This topic contains 9 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by 
_K_ 1 year, 4 months ago.
-
Posts
-
You simply can’t please everyone and frankly if someone is doing something stupid, he or she needs to be called out on it, otherwise they won’t learn (they may not learn anyway if they’re a “special snowflake” that is offended by everything, but if they’re not called out on their stupidity, they won’t learn for sure).
Myself, I really don’t care who you are, you may be John Carmack, you may even be actual god of any religion whatsoever… and if you do something totally idiotic, I’ll tell you exactly that. On that front, I’m kinda like Linus Torvalds, no, scratch that, I’m worse than him when calling out people’s stupidity.
And you shouldn’t apologize or be wary of not offending people, because people will find things to be offended about anyway (as recent events shows).
And now promised tips on how to get MX2 popular:
- Name isn’t really all that important, especially for a tool like this. Seen worse names that are less creative and they did just fine. What Monkey X brings to mind, is a fun language where you’ll be having so much fun.
- Site… has to go. Dig up original MX site and use it instead, slapping Monkey X 2/Monkey 2 where relevant instead of Monkey X. The original Monkey X site looked better. Another good thing about it is that you won’t have to pay for the rework as you will be just using the old site with some minor changes such as names, which you can do in an ordinary text editor (or if it used WordPress as well, in WP panel). Does not apply if you lost original site’s code for whatever reason.
- Put it on Steam. Yes, you will have to pay $100 fee, but you can then sell it for, say, $15 a pop massively undercutting AGK and whatnot. It doesn’t even need to be closed again, you could still put out free/opensource version on Itch/github, but the users would pay for the convenience as they will always have the most recent version due to Steam updates. For example Krita is using similar model and it works nicely for them. If someone wouldn’t want to buy it, they’ll have to manually download releases or use old release for the entirety of the project, which would have outdated modules and possibly bugs. Trust me, people will pay for convenience or just to support you.
- Make “official” YouTube tutorials. YouTube videos are a great way to increase visibility of a product and MX2 needs tutorials, so why not kill two birds with one stone?
- Ask people developing games with MX2, especially if it is going to be a commercial product, to put in the fact that it was developed with MX2 somewhere in the credits. This will make people who played that particular game go “oh, what a cool game, I want to make one like this too! Oh, its made with that thing called Monkey2, I bet that if I get that, I can make cool games too!”
- Make UI library that’s on par with MaxGUI so tools, etc. can be made with MX2 as well.
- Create transpiler (code translator) that would translate old Monkey X projects into MX2 if they don’t use any exotic modules. Perhaps one for Blitzmax as well, although that would be trickier. This will make people with old projects more likely to switch if they would be able to get it at least partially auto-ported
That would be all for my first post here. Have a good day Mark and keep the project going!.
I actually think the idea of putting on Steam for a small fee makes a lot of sense, especially if it were updated from dev regularly — updating dev branch really is a slog (probably takes 40 minutes+ to download and rebuild), so I’d quite happily pay myself!
No harm in describing it on Steam as open-source while still charging something for it, but I think a low price for the convenience would be key in the face of all the free competition.
I think people on Steam would be more likely to buy than on itch.io, though, where you can just take for free.
Exactly why I’ve proposed it. Again, Krita (a great art program) does a similar thing with its Krita Gemini offering and they’re doing okay with it.
updating dev branch really is a slog (probably takes 40 minutes+ to download and rebuild), so I’d quite happily pay myself!
+1 (and on my old computer I think takes more than 40 minutes…)
Good ideaThank you all for these kind comments. I hope Mark will feel the same about it.
I see Steam tip is gathering, well, steam. But it’s only one prong of this plan to get people to use Monkey. If people don’t know Monkey exists or that it (or its predecessor, Monkey X) has been used to develop their favorite games or indie hits, they won’t buy it, whether it’s on Steam or not. That’s why points 4 and 5 are so important to get it out to the people who want to make great games.
Indeed don’t give up because of the fact how much time and effort and sacrifices that has gone to into come to this point. Monkey2 already starts to have the quality the masses wants. Just persist and go for those Youtube tutorials, it’s HUGE. Same goes to luxury customer pathways such as steam, and keep up the great communication that is already happening.
I read Mark’s already interested in polishing up things in the next release or so. A professional touch (not as in VisualStudio but as in install-and-create-something-wonderful-right-now) is needed to reach large groups of people.
This and to let people know that it exist and what it’s capable of, and what it can offer them.A few more incredible demos would also be helpful.
P.S. I will show my personal appreciation and backup as soon as I can afford. I really starts to love Monkey2. I can understand if it’s a mess under the hood right now. But let it take time. Everything good takes time.
My point exactly. Just wanted to share what in my opinion would make Monkey popular. And seriously, do something about the site. I don’t expect you to hire anyone for designing it because as you said (this is to Mark), you can’t really afford to, but original Monkey X site was just dandy and I think you should just refurbish it and use its design for Monkey 2. Just change wherever it said “Monkey X” to “Monkey 2” or “Monkey X 2” and it’ll be just fine.
I’ve enjoyed the time (albeit a relatively small amount compared to B3D and MonkeyX) I’ve spent coding within Monkey2.
I still appreciate whay I manaaged to achieve within MonkeyX, and although my coding time on the whole has diminished of late – I am glad to see the recent release of MonkeyX2 and will be giving it a whirl so to speak. Keep up the good work.
I have just returned from about a year of no coding to prototyping on B3d, saw this, and was sold. I am installing now and you will have my monetary support next week Mark! MonkeyX was amazing, and this looks great already. The name is perfect, like a monkey jumping to different platforms.
Patience, and solidarity.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.