Forums » Impact Engine » Trial version?

Hi Dominic,

Looks like a fun engine to play around with.

Are you planning to release a demo so I can try it out first before committing to buying?

Thanks,
Mike

I wouldn't know exactly how to do that. A demo version of an SDK, especially when it basically has to be open source won't be much different than the full version.

E.g. If could pack all of Impact's sources in a compiled DLL, it would be easier to offer a demo. With JavaScript, I could only "compress"/obfuscate the source... but then again, you could also just get the source from one Biolab Disaster or Drop (minus the Level Editor).

dominic,

The concerns you have expressed in this thread are the same as those of your potential customers, myself included. As I'm sure you're aware, your launch has been picked up by numerous popular websites, Reddit and Hacker News to name just two.

Everyone says the same thing; why should I pay a relatively large amount of money for this when almost anyone can come along, steal the full source code and claim it as their own? The $99 you charge is one that cannot easily be regained - the moment any game produced sees moderate success, someone will rip it off.

I put it to you that this engine, as good as it is, either needs to be relatively cheap or even free/open source.

Is there anything you would say in response to these concerns?

All of the same techniques used in every other language is viable here. obfuscation, valuable services, ect.

Flash has all the same problems and is technically easy to decompile into the same src as any js would be. Yet people still pay for CS5 and monetize fairly well.

If your game has no genuine value beyond a mechanism that can be taken straight out of the code your game is probably short lived anyway.

These are just my thoughts and observations.

I was really excited for this game engine but for the moment I will have to hold off on it until either a demo or stripped down version is released that I can try before deciding to commit. As previously mentioned on this thread and a few others, there are free open source engines out there and rationalizing spending $99 on something I have never personally used or seen the source code too is not very appealing.

While I am all for developers getting paid for their work, it does not feel as though there was a lot of thought put into your business model of packaging and selling your software. As previously pointed out any one can just save the source from any game that was created with this engine. Instead of charging people for the engine - something that can and most likely will be easily pirated - it would be more profitable and less stressful to charge individuals for professional help and assistance in using your product as well as the engines in-depth documentation and just allow the software to be downloadable on your site for free. It would also be a lot more difficult/time consuming to pirate the documentation or help forms then the engine anyways ;)

That is just my opinion though. Congratulations on your release!

I was concerned about this too, so I played through Biolab, then read the docs and watched the tutorial videos. I saw plenty of example code in all of those places as well as clarity and an attention to detail that exceeded my expectations. That was enough to convince me to spend the $99.

Flash is super easy to decompile, but most people don't realize it because they haven't googled for "flash decompiler". Even so it doesn't take a decompiler to make a clone of Canabalt. Neither do the many clones of that game really diminish its success. So I don't think the risk of someone stealing your source is that big of a deal. At least with javascript you can look at their source and see if they really did steal yours.

The javascript webapp and game business model isn't really figured out yet. So the games we make with Impact are susceptible to the same uncertain profit model that the engine is. Solving the web-based game business model isn't really something we should expect from a game engine or its developer. Lets support him and see if we can figure out a solution as a community.

For example, who will be the first to make a Facebook game with ImpactJS?

It's on sale right now! 1/2 off!

People place yourself in the place of Dominic's or developer who have just released flash engine or something...

You know that you have worked hard months on this engine and people are want free source code of it to test it.

And what will you do? Give them the source? Its like work for a couple of months for free... If you give what they want u will lost all of your work. You can see that the source code of c++ game engines or similar is available for extra cash. And that engines are expensive as hell...

HTML5 is a new technology so there is a lot of space to create anything you can imagine or clone pc game... And it won't be bad.

$90 is not so much in my opinion... Just look at isogenic engine, which is much more expensive and yes it have more features but premium license for £399 (which is huge for me) is limited to release only one game. WTH?!

ImpactJS gaves you complite source code, you can release as many games as you want and a lot of features are being write by users.


But I agree that some peace of engine could be released as demo to people could see how its works, but it should be very limited version of engine in my opinion.

This is just my opinion as well and don't feel resentful by that.

The problem with a trial version is that unlike languages such as C++ and the like, if you release any sort of DRM on JavaScript code, it can be very easily removed by even novice scripters. I had a pretty good idea after trying the demos and watching the video that Impact would be able to do what I wanted to do.

Heck, you can even get Impact without the level editor over at appMobi, so that's more than fair in my opinion.

Quote from Conexion
The problem with a trial version is that unlike languages such as C++ and the like, if you release any sort of DRM on JavaScript code, it can be very easily removed by even novice scripters. I had a pretty good idea after trying the demos and watching the video that Impact would be able to do what I wanted to do.

Heck, you can even get Impact without the level editor over at appMobi, so that's more than fair in my opinion.

I guess, but very limited version, without collision and weltmeister, simple rendering, and simple level as well would be good trail in my opinion. It could be good preview for interested developers, to see how the engine works and thats it...

Otherwise, even in biolab or ztype and every shared game there is whole engine shared without weltmeister. There are online tools to stacking the code... so the engine is free anyway.

Considering that all the documentation is freely visible to anyone, plus the demos, it's hard to see what more people could want in the way of a demo up front...

i paid because i wanted to learn about JS games and i really liked the community.

Quote from fugufish
i paid because i wanted to learn about JS games and i really liked the community.

Same - and it is one of the best decisions programming-wise I ever made. Everything seems to just work with minimal fuss. I came from a LimeJS/CraftyJS background (that's how I first got into HTML5 game design), and I much prefer this to anything else I have tried.

If you are reading this thread and wondering if you should stump up the cash - buy it (especially at $49. although I don't know how long that will last!) and you won't regret it! :-)

The discount will last until Jan 2.

Even if you at some time in the future switch to a different engine, working with the impactjs will be a great learning experience.

Also, I believe the code and methodology of this engine is a great starting place.

But why would you want to switch to a different engine? (grin) The only things that Impact strikes me as not being ideally suited to are things like card games where you're doing a lot of UI work, real time is not particularly important but user interface is.

From where I'm standing, even adaptations of board games would likely be easier to do well in Impact, but something like a card game or a Mah Jongg implementation that has a lot of UI interaction, interacting with the cards/tiles, while doable in Impact, would likely be easier in simpler HTML + something like jQuery, where you can handle each card/tile as a single element and manipulate it individually without having to be mindful of the 'screen'.