Gamefroot V4

To our fellow game designers and game developers. 

Last week we released a major update to Gamefroot. So major, in fact, that the game editor (the bit you make games with) was totally rebuilt. No small feat that has taken us the best part of 6 months. 

We decided to make this update because web technologies have evolved since we made Gamefroot V3 and we wanted to ensure Gamefroot was built on a platform that can better accommodate our long term goals.

So what’s changed?

Under the hood almost everything has changed!

From a user perspective things will largely look the same for now. 

Probably the most obvious user-facing update is the animation editor. It has been rebuilt from the ground up! Now, you can do things like use media already in your game to make your animations to speed up your workflow. We’re also preparing to push out an update that lets you add multiple different hit boxes to each frame. If animation is your thing you’ll know this is a big step forward and we hope you like it.

We’ve also improved the way fonts are handled in Gamefroot. The V4 update comes with new fonts and you can expect more fonts to come over the coming weeks.

Other improvements include a more standardised user interface across different screens, marketplace filters, sidebar filters, the ability to copy and paste in the editor, and our first iteration of cloud autosaving.

Did it go without a hitch?

Honestly, not quite but almost. 

A small percentage of users reported a variety of glitches ranging from Google and Facebook login not working [resolved], through to scripts not loading [resolved] and art not showing in some games [resolved]. 

Our primary focus right now is to continue ironing out any and all glitches that might arise from this update. If you experience any glitches please keep letting us know and we’ll keep fixing them! We’re forever grateful for your support ?

So what’s next for Gamefroot? #roadmap

This is where it gets exciting! 

Gamefroot V4 affords us the ability to innovate and evolve Gamefroot in ways we couldn’t previously.

Over the next couple of weeks you can expect to see a handful of minor updates which will continue to improve overall stability and user experience. For example we’re working on some iPad user interface improvements and adding some more visual tweaks to the animation editor. 

Coming out very soon will be our next feature release. These are the features that this next update will likely include:

• More tile brushes will be added to the marketplace
• Better sound support. We’ve always wanted you to be able to add sound to your games, but it hasn’t been easy. Soon you’ll be able to manage sound like a pro.
• JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) support. JSON is a standard text-based format for representing structured data based on JavaScript object syntax. It is commonly used for transmitting data in web applications (e.g., sending some data from the server to the client, so it can be displayed on a web page, or vice versa) and soon you will be able to use it in Gamefroot!
• More teacher features. Teachers will be able to use bulk CSV import for adding students as well as being able to join a Teacher Club with a discussion board (we’re going to make this a community affair)

Beyond these updates we have a very ambitious roadmap. 

We’re forever working on more tutorials / hour of code style activities, we’re working on an accreditation system, and (#secretsquirrel) we may or may not be exploring ways to integrate AR + Google maps with Gamefroot for your game making pleasure. 

Oh the joys of a new and improved Gamefroot! 

So stay tuned and please let us know what you think in the comments.