;) Good that you mention it. Should probably rename the Github repo and drop the corona prefix…
edit: in the time it took me to write this many others beat me to the chase 
Hey Markus,
I’m going to have to disagree with you again Or at least talk about my personal point of view.
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I didn’t really have the intention to become a programmer. All I wanted to do was make a game. At a certain point realistically you have to do coding, to make a game, I’m afraid, but it wasn’t one of my goals.
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I tried a lot of more visual things like Unity and Unreal, but they felt really complicated, in spite of their initial “drag and drop” nature. You quickly run into needing to code in C# or C++.
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C# and C++ felt like hell to me. I for the life of me can not read C code.
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Lua, on the other hand, reads like english to me!
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If Corona would have been ‘the programmers’ tool, I would have assumed that it would be even more complicated than Unity or Unreal. And yes, I know Unreal has blueprints, but in reality those are far too limited.
Most importantly:
- Corona worked REALLY well for me as a designer. DisplayObjects have x and y coordinates, scale, alpha and blendModes! Just like in Photoshop, websites design, After Effects, Flash and Director!
I have a hunch you feel it is a great programmer’s tool, because it’s great and you’re a programmer. I feel it’s a great tool exactly for non-programmers since this is the way it worked (and excelled) for me. Honestly I would not do things that might limit the target audience by branding it to be perfect for a specific type of developer, and rather sell Solar on it’s strengths that are universal, wether you’re programmer or an artist - or neither.
After working with Corona for years I consider myself a programmer, but it is not what attracted me to Corona.
@thomas6: Your opinions are yours, and I’m not trying to argue against any of them. It’s great that we have both enjoyed working in Corona even thought we come from different backgrounds!
Just want to add that of course I’m not trying to limit the target audience number of users in any way. My thinking was that we might lose a few “non programmers”, but instead gain a lot more “programmers” by targeting towards them. A smaller target audience but with a better conversion rate so to speak. Might be flawed thinking, just wanted to bring it up for discussion.
I disagree with this wholeheartedly – I don’t want to program, I want to make games.
While there are “no-code” ways to make games out there, they all come with serious limitations. Solar2D is the easiest way for me to make games without being a “programmer.”
And, yes, I’m an actual Software Engineer and have been programming for 35 years, but I chose Solar2D almost a decade ago because it was SO easy to get something up and running.
If I see “Blah Blah for Programmers” that turns me OFF because I know the state of development tools and they mostly suck. The infrastructure typically needed to get stuff up and running is a mish-mash of technologies and harder than it should be in 2020.
Solar2D is the opposite of that. It’s not for programmers – it’s for people who want to make games.
Fair enough, and I’ve already “conceded” to not make it about programmers so I think we can end that discussion now.
We could, but batting things around is a great way to get to something better from where we are now.
After my last post I went to work and thought about what you said and came to the conclusion that while I think I’m right, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Maybe we (the collective we) need to attempt something that will appeal to both the programmer and the game maker.
That might be as simple as having two buttons on the home page – Programmers Click Here and Non-Programmers Click Here. Those can then lead to pages that are LASER-TARGETED toward each particular audience.
I like some of the words thrown around for the tagline.
I recently read the book “The presentation secrets of Steve Jobs” and one of the things it talked about was how he would obsess over the perfect headline to launch a product. i.e. “1000 songs in your pocket”. So I think spending some good thought into the 1-line pitch for Solar2D is good use of our time.
As we’re brain-storming, throw out some more taglines people…
“Robust & flexible 2D game engine”
“Robust & rapid development 2D game engine”
“Flexible rapid development 2D game engine”
“Intuitive rapid development 2D game engine”
“Flexible 2D game engine perfect for rapid development”
“Fast & Flexible multi-platform 2D game engine”
Those are all pretty nerdy language, which might be OK for such a product, but maybe some more touchy-feely types can soften it out more.