Best way to learn, it's simple yet complex

Hi all. I have been a member for about 3 months and I think I have come along way working on my game with a fair amount of consistency.

However there seems to be so much to learn. I'm still getting my head around variables and events. I'm still at fairly basic level.

I watch you tube videos and pick things up but sometimes I feel like I'm struggling with events.

Is this normal?

Yes, especially if you fall more on the artist/design side vs the technical side. Things will make more sense as you keep on working on your vision.

This will make some heads explode but I must say that learning from YouTube is the worst way to learn, I say this after I spent the first 2 years learning game dev by watching those videos. Most of what I learned I had to through away because it was bad practice. Learning from YouTube will focus on the 'how' to do things (that's if you got pro advice), but it is equally important to learn the 'why' because when you need to build something that has never been done before you will need to be able to follow the bread crumbs to the answers.

I do recommend watching some short videos on object oriented programming for beginners and non-programmers because you will learn the terminology and why we use variables and why there are different types. If you can describe the problem you can solve the problem.

I highly recommend that you start reading the Construct manual front to back, its the most simple documentation I have ever seen for a game engine. It has a few gems in it that will help you understand why somethings give you bad performance, you'll also see why some methods that feel natural don't work the way you think they should because computers have no intuition.

Before you know it you'll be learning Unity. I never thought I could do real programming let alone get good at Construct, I quit a number of times but I could never get the urge to make games out of me and now I build 2D with Unity and use Construct to test ideas.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I defiantly agree that the art and design aspect can be quite involved, as well as the events. Thinking about it, the whole process is quite difficult.

It makes sense about what you say about youtube, I do like to understand about why things work and agree this is a good way to learn. Thanks for the recommendation about object oriented programming, hopefully this will help. I have started referring back to the manual again. Its probably the mot sensible thing to do.

Hopefully one day I will make it to unity, but I heard you need to know c#?

Yes you use C# in Unity but here's the thing, code to the untrained eye looks really intimidating but its the logic and creative aspects of working with data and optimizing the flow of data that's actually the hard part.

What makes Construct so cool is the fact that event sheets have you focus logic, so you exercise that mussel. The more time you spend learning the terminology the less intimidating it will feel when you are building your event sheets.

Yeah that makes sense. It can seem overwhelming, but I never thought of programming in the way you described it.

Terminology does become easier. I still have a long way to go. But I think after my first game, I can start advancing. I am trying to keep things simple but learning bits and bobs as I go.

I was looking at the events on the featured platform game. I saw to make spikes fall they use (abs) I had no idea what this was, I asked on here and learned it was the absolute value. It's in the manual as well but I learn best when someone explains something to me.

Construct is awesome, I'm really enjoying it. Do you publish games to mobile with unity?

I personally never published a mobile game with Unity but that will change in a month or so.

I have both a Construct and Unity version of my current project which has an animated ocean I created with a solid blue background and a wave animation done with a single sprite that moves horizontal and fades in and out, once faded out the sprite moves to a random location and fades in again, this gives me an ocean that always looks different. The Construct APK is no where near as smooth as the Unity APK and in order for the game to look good that ocean must be smooth, so I devoted that game to Unity and it will be my first Unity game published to mobile. I must say it was a bummer because I was excited to use Construct's mobile build service which makes it much easier to build an APK but that's how things go, no engine is flawless, so when building a game you must take every available tool into consideration. At your level I would just focus on Construct because I really think APK's will not be the most desired way to build games in the near future. I only do it so I have access to ad mob.

I think it's important to go with the tools that help you get the most done in the least amount of time while factoring in reliability.

Get a mentor so that when there's something you don't understand you can ask a question and get a reliable response quickly, otherwise it can get very frustrating, i'd say

I personally never published a mobile game with Unity but that will change in a month or so.

I have both a Construct and Unity version of my current project which has an animated ocean I created with a solid blue background and a wave animation done with a single sprite that moves horizontal and fades in and out, once faded out the sprite moves to a random location and fades in again, this gives me an ocean that always looks different. The Construct APK is no where near as smooth as the Unity APK and in order for the game to look good that ocean must be smooth, so I devoted that game to Unity and it will be my first Unity game published to mobile. I must say it was a bummer because I was excited to use Construct's mobile build service which makes it much easier to build an APK but that's how things go, no engine is flawless, so when building a game you must take every available tool into consideration. At your level I would just focus on Construct because I really think APK's will not be the most desired way to build games in the near future. I only do it so I have access to ad mob.

I think it's important to go with the tools that help you get the most done in the least amount of time while factoring in reliability.

Let me know when you release your game and I will do the same. Be good to play it.

Yeah, funny, I was doing the same with a water sprite and used the water effect and the sine behavior.

I was reading the manual and it says that professionals use the same objects but tweak them to save memory, so I have started using the objects I have and some I add an effect.

I think Construct is good for me for a bit until I progress to Unity. I really like the engine and even a layman like me can build an OK looking game. I started off with a game that was way to ambitions - so i am working on a more simple game to build my skill set up. Do you like unity, how much time do you spend learning c#?

Get a mentor so that when there's something you don't understand you can ask a question and get a reliable response quickly, otherwise it can get very frustrating, i'd say

I don't know about that, I ask a lot of questions so I would end up pissing someone off! I am not sure who would go out there way to be a dedicated helper, I can't really offer anything in return?

I like Unity a lot because its very reliable, powerful, and the management system is great.

As far as learning C# I can't really say it took a lot of time. learning how to program is not like a gathering of a mass amount of knowledge, its more like learning math in that you learn how to organize equations and process them. Once you get that down then get to work with the API documentation open (think encyclopedia) for the tools you are using. It's not a cakewalk but it was far more easy then I imagined it would be. I do credit Construct a lot for breaking the ice and getting me introduced to logic.