Hi - i'm new here, quick introduction and question

Hi,

I'm Steve, i'm 24 and from Nottingham. I'm a PhD student from Nottingham University (Comp Science) and i'm looking to have a little play around with construct 2 in my own time (interests outside of research).

I've had a look at construct 2 and I am just about to delve into learning how to use it by following the tutorials.

Before I delve in too far, I just want to check if something in particular is possible.

I will be using Construct 2 to make what i'd call more of a dynamic video than a game. I will need to get some data into the video/game which will depend on some ID.

I'll be running a jetty server with Tapestry 5 which all of the data be stored on (as java objects). I can open that up so it can be retrieved using Json or XML, or I can even put the necessary parts into the HTML page when it loads. I could just do with knowing that I can read in values from the HTML page into the app, or from an external JSON object (which will still require an ID to be known to retrieve it). If using JSON/XML, I will still need to be able to pass the ID into the construct 2 video/game so that it is able to retrieve the correct data from the web service, is there a tutorial or some documentation I have missed on how to do that? I hope that makes sense, perhaps I haven't described it too well.

Is this kind of thing easily possible? My video will be relatively simple, it is really just displaying data in some new ways.

Thanks

Steve

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I think it could be done, but isn't Processing what you're looking for? (http://processing.org/)

Hello and welcome to the forums.

I think it could be done, but isn't Processing what you're looking for? (http://processing.org/)

It might be - I am totally new to frameworks for developing html5/javascript projects, I actually came to look into construct 2 based on reviews here: http://html5gameengine.com/

Currently i'm trying to find the best tool for the job. I'll have a look into processing, thank you!

Communicating with APIs in Construct is very easy. Even if it weren't, you can still use the plugin SDK (which is in javascript) and make a plugin to do the heavy lifting for you.

The problem with construct is that canvas video is sometimes inconsistent (i.e. delays when pausing, little control over buffering, FPS drops depending on the platform/device, though you should be fine with chrome/firefox), and the video plugin abstracts away many of the nuts and bolts, which can be a problem in some specific circumstances.

Besides, I don't know what you want to use the backend calls for, but I'm betting it has to do with appending relevant information to the video and/or creating a "choose your own adventure" type game. In that case, keep in mind that construct has very poor interface building options, and it's even worse with manipulating the DOM.

Unless you need LOTS of interactivity in your video (i.e. a custom slideshow or a virtual class), I'd say simple jQuery does the trick better.