Forums » Help » why not free trial version of IMPACT??

Almost every popular game engine has free trial or even free version, e.g. Unity3D, Unreal Engine etc. Although the video and demo is very good, I don't think people will purchase it for a try.

The developer of IMPACT is very good, but marketing is too bad.

Please refer to this thread for a full discussion on the answer to that question:
http://impactjs.com/forums/impact-engine/another-trial-version-topic
We really need a FAQ/Sticky's for these kinds of things...

I find it very funny that people will post this question in the forums... when obviously all of us who are posting and sharing code and troubleshooting, were not so rat fink stingy that we did indeed purchase it to give it a try....

Me too, MyShuitings. :P

If anything the price-point deters some of the more stupid and inane posts on the forums asking for help.

If you need more info on why this costs - http://shouldiworkforfree.com/

You just provided my new office poster... LOL

in a way, i'd like to believe they are people who are sitting on the fence in deciding whether to purchase impactjs or not. if that's the case, it should be our duty to not only justify that the 99 usd is worth it but buyers get little bonuses alongside

maybe those who purchased a license also get access to a private forum where there's detailed workings of how to implement nodejs or tapjs to impactjs, or where senior forum members post tutorial pages on how they make their games or how their workflow is like

for the price maybe there can be a comparison of features done alongside its competition like flash, unity, gamemaker, multimedia fusion, etc with a strong emphasis on html5, no need for web plugins, cross platform including ios devices etc but there must be a clear idea of what you get if purchase (it's not a program like gamemaker, requires familiarity with coding, comfortable with javascript etc)

another point is i think if many are like me, i'd like to know if i invest in this i wouldn't be spending a bulk of my time learning the ins and outs than actually doing work, so we should show how it's (relatively) simple for the average joe to get the hang of using impactjs by maybe making a showcase of games made using the engine. biolab should be the primary shown game in a way but underneath there'll be other games made by average joe people like mike's loco or bbbbot by bfresh (is that coincidental ?) and there'll be a new feature every month or something

in short, i guess, yea, the marketing side can be a little better, it should be after people visit impactjs.com and seen the advantages they get, they'll go hell yea at the 99 usd

Before buying Impact I spent almost two months making my own HTML5 game engine. Then some (AWESOME) friends got together and donated a little towards me continuing with my ideas and passion. 5 minutes later I bought Impact and have never looked back.

I guess it helps that I'd come from a javascript background and was committed. If you're one of those people who likes the idea of making a game but doesn't want to actually MAKE a game, Impact's not for you.

@Hareesun - Agreed. the daily grind is indeed needed to make a game.

here's a good article to motivate ppl

http://makegames.tumblr.com/post/1136623767/finishing-a-game

Anyone who wants a free trial should just buy the engine, and if they don't like it ask for the money back. I think the engine is great and well worth the money. I was on the fence but when I was told I could get my money back if it wasn't for me then I bought it immediately, and I don't regret it one bit! Impact has been the easiest programing related thing I've ever tried to learn, and trust me when I say I've tried A LOT of different programing languages/game making programs.

It's worth the money, just buy it. I was skeptical about paying for it up front but then happy with what I got.

I understand $99 may seem a bit steep but for the framework that is in it's pretty much initial stage (ver 1.17) you get a massive piece of software.

I don't know how many people here had a go at doing games from scratch but applying simple collision detection may take couple of hours to develop from scratch.

With impact you get pretty much everything to make your games in no time (as long as you can code a bit).

Maybe one option would be a hosted version of impact so people will register and get an access to the framework and could edit their games online but come on it really beats the purpose...

No trial version because maybe is not worth it.
I dont see too many books written or so, I am not spending money to discover that is not for me, I rather go to Game Maker or Construct.. at least they offer you to try.

I've tried many game engines including Cocos2D for iPhone and lots of Flash stuff, and before that I made games in the 80s in DOS (one of which I have recreated in Impact).

Despite some limitations of HTML5 for things like special effects and text, when I started thinking, "I wish all game engines were programmed like this one," then I realized this is the place to be -- at least for 2D games.

Any shortcomings will likely fill in over time as HTML5 develops. And if you find shortcomings, it's not that hard to create your own plugin to add functionality.

Since it's purely JavaScript, I think a trial version would be hard to make. Maybe Dominic could make a stripped-down version that only allows very small levels -- enough to test it out but not enough to be develop with.

$99 is the right price for this product.

Some of us just starting out might not have the money to spare. A trail version of engines lets me know that its worth scrounging up the $127.79 CAD in order to get this. So while you might be looking at it from the standpoint of someone who has the money for this, as a student who can barely afford to feed myself week to week, the money is not worth it if I don't know it'll work. Even a time trial would be fine, as long as I could test it out.

@JasonIX:

Since your primary concern seems to be about not spending money unless you "know it'll work", this quote from this thread seems relevant...

The author, Dominic, has historically been great about refunds. Buy it. If you're not satisfied, return it.

I finally purchased Impact myself.

I was lucky enough to get a very early demo version for a University project, and I've been tinkering with it on and off for about 4 years. I had an older, less developed version than the current version of Impact.

Now that I have the most recent version I am so happy, and have been doing some hobby coding pretty solidly for a couple of weeks. There's something about Impact that's so perfectly suited to my skillset that makes it so awesome to use. I love using compil-at-runtime javascript with Chrome devtools for stepping through code. And I've been making sprites since high school and saving them as PNGs.

As Dom has said, he has tried to make the engine as simple as possible, and it really shows. The ease of use is so great. I'm not even particularly great with javascript, but it's enough like other languages that it's simple to pick up.

I can see why a demo would be useful for students, as it was for me. But all I can say is that Impact is easily worth the investment. It's frankly worth a lot more than $100 to me.

Good for you @Xander. The engine is really well thought-out.

ImpactJS is just insanely brillant guys. It's so easy to use, and so much flexible that I can say when it's about 2D games there is a kind of no limits with this engine.