What next for Construct 2?

Hi all,

With another stable release out, we're thinking about what to work on next. Please note we are already busy lots of smaller projects, like better documentation around monetisation and improving platform support - this is just to find out what you all think about the next major feature you'd most like to see. We do plan to ultimately implement all of these, so hopefully it's just a matter of which comes first.

Please also note we won't definitely implement whichever option gets the most votes. This is so you can let us know what you want, which will be an important factor in to our decision about what to develop next, but there is no guarantee we will actually implement things in the order of popularity here. (There's lots of factors to take in to account like the difficulty of implementation, which platfoms support it, commercial value of features, etc.)

Some notes about the options:

• a debugger should allow for deep inspection of all aspects of the game at runtime, hopefully with also the ability to step through events and actions one by one whilst watching what happens to variables.

• real-time multiplayer is marked as "difficult!" since from what we've researched about networking, this will both be complicated to support, and also probably be pretty difficult to use properly even once supported, and possibly not supported on a broad set of platforms at first (may just be Firefox/Chrome browser until support improves). Making multiplayer games is hard, and it probably won't be a simple case of adding a "multiplayer" plugin or behavior - you'll probably need to design your game from the ground up with a fairly specific architecture, and be aware of some important aspects of networking theory. You should only vote for this choice if you're aware of this, and feel like you'd be up for the difficult challenge of designing an efficient multiplayer game.

• better tilemap support refers to being able to easily edit tilemaps from within the layout view, as well as hopefully importing popular tilemap formats, perhaps with some extra behaviors to help make tile based games easy to design

• modularity features refers to being able to do something like make custom plugins from events alone, add events to containers, sharing pre-built bundles of useful events, or enhancing function support. We're not sure exactly what this would look like, but it could benefit large projects and allow sharing event-based "modules" in the community.

• "find references" means a tool which allows you to search a project and list all places an object, file, or some other aspect of the project is used, and possibly automatically list/remove things which are not referenced anywhere. This could be helpful for large projects.

• "port the editor" means getting the editor to run on more platforms, e.g. Mac/Linux. I'm not really sure how practical it would be for us to take this on right now since we're a very small team (3 of us) with a lot to do already, but I threw it in to see if it gets many votes.

• we also have over 50 smaller suggestions which we don't count as major features on our todo list. If you'd rather we worked on adding as many of these as possible instead of a major feature, choose "general minor improvements".

• if you choose "something else", post below! However please note we're thinking about major features here - we already have loads of smaller suggestions and people often suggest things already on the todo list!

Vote away! :)

Modularity features?

Um... hell yeah

Exactly, modularity features sounds great.

I'd really like to see tracing or printing in Construct 2 to track variables and such. It's a real pain to make a text box and link it to a variable when you can just trace something in other languages.

Bones.

Debug is already possible to create. Of course it takes a little effort. I guess multiplayer would be the best next big thing for Construct 2. Real-Time Multiplayer would be a game change for this engine.

I voted for modularity features as it is "already doable" whereas multiplayer still relies on "technology to come" imo.

But Ash you already know I'm in favor of multiplayer features as soon as it is technologically available (matter of months from 2 to 6 I think).

I would be happy with any of these actually, Multiplayer, Modularity, Tilemap support. Hell yeah Scirra!

I think it's still a bit too early for multiplayer, and it might be a difficult feature to use.

To me modularity is the one part that falls behind in C2. I already talked about it, but making an RPG in C2 while having the possibility to make broad changes is still not easy.

For instance I'd like to use C2 layout to create all the location you have in an RPG, but being able to make broad modfications on all my layouts like Modifying layers disposition/properties/content mostly.

Things you can't really handle at runtime.

So yeah, I think modularity will go toward this idea.

Also modularity because a good game is seldom made alone. Being able to work with more than one developper would be a must.

And it would probably increase the quality and size of games.

I vote for modularity features because if C2 does this it will become almost as powerful as coding it. It will also make programming much much easier for more complicated programs.

My second vote would be find refrences, I get lost in my programs too much.

Both of these will improve the pipeline so much that we can all make games faster and get back to killing zerglings much quicker ;).

I think it's still a bit too early for multiplayer, and it might be a difficult feature to use.

To me modularity is the one part that falls behind in C2. I already talked about it, but making an RPG in C2 while having the possibility to make broad changes is still not easy.

For instance I'd like to use C2 layout to create all the location you have in an RPG, but being able to make broad modfications on all my layouts like Modifying layers disposition/properties/content mostly.

Things you can't really handle at runtime.

So yeah, I think modularity will go toward this idea.

I agree about the multiplayer. Most other sites barely support HTML games as it is. It would be great for Construct if they could do it but I would first rather see improvements to HTML game support and the construct 2 engine itself.

I voted for a better tile map support. I think all of these would be great improvements, though.

I am happy as long as C2 is developing in any way :D

I have voted to multiplayer , but I am also with the Modularity too. :)

Thanks in advanced.

Bye bye take care.

I vote for Real-Time Multiplayer and General Minor Improvements. Real-Time Multiplayer would be an amazing feature to add in Construct 2. I voted for General Minor improvements as well because Construct 2 will never be perfect, just like all other programs will never be perfect. They will always need improvements. <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

That's a good thing to know. I'm convinced it will be really hard, and it will be impossible to have multiplayer working good on all platforms. But besides multiplayer in real time, I would like to see a Port of the editor to other platforms(Mac) and a Debug.

I didn't know you guys were only three working on all this. I'm surprised. You all are doing a great job! Really impressed!

Keep the good work <img src="smileys/smiley32.gif" border="0" align="middle" />