How do I make a 'huge' layout in Construct? if possible...

I'm pretty green when it comes to designing games, so I'm sure that some of the things that I say here will be kind of stupid, but I'm trying to design a map (outside of Construct) for a game that I wish to create which is what would be a 1/2 mile track in the real world. This game is of a squirrel running and jumping through trees. Squirrels run at burst speeds at 12 mph, and so I decided my squirrel would run an average of 6 miles an hour, deciding that my track needed to be a 1/2 mile long for 5 minutes of game play.

I did a little math, finding that at 1080p on a 14 inch screen, a half mile track would be 7.2 million pixels long on a layout. I must say here that I don't really understand how to equate all of this at all. Anyway, I opened a project and set the layout size to 1080 x 7.2 million, and the layout came back sized 1082 x 1 million. So, I assume that Construct limits the layout width to 1 million pixels. Assuming this is true, how could I ever make such a track, which is essential to my game? Secondly, can a such a game be designed without crashing a computer? This game will be designed for computers, not mobile. It seems that for any sort of linear racing game, a track would need to be very long, so I feel that this shouldn't be a big deal, but my stumbling research appears to say otherwise.

Thanks.

To get around the layout limit of 1 million you could make the objects smaller and increase the layout scale or zoom ( i forget what it's called). The image sizes would be the same as if they weren't scaled down so it will look visually identical.

As far as if a level that big is possible. I'd say so, but you'd have to actually try it and see how it goes.

Thanks so much!

I would suggest either randomly generating the level, or creating it on the fly based on the data in an array (data you've either hard coded in, or loaded from a JSON or XML file). You can use the system action Create Object to create the level tiles off screen just before they need to scroll into view. Then you can destroy them when they're off screen.

I'm pretty green when it comes to designing games, so I'm sure that some of the things that I say here will be kind of stupid, but I'm trying to design a map (outside of Construct) for a game that I wish to create which is what would be a 1/2 mile track in the real world. This game is of a squirrel running and jumping through trees. Squirrels run at burst speeds at 12 mph, and so I decided my squirrel would run an average of 6 miles an hour, deciding that my track needed to be a 1/2 mile long for 5 minutes of game play.

I did a little math, finding that at 1080p on a 14 inch screen, a half mile track would be 7.2 million pixels long on a layout. I must say here that I don't really understand how to equate all of this at all. Anyway, I opened a project and set the layout size to 1080 x 7.2 million, and the layout came back sized 1082 x 1 million. So, I assume that Construct limits the layout width to 1 million pixels. Assuming this is true, how could I ever make such a track, which is essential to my game? Secondly, can a such a game be designed without crashing a computer? This game will be designed for computers, not mobile. It seems that for any sort of linear racing game, a track would need to be very long, so I feel that this shouldn't be a big deal, but my stumbling research appears to say otherwise.

Thanks.

If you have thought well then you can do what you want to do

Thank you — I tried the first suggestion and it worked perfectly. Your solution sounds like it would save system resources, but arrays and JSON is something that I haven't gotten to and don't yet understand. From the best of my understanding, a randomly generated level wouldn't work for the game that I dream of. As bad of an idea as it may sound on the surface, I'm going to start designing a large game without yet understanding these things, but I'll catalog your solution in the back of my mind for later.

I'm working through tutorials, but it won't stick for me unless I start actually making the game, so I will get to these things in time. Thanks again.

You could simply use 2 background image sprites, each one containing parts of your track ( frame 1,2,3,4 etc.... ) First one is on screen and at frame 0, second one is behind it to the right and set to frame 1, they will scroll left at same speed. So as the first one scrolls left and gets out of the view reposition it behind the second one currently on screen, each time you re-position advance 1 frame. This way you create a background scenery loop. It will require some graphics work to make it look seamless. You can also measure distance based on which frame is currently showing. If each segment is 20 m., then at frame 10 you'd be around 200 m.

This way you don't need arrays nor huge levels, just normal level size, squirrel does not actually move, scenery does.

Thank you for your response — I don't exactly comprehend how to use your idea to create my game yet, but it does get some creative juices flowing for me. I am dedicated to this project...it's my full-time endeavor. So, I am yet green, but learning fast. I'm grateful for all the responses and for the vibrant support community here.

I didn't know that background images could be arranged in frames. Assuming that I understand, this would make a basic animation...so the background can be animated? This creates some interesting possibilities indeed! I have been definitely putting a lot of thought into background scenery, and your idea will likely help with that. However, although I believe I understand what you mean about scenery, I don't understand how this would correlate with the objects in my game that the squirrel will run and jump on. I can't think of how she could 'jump' through scenery, as there will have to be platforms for the jumping. These platforms will have to be images in order to be navigable by the Player, and therefore there will need to be a long layout comprised of these objects in order to effect game-play. If I'm not understanding something critical, please let me know.

It does seem here that an array would work, like VictoryRice suggested, where I could use numerical values in an array to (somehow) present the objects in a certain order and in a certain space. I'm working on understanding that right now, mainly by watching Jerementor's tuturials on logic, which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone learning.

Thanks again. Sorry for the long post, but feel free to get back to me if you wish to clarify your idea more so that I can understand it at my level.

I wanted to add one more thing, — Your idea about using frames in the background to measure distance is brilliant!

Arrays are the way to go, but if you don't know them my idea could be used, and of course you can always combine the two. You will have to create platforms and position them on top of the scenery. I would suggest learning Arrays too, but you could use instance variables to set their position for each segment or attach via Image points to actual scenery sprites. But, that could be more time consuming than just learning Arrays.

This is an ugly image of what I was talking about