Dear IGMaker

[Sidious Red]

Dear IGMaker,

                        I'm sorry but things are just nt working out. We've been together a long time but it's over....

LoL, so anyway, im pretty much done with this program and I will probably not be helping people in this forum anymore, this is actually my first time back in a few months and seeing the forum has finally made my descision for me.

IGMaker was a wonderful idea and i do love the software when it's at its best, but Enterbrain themselves have killed this software with neglect. IGMaker has been out for roughly 4 years now, i've been with it from the start and am quite proficient in it's use, but i came on to the forum today after months away and there are only a handful of new posts and they are almost all newbie questions and complaints about the software. This tells me that after 4 years it's time to call it, IGMaker is dead, in fact it never really lived. This could have been avoided with patches, better support and ,frankly, a little more love from the people selling it, rather than it being treated like the creepy deformed attic-monster cousin of the RPGMaker family. It's sad for me to write this but it is how i feel, i started to lose confidence in the software i while back when trying to help other forum users and finding them having constant issues and the fact is that the way IGM works is too user-un-friendly to ever catch on.

I'll still be around in the RPGMaker sections of the forums tho

 

[kerbonklin]

I kinda suspected such a thing goes on with IGMaker. On a forum named "RPGMakerWeb" with a bunch of casual devs wanting to make RPGs, I doubt many people own IGMaker or knows how to use it well.

 

[Lars Ulrika]

The fact people don't use it doesn't make the software less efficient. If you own it and can make good games with it, why not use it?  You could introduce your brand new games on other forums. 

 

[Sidious Red]

i get your point entirely, Pokeymon, here is a more direct version of what i was driving at though.

in 4 years IGM has had one patch. this is not good for the stability of the software.

good tutorials are pretty much non-existent, making it a hard program for newcomers AND veterans like myself alike, seriously it is an infuriating program to use at times because of the tutorial shortage,everything i know about how to use IGM came from LONG periods of trial and error and backwards-engineering the sample games.

as long as newcomers aren't buying the software there will be no patches, no upgrades. Catch 22.

Several people here on the forum that i've interacted with and personally tried to help have had issues when their game file gets to a certain size. IGMaker becomes highly unstable and finishing your game is near impossible, I saw a very interesting project here on the forums die because of that reason.

From what i've heard getting the game into XNA (this was the software's main selling point in the beginning) is a nightmare and doesn't always work.

Basically, i've been holding out a long time for them to do something with IGM but its not gonna happen now. Chances are i will still use IGMaker from time to time but it wont be on big projects any more.

 

[West Mains]

Make a quirky meme-centric, lowest common denominator game in a couple of weekends and release on reddit to get a bunch of hipsters excited about IG Maker, then while they all squabble to get in position to say they knew about IGMaker before any of their friends, word will start to spread of it and then hundreds of incredibly lazy rip-offs of your game and others will apear. And then the calm before the storm.

And then the rest before the violence.

Hey, it worked for RPGMaker.

 

[Tigersong]

May I just say, Red, I wish you wouldn't go. If you'd share your hard-earned knowledge with newcomers like me, there might be more tutorials written and more interest in the program.

That said, it's your choice. May the Fifth be with you.

Tiger

 

[DarkFact]

I got to be honest the biggest issue I have had is with the lack of support.

There are problems with the exports, problems with wav files, problems with images, problems with cameras and biggest issues are SUPPORT. The community has, maybe, 2 or 3 users knowledgeable and we can't handle it all nor can we fix the source code issues or even write plugins. Enterbrain needs to step up and make smile boom support the software. It's Enterbrain's name being tarnished with the lack of support from the Japanese developer smile boom. I have yet to hear one word back from the serious problem that got Rofaxan kicked from Xbox Live peer review. Not one reply about a fix, patch nothing. They did contact me and ask me exactly what was wrong. I told them. Yet still no patch. No fixes. Those of us who spent (TWO WEEKS) re-writing the C# code that is exported for Xbox Live didn't get an I'm sorry, we'll get on that. Nothing. It's like I don't even matter. If I had held production for a patch the game that released in December would in this month still be waiting for a patch that will never be issued.

Even though Rofaxan has score 9 out of 10 from some reputable sites I can't considered IGMaker again. I'd love to however there's no repairs for it's issues and hasn't been for the 4 years it's existed. Adding multiplication, division, multi-comparisons with your switches, etc. should be easy adds to the GUI yet none as of this date not any of those recommendations have been met. Not like RPG Maker is listened to. If they would listen to the community we could make it a great tool. It needs more plugins. Android, IPhone, Xbox One, PS3, PS4. Hell they could charge for those plugins I'd buy them if they'd just support the engine. I really like IGM and I would like to buy the engine source and take over the support for it if I thought they'd let me. It's not in bad shape it just needs some TLC to get it where it can be better.

 

[Tigersong]

That's corporations for you. They make themselves as distant and unapproachable as they can (in this case, across the ocean). Then it's, "Well, they're in America (or Europe, or Australia) and we're here. Forget them."

Add to that the facelss factor, and, well, we get trashed all around. Heaven forbid the almighty company would lower themselves to provide actual names that we can write to.

 

[DarkFact]

I personally think they found out the bugs of a level that required serious reworking of the code. Instead of patching smile boom decided to work up "Petite Engine" the follow up, of course that engine is pretty useless it only does iPhone and android and pc so none of the consoles a game that would have RPG or Action RPG elements would work on isn't supported as best I can tell, I could be wrong on that. But that engine is almost 200 bucks and while that's a fair price what about the early adopters with a broken engine and lots invested in using it and no fixes and we are pretty much left hanging in the wind. If they would just fix it I would be happy and add more plugins to it. I'd like to see mobile platform options just not the only options. Mobiles really don't play well with console type games like say Mario or Shooters. The controls and screen space lost make mobile the wrong tool for the job. Now flappy birds, bejeweled, stuff like that sure. Serious games are just not easy to apply to mobile and when they are it never fails the controls are always ok to yuk but never good enough to make me want to keep the game for long. Even final fantasy on mobile looks great and runs smooth but the controls have me going to the console version real quick. It's proof mobile has a place and console and pc have a place but neither is good at doing the other jobs which brings me back to topic. Multiple plugins supporting many platform exports is a must and if they would just let us make the plugins if they don't want to would, I think bring interest back to IGM. If they would just get the bugs fixed. Bug repair isn't a tall order and hell I don't think the community would be against helping them fix them. It was the community feedback that helped RPGMaker get started in the US in the first place. Course this is all just my opinion

 

[Celianna]

You can talk all you want about IGM's shortcomings, but advocating or even talking about piracy is strictly not allowed.

 

[Barrel_Puzzle]

Well, this makes me disappointed. I have indeed noticed the lack of quality tutorials available for IG Maker, and the confusing interface the system sports doesn't make things any easier. The help file was also laughably inept, to say the least.

I was really excited too, since I wanted to make an action rpg-ish game without having to do a lot of coding (like I would if using RPG Maker). I guess I'll just stick to Game Maker and RPG Maker for my design needs. At least they are better supported.

 

[whitesphere]

I tried IG Maker out for 30 days and wasn't impressed.  RPG Maker is easy to understand, at least at its most basics, right from the get-go.  In comparison, IG Maker had me scratching my head for the most basic things, so I gave up. 

Really, IG Maker seems like a fantastic idea, but the implementation and/or documentation doesn't do much to help newbies get started. 

 

[Southclaw]

(Can I just say that that's probably the classiest "DOOOOOOM/I quit" post that I've ever seen? 100% genuine compliment. It's nice to see people *not* saying "I can haz ur stuff then?" too. Well, until I said it just now, I guess. MOVING ON.)

I haven't used it much yet but I'm having a blast slowly working through Tutorial 3.

It reminds me a little of the Electron Toolset (the Neverwinter Nights 2 editor): Modular. If I try and make sense of it all at once, I just get what I like to call 'severe maths-head' - but if I just try and do one thing at a time, it makes enough sense.

I like reverse-engineering stuff, so I guess I'll be set for a good while at least. It seems ideal for me as a hobbyist, but that may be because I have no real plans to publish, and I'm just in the learning stage.

Even so, it's like with RPG Maker, for me, at least - the joy isn't so much in being able to package and sell a game, the joy is in trying to work out how to make it do what I want. Which is easy at the moment, because I'm following the tutorials. Curious to see what happens when I'm finished there.

The way I see it, if it can provide 40+ hours of entertainment for me, then it was money well spent. I'm a simple man, really - and this time that actually benefits me.

 

[Clord]

Problem is that even when IGMaker came out to western market, it was already obsolete due there was already the better free alternatives like Stencyl.

 

[Sausage_Boi]

Is Stencyl easy to use? I want to pick up an engine that isn't as focused on RPGs. I had been debating on whether or not I should spend more money I barely have for hobbies on IGM, after I bought the boxed copy of VXA, (during a sale, mind you! derp, should have gone digital ) 
I like the fact that IGM allows bigger tiles, but from the sounds of it, I would be better off sticking with VXA and learning it to it's fullest?

Is there no hope for this fine alternative to RM?

 

[Clord]

Stencyl is easy to use in many ways, especially if you want to release something to places like Newgrounds as it offers some easy to use in-built features to help you with it (like Achievement integration.) The challenge is to have good graphics to go with it as it doesn't offer something in a scale of RPG Maker series RTP.

 

[Rendar-]

Yeah, Stencyl is pretty extensive but, of course, if you want to make an RPG, it can't beat the RM series

 

[Clord]

Yeah, Stencyl is pretty extensive but, of course, if you want to make an RPG, it can't beat the RM series

Actually you can but it would mean a lot more work than using a tool that specializes on the genre if you want to just make classic Final Fantasy like games.

 

[Sausage_Boi]

I hope the terrible things I hear about you aren't true, IGM. I parted with my cash so that we could be together, and we are already off to a rocky start, and I haven't even downloaded you! (broken link for my download). However, I think I am most interested in making NON-rpgs, so I hope our time together is good! 

 

[kaukusaki]

I enjoy using IG Maker. My ruby isn't the best, so I used IGM to work around my limitations to create action RPGs and other games. While I primiarliy got it for pipelining flash games and hoping for XNA support (both dead, blergh), I still can crank out games for windows. I was able to get by with the 20 chapter tutorial and the help file. Yeah, it's quirky, but it's just a gui for scripting stuff. I treat it like RPG Maker on PSX. Not a lot of typing, but clicking on nodes to get what you want it to do. (or in this case, firing stuff like in dream studio for dreamcast. 'member that one??)

Don't knock the program because it's not easy out the box. y'all gotta sit down and learn its ins and outs, quirks and all. It's possible to make something awesome with it if you give it time. I have no samples yet due to using cheap computers that blow out every year -__- but I'm tellin' ya, it's doable.