I’ve got about 2 dozen games on the various stores and thanks to Apple I need to update and re release
all of them! What used to be a day to update has become a total nightmare in the year I’ve been gone.
It started when I could no longer do il2cpp versions with my Unity4 Pro, way too many errors and just couldn’t get it to compile anymore. So I had to update to Unity 2017, spend ages fixing all the stuff that no longer works, days getting 3rd party plugins updated and working again, Refused to pay the new fee to keep using my Prime31 plugins so had to migrate Adverts and Purchasing to Unity versions.
Then I tried to use Xcode to build to IOS 11 and Bang! can’t do that without using latest Xcode, which won’t run on Sierra. Had to update Mac to High Sierra. Now unity runs like a pig in treacle on High Sierra, so so laggy. Had a worry that my games might look crap on iPhoneX so went out and bought one just in case the notch was an issue. Turns out the notch was the least of my worries. The incredibly daft screen resolution of 2436 x 1125 means its twice as long and it is high (my games are mostly landscape). Finally got the 1st game running on the iPhoneX only to realise the weird aspect ratio means all my UI is squashed in the middle 3rd of the window with huge space on the left and right. On the scenes where I actually thought ahead and anchored the UI to edges and corners it looks even worse!!! Part of the UI on the left edge, and ocean of gap in the middle then more UI controls miles away on the right hand side!
Well it’s been weeks now and I’m still on game update number 1, only 23 and a half left to go!
Oh and as I can’t fit the game 1:1 on my screen in the editor anymore I might now have to go and buy a new retina iMac!! (which I don’t think I can afford!)
Regarding the UI stretching:
Isn’t that why you correctly use the canvas scaler in the first place?
Why would your interfaces be stretched on any axis though?
I mean unless you define the size based on screen width or height…
As for the other problems:
That’s why you keep up with the latest versions, so you can report when something breaks, and so you have enough time to get your stuff working (and fix the design problems you have in your projects early, so future updates are easier.)
Problem is I’ve had a year off developing and everything has had to be updated including my dev machines os. High Sierra is severely broken on any iMac with a fusion drive so that’s just another thing to contend with. I think I posted my rant more to get comments from other devs in the same boat as me and how they are contending with the aspect ratio of the iPhonex. Trying to make one size fits all UI is very difficult. Scaling and stretching isn’t an option anymore due to 4:3 being hugely different to the iPhonex.
Sounds like you’re rolling in cash so #firstworldproblems and quit whining. Those are great problems to have. People here would love to have 20+ games to update and make money from but sadly not all of them have your great skills.
Although it’s weird you complain about paying to update a couple of plugins but are happy to splurge on iPhone X and new macs.
So you know how much I make from my games do you? I make less than 10k a year now. Not enough to justify paying AGAIN for the same plugins. I update them because I love my games and want others to play them, the tiny bit of income from them is no more than beer money.
I consider myself a app and unity veteran now, there’s nothing I can’t do if I want to. I was just highlighting the struggle that now seems to be needed to update unity4 games, with a combination of new unity, iPhoneX and Xcode and Mac changes.
from unity 3 to 4 it was less than a day to update and release a game and I would update and release a game every few days. Then release a new one every couple of months or so. Now thats not possible.
I’ve spent 2 days now just trying to make the UI fit and look ok on 4:3 and whatever the heck the new iPhone is.
I can understand your frustration.
But really, what do you expect? Updating is not fun, and you will always run into trouble, that’s just the nature of things
I’m sure once you’ve made the step to 2017 (and then soon 2018.x) things will become easier.
It’s 19.5:9. Every time a new series is introduced these days it feels like they need a completely different aspect ratio. It’s no wonder that I have absolutely no interest in developing for mobile.
Was there a reason you were still on Unity 4 a year ago? Unity 5 came out 3 1/2 years ago, and there were significant changes at that time, let alone everything that has changed since then. I’m sure its a nightmare.
Probably because migrating projects between Unity versions is a hot mess at the best of times, but was made even worse by the lighting changes that came with 5.x. Honestly, “a hot mess” describes Unity 5 pretty well up until, what, version 5.4? There’s also the licensing changes that a lot of people disagree with.
I only mentioned it because moving from Unity 5.4 that was available a year ago to 2017.x today would be relatively painless in comparison to a 4.x to 2017.x upgrade, had he not held out on Unity 4 for so long after active development on 4 ended.
In effect it is as if he walked away from Unity for 4 years instead of just 1 with the amount of “hot mess” he is dealing with, simply because he stuck with Unity 4.
This^^^^^
I got into making games mainly because it was a hobby, but it had to at least try and pay for itself so I could dedicate all my time to it. It now takes so long to update each game and publish it that I don’t have time to create new ones anymore!
Those asking why I never updates from 4 to 5, well, the cost for one, no perceived benefit to me. Happy with 4, Licence was terrible. Prefer perpetual and don’t want to support the subscription model. Mobile performance on 5 was a joke compared to 4. I could go on but you get the idea.
I’m only using 2017 and updating to keep my games on iTunes as Apple is trying to take them off faster than I can update them!
