We have been working hard for a long time to build something truly special, and we're proud to finally announce that Construct 3 will be available for public beta on March 28th!
How will the public beta work?
Initially, the public beta will be limited to just the free edition. The aim is to get much broader testing to ensure it is stable, and sort out any usability issues or oversights in the editor. We won't start selling subscriptions until later on.
The beta will broadly work in three phases:
- Public beta, starting March 28th: free edition only, with the focus on testing
- Subscriptions go on sale, with the full featureset first available
- Full launch of Construct 3 as a finished product (but we will still keep working on it, of course!)
We are aiming to reach the full launch by the end of the summer. Please bear in mind the public beta is pre-release software, and will not necessarily represent the quality of the final product.
A radical, modern, forwards-thinking game creator
Construct 3 represents around a decade of innovative software design and development. We've built on the solid foundations of Construct 2 to make something that is genuinely revolutionary. Construct 2 made the jump to a HTML5-based game engine at a time many thought the obvious choice was Flash. Ultimately this move proved prescient. Accustomed to these technological leaps ahead of the curve, we are doing it again. While some may not now see the same vision, we believe the best way to predict the future is to invent it.
We've been regularly posting about the new technology and features in Construct 3 over the past weeks. Let's summarise what we covered.
A browser-based editor
Construct 3 is built with bleeding-edge web technologies to create an editor that doesn't just equal, but exceeds its predecessor. Starting Construct 3 is as simple as visiting a web page.
Using modern web technology means we don't have to compromise on features. For example you can continue to work away while offline. You might not even notice.
You can use Construct 3 anywhere: on Windows, macOS, Linux, Chromebooks and — in an industry first — on Android. Find out more about Construct 3 on mobile.
Construct 3 on a HTC 10
With Cloud Save and project bundled addons, you can simply walk up to any new device, open Construct 3 in the browser, log in and open your project. No fuss with installers, permissions, transferring files, or configuring addons.
We'll also be providing desktop builds of Construct 3 to cover the surprisingly few features that can't be achieved in a browser — such as using folder-based projects, and launching external programs.
Impressive new features
Use Live Previews to get an instant interactive preview of an object like Particles.
https://www.scirra.com/images/c3/particles.mp4
Take advantage of new data editors to set up complex games.
Share your project globally in an instant with Remote Preview, and get back performance data and a video stream to boot.
Use a virtually unlimited supply of Web Fonts directly in the editor.
Make searching a breeze with comprehensive and precise results from Find All References, as well as other improved search tools.
Build your apps
Let us do the heavy lifting with a brand-new mobile app build service in Construct 3. We'll build your Android and iOS apps with as simple a process as possible, officially supporting the related tools and features.
An all-new website
We're just putting the finishing touches on this. There'll be a completely redesigned and rewritten website, architected for reliability at scale beyond the millions of visitors we've already served, hosted at a new dedicated domain on construct.net.
Sophisticated architecture
The insides count too. Construct 3 uses our long experience of game development tools to bring major improvements to the internal architecture, ranging from in-editor spritesheeting to top-of-the-line in-browser rendering technology.
Improvements throughout
We didn't leave existing features be. They've all had a great many improvements throughout, aimed at improving the day-to-day usability and quality of life for users. The Animations Editor uses a simpler interface which is easier to manage, as well as gaining features like onion skinning.
We made too many improvements to the Event Sheet to easily summarise. Just one of the new things you can do is use formatting throughout your event sheet to help make it clearer.
Equally we made a wide range of UI improvements elsewhere, such as a new easier way to rotate objects.
https://www.scirra.com/images/c3/layout-rotate-tool.mp4
And — defying expectations of the limitations of browsers — Construct 3 has better multi-monitor support than Construct 2.
And that's not all
Construct 2 advanced by leaps and bounds over its lifetime. We'll be working hard to do the same with Construct 3. In future we'll keep bringing you new features and further improvements. We're really just getting started here.
Join us on March 28th
We hope you are as excited about Construct 3 as we are. Come check out what we've built on Tuesday March 28th. All you'll need is a browser. Welcome to the next generation of game creation.