Forums » Everything else » Point of Impact, community website for Impact developers

Greetings! I'm finally going to officially announce what I've been working on for a good while. Unfortunately I got a bit side-tracked and it sat, unfinished for longer than it should have. However, I feel it is strong enough to launch even with a few bugs (I assume) and some 'Coming Soon' pages. Without further adieu...

Point of Impact
A collection of all things related to the Impact game engine for developers
http://www.pointofimpactjs.com

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Games
A gallery of Impact created games. It includes everything you need to market your game including links to play it online, sell on the iTunes App Store/Android Market and include source code (if you wish).

Community Docs
A community driven Wiki which we've ported over the full impact docs (thanks samgreen) and provided a place to organize anything we may need to for Impact development. The documentation and anything else on the Wiki are fully searchable.

Tutorials
A collection of tutorials specifically for Impact development. Tutorials can be linked to existing tutorials on external websites or created right on the website with full BBCode formatting including photos, code syntax highlighting and source uploads.

Code Snippets
A repository of code snippets for Impact. There are many snippets of code that get reused. Now we can try to keep track of all of them! Features code syntax coloring and source code upload.

Plugins
We desperately need a place to keep track of all the great plugins that have been created for Impact. Now we can find them all in one place complete with descriptions and usage instructions. Download (or retrieve from remote URL) and you are on your way!

Other Site Features
All resources include a community rating system, threaded comments and a way to bookmark and keep track of your favorites. Soon I'll have full RSS feeds of each resource to easily keep up-to-date with the latest community additions.

How you can help...
I created this website for the growing Impact development community. That said the website is completely community driven. I ask you to please contribute whatever you can, be it a game you are working on (you can mark it as "In Progress"), a snippet you reuse all the time, a tutorial to help out someone just starting out or a plugin you have created. Together we can create a great resource for all Impact developers that complements the Forums and IRC chat.

Please let me know of any ideas you have or bugs you run into to help improve the site.

Thanks! Get to the Point! ;)

-Graphikos


ps. Dominic, I needed some real examples so I took the liberty of adding a few of your things. Hope you don't mind.

Not bad...

Awesome site!

Looks promising!

Very nice! Will try to set up my plugins there when I get a chance.

That's a great idea! Hope to see its growing :)

Quote from emati
That's a great idea! Hope to see its growing :)

Me too! ;)

Thanks for the great response everyone! Now lets get this thing off the ground!

=D

Looks great but I think it needs a forum of it's own - you might also want to include some AppMobi stuff since there are some strong ties between both camps nowadays.

I don't think it needs a forum at all... we have a forum for Impact Developers... no reason to duplicate efforts.

AppMobi is more than welcome to post different tutorials and resources as they see fit (and I hope they do!).

=D

I will definitely get on that!

We did release a Impact GameDev XDK on thursday that tightly integrates Impact ,the weltmeister, appMobi, and DirectCanvas into an easy to use IDE. Any idea where I should post information about that on your site?

new xdk can be found here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adhaohoijmjhkmiibcgegbdcjhkgmiia

Quote from Graphikos
I don't think it needs a forum at all... we have a forum for Impact Developers... no reason to duplicate efforts
=D

Perhaps we all should put more effort into helping Dominic extend this website beyond a forum? you look like your are the person to spear-head that!

Quote from Indiepath
Perhaps we all should put more effort into helping Dominic extend this website beyond a forum? you look like your are the person to spear-head that!

Before working on Point of Impact I talked with Dominic and he had no immediate plans to fill some of the voids that I'm hoping this site fills.

I do plan to publish the most recent forum posts on Point of Impact but they would redirect right back to this site. I also might host a web-based IRC client to make it easier to pop into the IRC channel for a quick question.

Beyond that I also had ideas of creating polls and maybe a place where we can get input from developers on what new features they'd like to see in future releases of Impact. Although these wouldn't be guaranteed by any means but it would at least let Dominic see if there is a high demand for one feature over another.

The bottom line is I'm more than willing to keep working on the site as long as it's worth my time and effort. Not really looking to get anything out of it other than a great resource for even myself as an Impact developer.

@TylerAppmobi

Thats a good question. It doesn't really belong in Games, Plugins, or Snippets. Originally I did have two other sections which were 'Resources' and 'Packages'. I might need to bring back these sections. Resources would be the place for the XDK. The idea behind Packages would be something more than a snippet but not a plugin such as a library, sample game, etc.

Does AppMobi have any other tutorials or anything that could be linked up? I thought I remember coming across a few impact specific tutorials.

=D

I have made several tutorials I plan on linking up. This weekend is busy for me but they'll be up on Monday . We also have a new document sheet on direct canvas and impact and how to convert your existing games which would be good to add.


Packages or tools tab would be a more appropriate section for the xdk. In all this site will fill a void that will make impact even more awesome to develop with.

I've gone ahead and added a 'Resources' section.

http://pointofimpactjs.com/resources

=D

Looks good. I'll make it a point to notify you of my thumb joystick controls when I finish the plugin.

Right now I have it working great on the iPad, but I need to test it on an Android device. I'm having trouble with impact in general on my iphone 4, so that will need to be on hold for testing until I solve that problem. I am hoping the DirectCanvas will be my answer, as I'm using drawing for the control that's not supported by IOSImpact.

Since IOSImpact does actually solve my performance problems, if DirectCanvas doesn't solve them, I'll make a version of the controls that will work with it. I already know what to do.

Who wants to guinea-pig the thumb joystick code before I polish it up? I could use some suggestions. JS isn't exactly a language I'm fully comfortable with (though I've been developing software for 20 years and worked in the games industry writing AI code for a few years of that).

@Ashkettle you could put the code on github , would be easier for us to clone/fork and test.

I want to get it in a slightly better state before putting it on github. Right now, it's a pretty big hack that I slapped together in a day after reverse-engineering a bit that I saw on a blog post. I mostly recoded it because I wanted it as a control, rather than just controls added to a game, and well...it was a great way to start really learning some JS coding (I've spent too much time in C++ and C#, it's a different world).

I still expect to have the whole thing on github by the end of the week. I just used it in my test and found a couple things I'd like to change right off the bat. Having a proof of concept, and actually adding it to your game's test-bed are often two differing experiences.

RSS Feeds are now working! ;)

http://pointofimpactjs.com/rss

=D

Very impressive! I love like the Wiki. This could become the "cookbook" for Impact. Nice work!

I uploaded my thumbpad plugin for you and linked it to the git repository. The site looks great!

Quote from Ashkettle
I uploaded my thumbpad plugin for you and linked it to the git repository. The site looks great!

I saw that. Thanks for your contribution... and the kind words.

=D

I quite like it - Registered and added resource :) Hopefully the site will grow.

Thanks Dominic for the link in the Tools section.<3

http://impactjs.com/tools

=D

It may be a good idea to add a tab for posting jobs and services. I've steadily noticed more and more people asking people to develop games on this forum which may be better directed to a place set up for such a thing.

Just an idea :D

Quote from TylerAppmobi
It may be a good idea to add a tab for posting jobs and services. I've steadily noticed more and more people asking people to develop games on this forum which may be better directed to a place set up for such a thing.

Just an idea :D

Great idea.

On the topic of money.. I've also been considering setting up a "marketplace". This would allow developers to potentially charge for a plugin. I'd need to do something like a 70/30 profit sharing so I can break even on transaction fees and whatnot but it could bring a lot of quality plugins to Impact. It wouldn't have to be limited to plugins either. Source code to a nice sample game of a specific genre to help jump start your own project would also be useful to some. There are probably many more examples.

Personally I'd love to see some really nice plugins and I wouldn't have any problem paying for one if it saves me a lot of time. At the same time I'd still like to encourage people to be generous enough with their time and skills to help our the community for free.

What do you guys think?

=D

commercial plugins are an awesome idea.

other game dev communities actually do this ( CoronaSDK, Unity, etc ). We're on the right track!

Quote from fugufish
commercial plugins are an awesome idea.

other game dev communities actually do this ( CoronaSDK, Unity, etc ). We're on the right track!

Well if you go further with that you could introduce "Premium" content that would be available through micro-payments or a paid membership.

Something like Envato Networks or ThinkVitamin. And premium content could include virtually everything from sprites through tutorials and ending on proper products.

Well being that it's community driven it would be difficult to decide what content would be considered "premium" and what isn't. A paid membership wouldn't work very well. A basic marketplace would let the developer set their own price for their content. Treat it just like the iTunes app store.

=D

yep, if the goal is good quality plugins, definitely let the coders do what they do best, and make some dough along the way.