted 2014) [#389]
@Paul: As Ziggy suggested, the winners could make their own picks of what they want. Picking order would be as they have placed in the top 3; 1st picks 1st, 2nd after him and 3rd winner picks last and selects from what is left. So if you win, but you already have Monkey Pro license, you could pick JungleIDE pro, or something else that is there to pick.

But seriously; I think Mark would be happy after few successful Game Jams. He'd be getting new customers, I'm sure of it. :P
It'd be like Free2Play games; those with money, save time by buying things straight, but those without the money, can grind (compete in Jams) their way to those items.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#390]
Oh well, the idea is out there .. just need to wait and see if Mark and the others do anything about it, I wonder if the other IDE guys would be interested in helping out as well.


Derron(Posted 2014) [#391]
You shouldn not only base the prices on language+IDE.
I am quite sure that there are "artists" in the community who could provide sprite sets, theme sets, gui templates ... same for music etc.
Benefit of this things: even people already having IDE + MonkeyPro would have a chance of winning something "useful".

Also competitions could "build" on something, so that after comp1 some basic functionality exists in multiple forms. Comp2 than can reuse comp1 code (open for all), Comp3 is for another basement, ... and so on. Comps could be done simultaneously (sfx, gfx, ...) - sometimes without prices but "fame".

Also instead of "price per jam" you could do a "price per best of month" - so there are multiple competitions (in multiple categories) and so on. People should be able to team up (team score) so eg. A can help B to gain a chance of soundSetXYZ.


bye
Ron


Playniax(Posted 2014) [#392]
Hi,

I'll be happy to donate some licenses to winners too if we get a decent number of participants.

Bye,

Tony


Tibit(Posted 2014) [#393]
@muddy_shoes - I'm planning to add a guide to module useage and creation to the docs. Got any more info about your mod-manager project? Sounds cool!

@Gerry Quinn - I have also been thinking about doing something with bananas, was unsure if structure by category might upset people - from a user point of view I like it. Hope to make this a part of the docs-rehaul project if it has support.

I like the GameJam idea, I think it would be wise to "sponsor" already exsting GameJams - give people a short monkey intro (video/web page) and the free version of monkey and everything to get going in html5 - those that build their game in monkey get entered for winning full monkey, jungle, ignition licenses. In a sense we piggy back on their marketing, but in return we provide their users with engagement (prizes) and a really simple html5 game making tool - with the premise that similar code will run on mobile later on.

Monkey should be a perfect gamejam tool, at least bundeled with JungleIDE and a Framework.


quantum(Posted 2014) [#394]
Monthly competition sounds great. I remember an old school demo competition with B3D.

Has Mark ever done interviews with Retro Gamer magazine? Must be some free publicity in that, and people would be keen to find out the inside story on gloom, etc.


degac(Posted 2014) [#395]
Explaining about previous 'marketing' (sort of) (in my opinion of course!)

A new meta-language - just exited from beta - in early stage, with a 'basic' IDE, with manual setup/configuration, with no debugger, with poor or without complete documentation, subject to daily fixes and changes. This was Monkey.

What exactly do you want to marketing? A beta product? A difficult (to learn and to debug) new language? Only the brave will accept a such product! The others (if the main target is 'make your 2d game for beginners') get away and choose something else.


TODAY, that Monkey is 'stable' a proper-marketing campaign could/should be done, and could have a positive feedback.

I still think Monkey needs a change on the sale model (already said by me and others) and an annual (low) fee: asking for a % fee on games sold is over-complicated and needs to spend so much time to 'control' (in what way? who? A new collaborator?).
AND
before starting (if ever) a new campaign, I will focus on the content created with Monkey: maybe (I dont know) here on the site there are only *some* of the results (wip, alpha, proof-of-concept and so on), while out there are the final products. A proper gallery (mine only example should to eliminate for example! - no doubt about this!) is needed.

about site: first/landing page.
I still dont understand why is 'static'. I mean there's the monkey logo AND only if you click on the left-right icon arrow you can see other products/games (Ignition framework, Jungle IDE, RVL Games and so on) - and see what I wrote above about the 'content'.
edit: dont' ask me, but just now I realized the sliding... I can assure it doesnt' happen before!!!!

about gam-jam:

You should attract people that creates games, not only in Monkey. (and just invite them to use Monkey-HTML5 target, if they want).

About prizes:
- MonkeyX pro license is interesting for 'extern' people (see above)
- IDEs and frameworks are too Monkey-oriented

Add something else
- a 'prepaid packet' of graphics set/textures/music/3d (resources!)
- a 'contract' with a gfx designer (for a certain game) or with a music/sfx designer
- a marketing campain (! yes this is strange :P)

In this way you could attract many people (of course not only monkey-users! that's the point).


EDIT:
could be interesting decide to collect 'money for marketing' in the wait of a proper designed marketing campain? Just a question, as I doubt Mark in this moment can afford to spend money just for a re-launch. I think he has other in his minds.


kmac(Posted 2014) [#396]
I have scanned a good deal of the recent comments and expect my minor suggestions to be redundant with much that has been said. If nothing else, this is support from someone who has yet to make meaningful use of licenses for all products mentioned below.

1. Provided a donate button, I would. Though I like the ‘update for life model’ where possible, a guy has to make a living.
2. Alternatively or maybe in addition, I would support a Kickstarter for V2.
3. I would pay for major updates (yearly-ish)
4. Notice that both the creators of Jungle IDE and Playniax have premium support options. Well, that’s an option here too. My focus has always been elsewhere with respect to these programming platforms consequently I would pay for support.
5. Given the affiliate programme it’s clear that effective discounts from BRL’s (?) perspective is acceptable. Along the same lines, why not have a discount bundle with Jungle IDE & Playniax, provided those producers are willing. [I suggest those because I believe they are the most prominent addons. I could be wrong.]

Oh, don’t like the colour scheme of the website.


Sensei(Posted 2014) [#397]
I too like the idea of game jams. I already have the pro version of Monkey-X and use Mollusk IDE which I think is excellent but would also participate for fun.

Saying that, I do think game jams might also be fun if there were targeted ideas, for example, things that could improve the Bananas examples. For one, the bananas examples REALLY need better documentation, explanation and purpose. It would be nice to be able to access bananas and game jam winning results on the website as the go-to places for newbies and those still learning (such as myself). For example, I have no idea how to create and use external native language stuff with Monkey. I properly documented step-by-step example would be great.
As was mentioned previously, useful/good code examples are all over the place here and often hard to find due to the terrible site search facility. It really should be centralised.

Also, is it just me, or is everyone here, except me, interested in 3D coding? I like Monkey because it is good at 2D.


TeaBoy(Posted 2014) [#398]
Competitions are a great idea, perhaps try and arrange bigger prizes based on the targets supported by Monkey, e.g Ouya, PS VITA etc... these could be donated by the relevant companies, I know, I know wishful thinking. But you need to offer prizes that will entice people, pull them in.

I would love to see a game created by Mr Sibly that shows what Monkey can do although I see there are many great examples in the gallery already, perhaps provide an example that shows off the 3D capability of Monkey, perhaps a DOOM/GLOOM example.

I believe an easy 3D solution needs to happen for Monkey to entice more people, perhaps as a seperate purchase but one step at a time.


Midimaster(Posted 2014) [#399]
The reason of selling additional licences for commercial users, who earn money with monkey is to earn more money. Not to offer give-aways for private users. This will be contra-productive. Private users will expect to win a licence and will wait buying it themself...

A game competition will reach monkey users! Not new ones! Its a nice idea, but not a marketing tool.

Mark has to research why people did buy his product. He has to focus on this facts. And he has also to find out, why others don't and also set a focus on this reasons.

"If you have an interested customer, don't let him go any more..." I follow all questions from new users here. And my impression is, that for most of them it is very complicated to get targets working. The first hour with a new product is important. If the user gets helpless, he will not buy.

So Mark needs to start a "first steps campagne" which improves the impression new users have with his product. He should more care about the problems this group reports here in forum. We (experienced) monkey coders have a sort of "organisational blindness", where we cannot understand how heavy the problems of new users are. And we think, that the new user was to stupid. But in reality the product was to complicate...

My suggestions are:

- Show some really good apps made with monkey
- Report how the coders had success with it
- Demonstrate how easy it is to create a first own game
- Show reasons, why it is better to BUY the product

This needs...

- a (moderated) page for top apps
- a moderated tutorial section
- a better installation (with more help at targets)
- perhaps a better IDE
- chronlogic tuorials instead of chaotic bananas
- a clear defined advantage of the purchase version compared to the free version

and most important....

- a "Mark" who is interested in developing the marketing.
Mark, there are a lot of people here who voluntary want to help and participate in this process - Take them! Delegate!
Feel free to take our money and time, if we already offer it! This is the age of "communities". Use it!


Kamelito(Posted 2014) [#400]
Hi,
I bought Blitzmax and had Blitz Basic for Amiga back then. Now I'm using a Mac and having Monkey-X + Ignition-X soon and Jungle IDE coming to Mac that's awesome.
Now this isn't enough to make games, there should be a sticky page IMHO with others tools needed in game dev, like Promtion Cosmigo (no Mac equivalent?), others for sounds (fmod is free IIRC) etc. I've to say that games in the front page aren't very attractive, Frederic Raynal is using Monkey and he's a professional game dev how about saying so there?
What I'd like as a new comer is a bundle something like Money-X + Ignition-X+Jungle IDE (Mac) would be very nice.
keep it up!
Kamelito


Sub_Zero(Posted 2014) [#401]
The modules page: http://www.monkey-x.com/Community/modules.php should have a "Add module" form for submitting modules, and moderators could just click approve in a control panel

Also, there should be some sort of automated install of dev tools for monkey... Will have a look at it :)


degac(Posted 2014) [#402]

Frederic Raynal is using Monkey and he's a professional game dev how about saying so there?


After a quick search on Wiki I discovered who HE is.... ! Some 'game jems' are his creation. No words to add. (thank's for the info!)


Sledge(Posted 2014) [#403]
I love Mark's languages -- love 'em. But I'm coming to find that, when it comes to actually developing stuff, I'm language-agnostic. C++, C#, Objective-C, BlitzMax, Javascript, GML... I don't actually care about the language, I care about the tooling. That's the way the wind is blowing in indie development -- Unity and GameMaker have made inroads by providing tooling to developers. Which language(s) they demand you use is really neither here nor there when you just want to get stuff done -- it's a kerb an inch high. What you wind up expressing programatically is all much of a muchness.

So I don't know what he solution is and won't pretend that I'm in any position to advise BRL, but for the observation that tooling really, really matters nowadays. And Monkey has none to speak of.


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#404]
@ Sledge +1 & +star Monkey is in dire need of being more than a language, a language paired with an IDE full of interface and tools to help development to be much more rapid. To not require code for developing, but to also not require the lack of coding. To make coding optional and an easy interface with all the same capabilities, but that also being optional.either/or if not both.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#405]
@time-killer-games

sounds like you want a different product. Though I'm sure there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from making something like this, and using Monkey as the default language for scripts (hell, I'd probably warm up a lot to something like GM/Unity/Construct if they had an option to script with Monkey syntax). However, Monkey's a programming language. That's just what it is. It's not an IDE with RAD visual tools and a scripting-language bolted on, nor should it be. That's the venue for a different product, perhaps something BRL, a value-added reseller, or some completely different 3rd party can develop.

I like Monkey's aspirations, now it just needs more life breathed into it to take its original promise somewhere.


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#406]
I'm pretty sure that Visual Basic, Visual C#, are Visual C++ are programming languages too, but Microsoft didn't just give their customers a compiling raw text editor when they published Visual Studio. They have real debugging, a visual dialog editor, a resource, code, and class management tree, but monkey has none of this. With that same kind of mindset you could also argue that monkey isn't a programming language because it uses syntax highlighting, because like you said, it's programming language, not an interface, and syntax highlighting is considered a form of interface.

This topic is about the future of what monkey could be, not stating what it already is and giving up there. It's about improvement to make the product better, not to make things more complicated than what they need to be. The minority of general game developers actually like the coding process being bare bones, the majority strongly prefers what can get the job done the quickest and easiest ways possible involving code only when it's actually needed.

The point of a cross platform language is to require less re-writes and code in general. So if you really like coding so much I don't know why you chose monkey when you could write your game manually with 6 different languages. I don't care if this community doesn't agree with me as it's a single grain of sand compared to how many potential customers monkey could have if it wasn't a syntax highlighted notepad.

It's good to use c++ for power. It's good to use GM/Unity for rapid development, but monkey is in the middle ending up with not having the benefits of higher or lower level languages. Meaning it doesn't have the power and benefit of spending more time to learn and actively use C++ and also doesn't have the speed wow-factor GM/Unity has for example.

If monkey was meant to be powerful like C++ then it shouldn't exist because that's what c++ is there for to begin with. If monkey had more interface, it would attract those customers who want rapid development. I don't see anything but benefit from that, but the best part is it would all be optional just like it is in GM/Unity. Want less interface - no one would force you to use it with code also present. You could use code and/or interface like most game dev software leave the option for. don't care if monkey is a programming language, that doesn't mean it can't be a better one if given the chance.

This would make passionate coders and rapid developoers both happy. Everybody wins.

I'll just drop it I guess, well, it was worth a shot. We'll just agree to disagree.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#407]
I've made games in MSVC. I promise you, Monkey is easier. Much, much easier. And those games only run in Windows.

Monkey gives you a reasonably efficient programming language and multiple target platforms.

Can't you see that "code once for multiple platforms" is a different prospect from both "code once for every platform" and "use a relatively inflexible editor rather than code"?


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#408]
I guess. But that wasn't my point.


itto(Posted 2014) [#409]
Hi all, I started using Monkey on February and I already made several game prototypes (fully working), one of which I'm now aiming at make a complete game. Despite the initial difficulties (awful docs, forums, hard to understand demos, etc.) I managed to find good modules and support by the community, and now I have a GUI engine, callback mechanism, font library, Facebook integration, websocket support, multiplayer, recycling pools, and more up and running (and working seamlessly). I'm using Sublime as editor (I download and modified this Monkey Sublime package) and I setup a custom build system using Perl, targeting the Trans compiler, and everything is working wonders.

Long story short: this piece of software is amazing, I found it by googling "multiple targets programming language" or something similar, and there's not much else similar out there. Just with the HTML5 target my prototypes are playable from every device out there! There are many many things which absolutely have to be addressed, but I believe we can plan and work on something together as a community (better docs? better bananas?). I will probably start a blog about the development of my current game with Monkey.

The product is there and it's real. People need to hear about it. Now if Mark isn't able to continue the development of new features, we as a community can continue to extend the language with modules, and try to address some issues ourselves. For example if the docs are the problem, we could create a wiki and write there better ones. I don't see the whole thing being dead at all, if we keep it alive.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#410]
Well, it's technologically solid. Nothing is going to die unless various platforms deprecate everything, and that will hurt a lot of things more than it hurts Monkey. I've said it before, long before this thread: if Mark disappeared tomorrow, Monkey would stay operating as an effective multi-target platform for many years, even if nobody formally took over development.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#411]
@itto: Nice post, I totally agree. Regarding websockets, could you share your code please?


itto(Posted 2014) [#412]
@Xaron: nothing fancy at all. At first I just implemented them via native js code (my only target is HTML5), sharing global variables to share informations between monkey and the websocket. Then I simply externed the WebSocket object with the few methods I used. (Something really similar to the code in modules/dom/websocket.monkey. The same thing I did to abstract the Facebook API, and the HTTP calls to the server, both of which I now control via really simple monkey code. It's so easy to integrate custom functionality into monkey, I still cannot believe at all this productivity! :)


Michel(Posted 2014) [#413]
in my opinion the price of X Monkey is too elevated for a young (target of this kind of product ...) without great means. $ 60 seems more logical to me. add to that a system of voluntary donations. Monkey X can readily develop mobile platform. very sector carrier currently. the logic is simple. if a product saves money then he will have success because the user will have any interest in what the product continues its development ...

a wise ...


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#414]
in my opinion the price of X Monkey is too elevated for a young (target of this kind of product ...) without great means. $ 60 seems more logical to me. add to that a system of voluntary donations.

Student discount? Haha, maybe..... Probably should have special version of trans compiler to introduce Monkey splash screen into the build chain...


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#415]
My fight for Monkey: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=227236&page=4
:)


Shinkiro1(Posted 2014) [#416]
@Xaron: Keep going :)


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#417]
HA, thanks! Pixelosis helps as well there, whoever he is. I think many just ditch tools like Monkey because they only know Unity. I know both so I know what I'm talking about.


garyk1968(Posted 2014) [#418]
I'm with @time-killer-games, it needs to be more than a language. To be blunt our opinions don't really make that much difference, commercially the product hasn't got the success it deserves regardless of arguments for/against language+IDE or basic functionality.

To me its all about productivity. The same as it always was when I was coding business apps. When visual form design came out in the likes of VB and Delphi it made application development much faster. I started in the days of clipper and DOS when you had to write out stuff by hand @5, 4 SAY to show a label or @5,4 GET to display an input field. I moved to FoxPro soon after as it came with a visual screen designer, a visual report builder, a visual table designer etc. etc.

Thats why you see things like Cocos2D evolving, there was cocosbuilder and now there is SpriteBuilder, create your levels and physics bodies visually and away you go, massive time savers and its all about time these days as we all have precious little of it free.

I'm not 'dissing' Monkey as its awesome but there is obviously a barrier to entry which has stifled its adoption. It could also be more about the 'eco-system', examples, tutorials, courses, books etc. All IMHO of course!

Gary


itto(Posted 2014) [#419]
@Xaron: nice discussion going on there! I myself three months ago chose Unity over Monkey, because the latter was clearly lacking the community, documentation, and overall sense of a finished and production-ready product that Unity had. As soon as I realized the differences between the two though I switched to monkey.


Fred(Posted 2014) [#420]
Yes Kamelito, I use Monkey for almost everything now, tools, tests, prototypes, and products (small ones yet). It was Blitzmax before. I shout everywhere about Monkey but I hope I will do better.
Like Gerry, I did some games with MSCV, and find Monkey more powerful as the same code generates a conventionnal c++ AND other platforms native source code (and project). I did a few commercial game conversions too, and I think the benefits of Monkey philosophy here is unbeatable.
I agree that the standard IDE is not very powerful (I use Jungle), but for serious needs you can use dedicated dev tools for every platform, it's not a matter for a professional use.
Monkey is a great language with a great feature: code translation, not a GameMaker. I don't think that the future of Monkey is toward beginners. Hobbists are usually more professional than beginners. If you don't understand well the difference between a code source translator for multiple dev kit platforms and a script language interpreted by a multi platform engine, Monkey is not for you. Efforts from Ziggy and SubZero are great to help installing dev kits, I would have loved to have them when I installed android dev kits for the first time... But then, if you want to release a product on stores, the difficulties are far beyond Monkey.
Also I'm not saying that Monkey, cannot be a good learning tool, beeing able to run HTML5 without anything else (dev kits) is very fine for that.
Unless you need advanced 3D, Monkey can be an efficient language and can bring a good methodology for production to an average size game studio. Mastering all your code may seems more difficult at start, but when you are about to release a product you will not fight against a black box (ask Unity devs...)

My last game propotype is all done with Monkey, the PC demo was sent to publishers last week. The new company I'm creating (Gloomywood) for this project is investigating Monkey for the real production. Targets are PC (probably Steam but not only), Consoles and Mobiles. Yes it means porting mojo to PS4, XBox One, PS3,... , but it's easier than porting a c++ game.
The game has a lot of 3D raycasted voxel sprites in a 2D environnement, this would not have been possible with an interpretor like GameMaker or Unity (or really more difficult). Rendering and lighting are all software yet, but we'll add Shaders management dedicated to our needs, something that we anyway need to do whatever the production language/tool.
I hope a lot that mojoX is about shaders...


skid(Posted 2014) [#421]
Fred, please let me know if you are hiring.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#422]
Fred, maybe we could collaborate on a PS3 target? I'm almost getting a PS3 devkit here :)
(Have to sort out some issues with static IP first, but once that's solved, I'm halfway there already)


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#423]
Fred, please let me know if you are hiring.


Seconded


skid(Posted 2014) [#424]
This thread is legendary. Fred I don't care about a job but please, if you haven't already, get in touch with Mark, he loves voxels and you guys are both rockstars in my book.


Ferdi(Posted 2014) [#425]
Big fan of Twinsen and Alone in the dark. I had to escape from the prison sooo many times (because I died ALOT), but never got bored of it. =) I finished the first one, but never played the second one, my computer was slow back then ='( Very fond memory of my childhood.


Tusa(Posted 2014) [#426]
Why not OpenSource Monkey? You have built a great ecosystem and user base. It stands to reason that others would be willing to help fix the paper cuts and bugs. If the commercial business is not working out, don't let this software become vaporware.

You could also pursue a model similar to what Red Hat or JetBrains offers: move to a subscription based approach that requires customers to purchase yearly renewals to receive updates. Just saying, that rather than throw in the towel, make a few changes to your business model.

Lastly, what about something like Kickstarter or another crowd funding system?


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#427]
@Tusa : the language itself is licensed under zlib, which I believe is permissive enough to count as open source. The main portions that are closed source are certain native implementations of the mojo library. Not a big problem as far as I can see it with regards to giving people access to the language -- the bigger problem would be (theoretically) a lack of maintainers and reasonable voice to serve as "benevolent dictator for life" should mark voluntarily step down from that position. At this point, I don't think that's happened -- it seems like he might just be taking a break from serious portions of it for a while after perhaps getting burned out from working on it.


Pharmhaus(Posted 2014) [#428]
I use Monkey X every day and I hope I will find the time to close some of the gaps it has in the future.
Since no one knows Monkey X, i started a reddit thread about it.

http://redd.it/26yn59

Even if its reads negative some people came over and registered an account (thanks to showuser.php) to try it which is in my opinion worth their time.


Nobuyuki(Posted 2014) [#429]
cool beans, man. I've made my very first reddit post on there thanks to that thread.

I must say that the comparisons to haxe are not surprising. However, I wonder if there's a way to really hype the syntax in a way that won't draw out the phony BASIC deriders from out of the woodwork. BASIC's pretty much a "dead" syntax and yet for many people, it was one of the most approachable and their reason for being coders today. The closest thing most people trying to get fresh blood into the game compare it to these days is Python -- I'm guessing because of the dynamic typing and wealth of built-in libraries. That being said, the syntax was the main reason I chose Monkey over Haxe -- with a close second being that Haxe's trans-compilation was only able to target Flex or something like that the last time I'd checked it, and that was rather weak. According to the Wiki article, C++ support is still considered "experimental" even!

It may make sense to point out some of those as strengths Monkey has over Haxe. One of which I should add is temporary, as its quickly becoming the de-facto translanguage compiler, making Monkey look less appealing as a general-purpose language with each new platform Haxe supports. To get more community support behind monkey, we need to leverage the strengths we have while we still have 'em and build on it as a community. I'd say in the last month we're getting to be on the right track, with easier install processes, major improvements to 3rd-party IDEs and the like.


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#430]
Since no one knows Monkey X, i started a reddit thread about it.

http://redd.it/26yn59

nice!
However, I wonder if there's a way to really hype the syntax in a way that won't draw out the phony BASIC deriders from out of the woodwork.

I compare Monkey syntax to Lua, not Basic.
As for comparison to Haxe, I really enjoy Haxe, so I don't care. I just find I'm faster with Monkey than Haxe, and the syntax doesn't need darn semicolons everywhere.


therevills(Posted 2014) [#431]
Maybe its worth pointing out since Mark's post about his "job" (April 26, 2014) there has been a few releases afterwards already...

We are currently at v79c and when he posted we were around v78c.


Xaron(Posted 2014) [#432]
Oh I wish Mark would just come out of his corner and make another blog post. MAAARK!


Steve Oliver(Posted 2014) [#433]
@Tusa suggests a subscription model ...

You could also pursue a model similar to what Red Hat or JetBrains offers: move to a subscription based approach that requires customers to purchase yearly renewals to receive updates. Just saying, that rather than throw in the towel, make a few changes to your business model.


and I agree! It would be well worth it. I will definitely pay an annual subscription. It's only fair to Mark considering all the updates to Monkey. Even if he only keeps it "as is" but in a working state, it would be worth it. For example, there might be updates necessary with Xcode 6 and iOS 8.


TeaBoy(Posted 2014) [#434]
Dunno if anyone has seen this post: http://www.raphkoster.com/2014/05/13/monkey-x/


Amon(Posted 2014) [#435]
I would be willing to pay $99 per year on a subscription plan. Having to keep all the targets on track and working is a nightmare I don't even want to think about. So it's do or die time. Free updates until eternity ends or you do, whichever comes first, is not going to keep this all going. Too many targets out there which require constant attention and testing. It seems there is an update every 5 minutes to soem targets.

I would applaud a decision by Mark to charge a yearly fee. As for how much it would cost, this is for Mark to think about. What ever the decision I would hope it would be the one that would increase revenue and secure the development of Monkey-X.

Oh! One last thing. If you wanted to retire Mark and call it a day, I have no objection. Why? Nearly 2.5 decades of blitz and the joys it has brought me has pretty much guaranteed that what ever Mark decides to do with Monkey he'll get no complaintes from me.

Ta!


dragon(Posted 2014) [#436]
Just a idea:
Premium and Free Update packages!

If you pay say 50$ per year, you get every update...

If you do not pay, you get only 1 free update every 2 months (but this include all prev. updates)...

This should motivate Mark to create updates with significant changes...
And all other users to pay more...
All "non premium" users, can simply wait


rebelas(Posted 2014) [#437]
I pay $99 a year if Monkey comes with a stable Mojo3D and Mojo3D's performance and features be like WebGL. I think, it can be better than WenGL, we can consider WebGL as baseline. Why not just WebGL or Three.js? Because Javascript is ugly.