New game engine: Buildbox

Today I saw a new game engine called Buildbox. It looks nice for a first release.
http://www.gameacademy.com/buildbox/

 

Neat. But $2600+ for a very limited game generator with preloaded artwork and sound seems extremely steep.

 

Doesn't look very limited to me. I've read their ad and it seems capable of quite a lot. Asking for $2600+ though is a bit of a chance for them to do because lets face it, everything it states it can do 'Construct2' can do it also and has an established, very helpful and large community. Most of all there is a free version of Construct2 with limited export capabilties, a Personal License which costs under £100 and a business version which costs under £350. The business version does everything the Personal version can. You only need the business version when your revenue generated with the personal version exceeds a certain monetary value ( £5000 ) I think, then you must upgrade to the Business edition.

https://www.scirra.com/construct2

 

$2600+ is a lot but it includes all exports + the ones they will develop in the future.

 

$2,600+.... Looks like someone is taking a leaf out of Unity's book.

 

It's only a 2d engine from what they show on the main page...

 

Not as cross platform as they try to market it. Only deploys to Mac, Linux, Windows, and 2 mobile platforms (Amazon, Samsung, etc all are essentially Android). Corona, Gideros, GameSalad, Monkey X, are free and/or very low cost.

 

It concerns me when a game engines marketing information has a sentence like this:

"No pocket protector not requried."

(In case you missed it, they misspelled "required" and the statement should be "No pocket protector required")

Imagine the typos in their code...

 

Why would the marketing stuff be written by their programmers?

 

Because of this

 

No trail version and training section contains more marketing BS.
I need a taste before spending that kind of money.

 

Ha...they must be joking at that price! With free versions of established tools like Unity, GameMaker and low priced tools such as Construct2 and Stencyl they haven't got a snowballs chance in hell with this. Not too mention all the open source 2d engines that are popping up now...Godot, Polycode, GameDevelop, Enigma.

Would you rather 12 years of UnrealEngine4 subscription or buy the super advanced "buildbox" for a measly $2,675

 

The amount of time he spent coding this is a wast of time. Nobody will buy this

 

Amazing! They created a game in 60 seconds.

It's using a premade flappy bird template and they're basically just filling in the graphics..that's kinda cheap.

I see too much misleading information on this website to be honest, I don't like their methods. This would be kinda cool I guess if it was targeted towards teaching kids and they cut the crap.

 

I get the newsletter, it's rather funny.

This guy is a marketeer, the people that buy this stuff are those hoping to get rich quick with absolutely no clue about making games.

Watch some of his videos if you can find them, most of his statements seem reasonable but are clearly false if one is involved in game development. As for the engine itself, there was a screenshot where he witters on about collision already set on sprites and being able to tweak the parameters. The collision is a simple box on a thin spaceship, total bogus claim.

People do get something for their money but success is not one of those things.

Gamemaker is much better and much cheaper and basically does the same and some gamemaker games suffer from the inability to refine collision boxes and controllers which is why to some extent Gamemaker is not considered a fully fledged game engine on the level with Unity or Torque or Ogre 3D.

The other thing to consider is this company has had several similar products none of which go to a version 2 so you're not going to get support or an evolving game engine.

This is a marketing company promising the world to people but with the usual caveats which are basically the equivalent of get out of jail free cards.

The videos can be hard to get hold of because the are streamed from his site, can't be downloaded, are not on youtube, but if you watch them by joining the newsletter it's clear this guy is just a bullshitter, he claims to talk straight and tell the truth, however, I've been in this business for 20 years and I know all his facts at best are half-truths and at worst are less than that.

Always when talking about why a game is successful the truth is in the details, this guy either leaves out those details or puts the opposite spin on them.

Really, don't waste your money.

As regards games apps to teach kids to program there are loads out there, several free.

One of the funniest podcasts from this guy was when he brings on one of his customers, a woman who was very successful with his product, she sounded exactly like him, the same type of marketing spiel, the same way of expressing ideas with a positive spin, either they both went to the same marketing101 course or the guy just breathed in some helium (joke).

Any game engine that goes to these levels to sell itself and claiming to be the kind of thing that by rights jumps off shelves is just too good to be true. To be honest I keep signed up to his newsletter because his stuff makes me laugh so much. He's a real expert in parting fools from their money.

 

Please put in paragraphs next time so skimming is easier.... lol

 

I don't know how to categorise this engine.

From one point of view, they advertise this engine as "easy, without need to code". On the other hand, it costs more than 2.5 grand, so it's pointed mainly for companies (I doubt any indie would be willing to pay that money to make another flappy bird on the App Store). So if it's made with companies in mind, someone F***ed this up as I'm pretty sure companies know how to code.

They messed up their pricing model, and I'm more than sure they gonna change it soon.

Anyway, the software looks interesting - looks like a polished version of Stencyl/Construct (and that's the pricing point they should aim for ).

 

Hey, this is my first post but I just popped in here to say that Trey Smith from Game Academy is the real deal. My business partner trained with him and she's made 5 million dollars in the app industry and just retired to the Carribean. My close friend trained with him and bought his last software package. Made $178,000. He also makes Unity games but Trey's software has always been a chunk of his income. Trey excels at training people on how to make games and get them on the market AND make money with them. You get his full training package with the software which is arguably worth the price of his games alone. This software is made to build games really fast and easy and then publish to multiple platforms. I'm considering buying it but will evaluate my buddies copy this month. I know I sound like a shill but I have nothing to do with Trey Smith or Game Academy. I just respect the guy and think this software looks promising. If you've got the marketing aspect down and are looking for a powerful, game making engine, you might do better elsewhere. For some though, this package might be nicely priced and do exactly what they need to do.

P.S. Someone was knocking the collision box system but you can actually get pretty complex with it by adding additional points. Also, his first game Phases just landed a major publishing deal and was ranked #2 on Steam Greenlight.

 

I cannot be the only one who reads this and is immediately reminded of email spam. Even if it were legit, I don't care who he knows or how successful they've been. That does not automatically make me successful nor does it justify spending $2,675 for an engine when Unity Free is good enough.

Yes, it comes with art and sound. But unless you're happy with a cookie-cutter game, you'll need to invest additional money into your own assets. Better to go Unity Free and invest that money into content.

 

If they made a game in 60 seconds, why is the video 5 mins?

 

Did you watch the video? He talks for a few minute for the intro, builds the game in 60 seconds and then talks some more.

I'm not a Game Academy member, I haven't bought any products but just wanted to stick up for Trey Smith. Some people made him sound like some sort of marketing huckster and the guy is legitimately cool, down to earth and really helpful. I'm pointing out, that I have several real life friends who have literally made millions based on training from his classes. Classes some of which are included in Buildbox as part of the package you pay for. Unity is incredible but they don't show you how to make money with it. That part is up to you.

Honestly, my only hold up with Buildbox is that it gives me some really great ideas for some games I could make but I'm worried that I might try to add an important critical feature down the road and not be able to because of the limited software. It does export native code so I suppose you could make changes later but then you can't go back and edit the project again in buildbox. For my studio, I have 10 artists and 1 programmer so a software that can allow us to make simple games with minimal programming would be ideal.

 

Oooh! I get his full training package? Where do I sign up for my instant millions?

 

Well today Trey is closing the sale down so grab buildbox while it's available, although he will, apparently, open it up for a grand re-opening and relaunch at some time. If you don't grab it today you might miss all the bonuses for buying early!

Almost any kit on the asset store can do what this thing does. You have a studio of 11 people and only 1 is a programmer? Really?

You have several real life friends who have genuinely made millions from this guy? Given that his products are all along the lines of buildbox i.e. press a button and build a game, why didn't you follow the example of your real life friends and do the same, or do you prefer to do what your virtual life friends do?

 

stop giving the troll the attention he wants

 

Who's trolling? As probably the only person in this thread who's actually seen and used Buildbox, I'm trying to contribute knowledge to the conversation. Something that there seems to be a serious lack of.

Yes, I mostly do game art outsourcing so I mostly have artists in my company. I don't build games from scratch right now. We do pretty well for ourselves. I know it's impossible to believe that someone could be successful or have successful friends. I must be making that up.

And who said I didn't make games for myself? I'm just usually so busy making games for other people that I don't put as much effort into making my own apps as my friends do. Once you start doing outsource work for other people, it's hard to stop.

Overall, Buildbox isn't targeted at Unity users. So you all are rightfully like "why should I buy that?". You shouldn't. It's targeted at the reskin/app flipping community. To developers who aren't from the game industry and want to produce games fast, it can represent a good value. (As could other softwares as well). I'll be evaluating this month as my friend will let me use his copy.

But seriously, if you guys all want to bust my balls, or call me a shill, or a troll or whatever, that's cool. It's left a nice first impression on my first post in the Unity forms.

 

I'm a programmer for over 10 years, and this kind of game makers are the future of the gaming industry. I predicted that this kind of software will eventually be a significant milestone in rapid game creation. Gone are the days you need to have a team in order to produce a smashing hit.
Trey Smith is a very known and respected figure in this field. Yes, I also agree that the price for BuildBox is a little bit blown up, but hey, think about it, there are some game makers that require a yearly fee without giving you any clue about how to monetize and market your game. Here Trey Smith provides you also an entire course in the business of money making and getting revenue, and there's a lot to learn since it's a tough business.

 

You seemingly appeared out of nowhere shortly after this thread was started and made grandiose claims. Naturally we are going to be skeptical as you have provided no evidence.

 

I agree with Ryiah!

The whole 'I know people who have retired millionaires' lounging in the Caribbean thanks to buildbox' stinks of a troll who is most probably the marketing guy, well, it is the marketing guy as the grandiose nature of his wording is 80% similar to that written on the site, trolling games forums to promote this over priced: should be free, tool.

In fact this shouldn't be allowed. Leeching visitors to your site by trolling massively popular game engine forums to advertise a competing should be ban-able offense.

Note I did say competing product. This is actually not a competing product. Its a marketing fandango to acquire customers who would fall for the crap.

I've had enough this thread anyway.........bye!

 

DOES IT DO HTML5????

thats the boottom line

 

Have you ever used Klik'n'Play, such software existed already 20 years ago (1994). That thing was fun. But programmers still have jobs (and will forever).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickteam
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik_&_Play

 

Rather buy 2 Unity Pro licenses.

 

There are already a ton of free and low priced HTML5 game making tools such as Construct2, GMS, Game Develop Godot and frameworks such as phaser, pixi, etc. Unity free itself will soon also do HTML5. We don't need a $2595 POS package to do it!

 

That video has got to be a joke, it feels like it is from the onion or something.
The guy in the video clearly doesn't understand what the words "create" or "build" actually mean.

 

Fair enough, you are a troll and a shill and either a fool for buying into their snake oil crap, or spamming for them.

GIGO.
First impressions go both ways. Don't want to be treated like a troll? Don't act like one.


----


On a serious note, this thread should be killed. It isn't "Unity" gossip, and more than likely spam given the over-use of product names/marketing text (search engine spamming) and the multitude of single digit post count contributors.

 

This guy (or you) is spamming Google Play account e-mails for Android games with at least 50,000 downloads. Please don't do that, you're making his (or your) business and your product look even further questionable.

 

Definitely. If someone goes around spamming about a product, chances are likely it isn't a good product.

 

lmao!
Wonder what it will be like when it "returns"
https://www.gameacademy.com/buildbox/

We've tested quite a few of the other options including, but not limited to:
Cocos2d-x
Gameplay
Project Anarchy
Maratis
JME3
Libgdx
Construct2
Godot in our experience is probably the best existing option for an open source engine that is fairly complete.
Want a stable, C++, scripted, cross platform game engine, with tools, that actually works?

Now whether it's with Unity, Godot or assembly language...get back to game development!

Cheers


Also: Urho

 

It's going back up for sale today. I bought it back in August and can't recommend it based on all available options and what else you could do with that kind of money. You can check out my full opinion about it in an article I wrote, with lots of comments and a response from GameAcademy: moneyfromapps.com/buildbox-review-trey-smith-gameacademy-software/

 

For $2600 I could buy a copy of Unity Pro and 110 exceptionally large burritos.

 

Burritos ftw!

 

thanks for this honest review, i agree that BuildBox is a very high risk investment, i totally agree that Tery Smith is good at marketing. I AM NOT WASTING MY MONEY INTO THIS

 

There sure are a lot of brand new accounts that registered specifically to go to bat for this random engine that looks only a few steps above Klik n Play.

 

I think you got your balls busted by forum users over the whole millionaire marketing spiel.

It doesn't matter if someone you know has millions. Do you have millions? no, it's probably not working then is it?

 

2600 dollars and no 3d engine? no thanks man.

 

Maybe, just maybe they'll add more features in the future. :/

 

Who needs more features when you can make millions now

 

Totally agree that Buildbox price is crazy. I think in the 21st century if you really want to make a game, you can find tools to do it much cheaper. I work in a startup TutoTOONS that is very similar to Builbox but game creation, publishing to app stores and promotion is 100% FREE. Plus, game authors can earn money with every purchase of their games. If you like to experiment with game creation, you can give it a try here: http://tutotoons.com/. But keep in mind that it's still in beta and it's for people who has little or no experience in game development. So it may look too simple for hardcore game developers but we have designers who tried it and they really liked it.

 

This thread is one of the top 10 results if you search for it on Google.

 

Now there's at least two different guys in this thread clearly hawking their throwaway game engines. One of them was at least upfront about it being their project, but...

Maybe this thread needs some moderation?

 

Hi,

I'm the administrative manager at Game Academy and Buildbox. Out of respect for the team over at Unity, I will keep my posts here at a minimum, but wanted to quickly clear up two points. Especially the first one:

1. We would never spam someone else's boards. None of the post in this thread have been from me or any of our team.

2. Buildbox is not intended to be a competitor to Unity. Our software was actually created for the complete opposite market (people who want to make games but do not want to program or script at all).

I appreciate everyone's valuable feedback and discussion here. We're big fans of Unity and are pro licenses holders ourselves.

Thanks,

Natalie Voldase
Buildbox