Disappointed over bad communications!!!

Hello Community,

after a very, very hard weekend with C2 i will write my frustration about a bad and irritation communication from the developer here. At first: I like C2. Its a wonderful tool to make in very short time cool games. my first project (pc) was a jump and run and the development run without problems. But now i have a big problem with the physics on a smartphone with my second game. The same project runs supersmoothie on a desktop pc. But on smartphones the framerate is going to 1 frame per sec. I have the same feeling as end the 90s/2000er with the buggy MultimediaFusion. I have read a lot of many postings here about people they have the same problems (Search: Smartphone Physic Framerate) and the Developers post here that the physics run smoothie with web2Dasm.js. Is this a joke? I have give a lot of money for this peace of (wonderful) software. But we have now the year 2015!!! Smartphone-Games are unecaptional as GameBoy-Modules at the 90s!!!!! Without a solution about this problem C2 is useless for me. After the last stable Build with the comment about web2Dasm.js my feeling was save and i have post ahead 1 1/2 weeks thats my Game comes out in one or two days. In the XDK Emulator the Game runs but when i make a Build (belive me: I have test it with 100 of differnt settings) the Framerate going down (small and sparse physic-Objects). Here a lot of posts in this forum. And NO! Its not a selfmade-problem with a bad structure of the Gamedevelopment from myside. I have (the other posts, too) make simple clean testprojects only with 3 or five physicobjects. On Desktop runs beautyful/smoothie..... on Smartphones: No! After my FB-Post last week i wont go to the city! My friends wait for the game. i have make advert for concerts in this and i have hoped for tasks from other people for next projects. But now i can search a new Software-Name, or what!? I have spend a lot of time the last 3 Months for my project and a lot of money for the Business-License. Compare: Unity = 0$ Unrealengine = 0$ To the makers of C2: Please can you give a Statement about this problem with physics. It definitely not normal! Can i serch now a new Engine for my games?????? Or waiting for C3 and pay a lot of money again to fix this problem???? Dont understand me, I like this software (the workflow is great). But this is not a small problem that the maker(s) of C2 can concealment. My Example illustrate that on the nipples of C2 hanging existences and people with bsuiness-plans. And then in the changelog Scirra wrote with the new web2Dasm.js it runs great..... Thats a lie! No, its harder: Its Molyneux-Style! A long time ago i have read a frustrated text about a men he was very angry about the buggy MMF and has the vision about a bug-free program. After this text i have buy C2. Now years later i have the awareness: Its the same S*it!!! THX!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another pointless rant.

Rant? Sry, read other posts. With the physics is a fact! And read the changelog aubout last fixes! I have this extra post here and not on steam (review). My target was not a shitstorm or whatever. But this (scirra) is not customer-oriented.

As long as scirra keeps making money with the html5 exporter they won't really care about native exporters. It's a shame really... because the event editor is great but it's useless with a poor performance.

A lot of people complains about this issue, they just seems to ignore it.

They will you tell you that you have to optimize your game, which is true... you could gain some FPS per sec.

If you are really serious about game development you should learn other tools.

Every other popular engine has decent performance on mobile, except construct 2.

BasicTribe I think they are trying hard to fix issues. The small team at Scirra had made a bet that by the time C2 was in a stable position to create full size games that HTML5 and the third party wrappers/tools would be also be ready to perform too. Based on their team size this was the most logical choice for quickly producing a product that can export to multiple platforms, and HTML5 was also being praised as the way of the future for universal apps and games.

Unfortunately, things haven't yet turned out that way, while C2 is indeed beautiful the export options are still in the process of improving. I agree that it really sucks for the business license dev's who are literally purchasing C2 for the purpose of making commercial products, but for now while we wait for technology and third parties to catch up the main option is to stick with very simple and small games and apps. Or, release anyway and try to warn people they need a very powerful device, and hope that the reviewers have those powerful specs so they don't make your game look bad

BasicTribe Amusing rant, and I share some of your frustrations.

C2 is a fantastic tool but there are limitations and problems especially when it comes to mobile. The Scirra guys do an amazing job for a small team.

I think a lot of problems on mobile are dismissed because Scirra haven't actually published a real game in the main app stores, with typical features. Things can work great in the lab - but in the wild of the app store with all the OS versions and devices things are different. Often the problems are due to 3rd parties outside of Scirra's control.

My advice is to work around the problems and limitations or you will be waiting a long time. Or else learn native coding...or try Unity.

BasicTribe

Have to admit that I to some degree can follow the frustration that you express, not in relation to mobile apps as I don't make anything for those. But the frustration of having put a lot of effort into making something, and then the project gets "screwed" for whatever reason. Not that I think that all of it can be pointed at Scirra.

But there are a lot of things/problems in C2, some of them more severe than others, but overall it generate a lot of frustration, especially because the more programs you make and sack due to running into problems that can't be fixed. You have to design you things based on this, rather than what you want to make. And personally to me, I think its fine that they want to make C3 etc. But cant help feeling like they are abandon ship Meaning that C2 when bought back in the days and to r200 have been a program under development. Loads of the things in it now weren't there at the beginning, which can be nice, but it also means that a lot of things have been added along the way and that C2 is pretty much always in some sort of testing phase, or the stable version lack certain features etc. But to me at least it also appears, that so many new features have been added, that not a lot of them are very deep and a lot of very annoying problems and missing features affect a lot of the functionality that you expect for certain things.

And since so many features are added, they don't really seem to have time or want to further improve old functionality rather than just bug fixing them a little. Meant that when you release something it will take the community some time to give you some really solid feedback on the new features. But at least to me, following the forum a long time, there have been countless post of suggestions of how to improve workflow, features etc. and most of them are really good ideas, yet I don't think any or hardly any have been added. Which is a real shame I think. Especially because C3 is under development now and they have stated that the amount of releases for C2 will slow down, it just frustrating because C2 is so close to being a really really cool program, if it just weren't for all those small annoying things, that gives the impression that it just need a lot of features, but they don't have to be 100% top notch, just have to be enough.

And then we move on to C3, its not really encouraging me to invest in C3, because why should it be any different, if C3 is released as C2 was, meaning a program under development and then features are just added a long the way. And major design flaws are just not possible to fix, due to the way it was designed when it was released. Which could have been corrected if the features had been there from the beginning, then you might risk the same thing with C3.

So personally I think its a very nice program it just lacks the last bit needed to make it really cool.

We need more examples of what will run on smart phones.

A game-boy jam seems ideal. Minus the copyright infringements obviously.

Nip these, "it don't work" posts in the bud.

newt Atari 2600 should be a very reasonable complexity level for high performance C2 games (well, with higher resolution and colour depth)

True, then again I've seen games that should be less complex than a digital watch running like they were made for Crysis specs.

This might be a bit long, sorry.

(but i hope you will read it, i would like to hear what you think)

I clearly remember that specific day, when i tried Construct for the first time back in the early days. I sat for hours testing out my ideas, and after i had played around with it for a couple of days, i was simply amazed.

It came as a shock to me, that i could actually do some some of the small game ideas that i had always dreamt about creating.

And i did it (sort of) without writing any code! in reality, it was prototypes, but they worked!

Before i discovered Construct i had tried to make some small games in flash, and java at the time. But i just felt like it was taking forever to get anything accomplished, and since I wasn't interested in math and school in general when i was young, i was struggling to learn a new coding language for making my own games.

We are now in 2015. And i have been using C2 since the beginning (early adopter) and before that.

And while i love C2, i do understand why many people are having a hard time at the moment.

Personally, i have trashed and dropped about 18 of my games and apps that i have developed with C2. And i have around 6 published out there

(A couple of my apps are popular, but not my games, because of performance issues)

All of my trashed projects were abandoned because of performance issues (games), and others because of the lack of mobile features (apps)

I really think the majority of us wants to develop games on mobiles (and maybe steam?). Browser games, are just not that popular in html5. Flash and unity are still dominating this space and market. And from what i understand there is also some security risks involved in html5 browser based games. Let alone the performance.

But with that said, a simple game making tool like construct 2 is needed! (wysiwyg)

In my opinion its one of the best ideas for indie and new game makers. The game development market is gigantic at the moment, and i think it will only get bigger with all the new indie game developers out there!

To be honest, something new has to happen. And it will, but i just i hope that it will come from Scirra! - and not someone else.

(these guys deserve it)

A custom Scirra nonbrowser wrapper/exporter, where we don't have to rely on 3rd parties as much, and where we have more control overall.

I've heard about many new upcoming names like: Haxe, gles.js, Luxe, snõwkit. Those are supposed to have great performance and some of them are cross platform. If Scirra could develop something like that, and keep it "WYSIWYG" - then i'm sure it would take game making to a whole new level. It could be the next big thing

I believe its possible, and i hope that Scirra do to!

(and sorry for my English by the way )

newt But... My Frogger clone...

newt Yeah, if I had more time I'd love to create a variety of free medium-or-above-sized games in C2 so that I can share the capx with Scirra and they can do performance testing. I'd even love to pay a (small) monthly subscription to Scirra if they hired someone just to do that.

True, then again I've seen games that should be less complex than a digital watch running like they were made for Crysis specs.

Ain't that the truth.

C2 makes creating games easy. The learning curve is a gentle slop. Unfortunetly it doesn't make us pro game makers.

Just because we can mix a cocktail, doesn't make the cocktail drinkable.

We use c2 for its masked simplicity (but beneath the surface it is can be navigating a mine field of complexity).

Who said making a game was easy???? Who said you can just add in some ingredients and have an award wining cocktail.

I have so many issues with C2, Unity, Unreal, gamemaker, etc... but I don't have the time or knowledge to write my own fault ridden software which in my mind will be perfect. Till I try to make a game on it that is

It isn't perfect. I am too old to master any software (and third party world changes to fast for me) All I have is me chasing my tail in some attempt, just to stay afloat.

Chrome performance has bombed. Unity, and unreal are free, but takes hundreds of devs to make a buggy game. So what can I do????

Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming....

[quote:3mh46ewu]Unity, and unreal are free, but takes hundreds of devs to make a buggy game

ot true. Unreal has come a loooong way, and, to all those doubters, install the Flappy Chicken app, because it runs better than I believe any C2 game exported for mobile can.

Prove me wrong by ripping the assets and creating an Android game utilizing the same features, shaders, & etc. and I will shut up.

But alas, I am for now stuck with C2 for my game Protoship. It will be good enough to run as an introductory game of mine into the appstore world, however, until some decent and well-compiled exporter can be developed and streamlined for C2 games, I don't think I will continue to use C2 for anything with physics or that requires shaders, or obviously 3D, or... well anything except simple touch screen interactions with low movement and graphical requirements.