Construct 2 - platform poll

Hmm Consoles dont get much vote. I guess its because we all know that consoles evolve from time to time. Which means, developers might not support the PS2/3, Xbox or any other consoles they have in the future which is due to having a new better one being sold in the market.

Besides, if its commercial we're talking about, if you take a look at the "black market", there are a lot of downloadable consoles games there. So this could happen to us too.

But for me, I'd go for the web browser or the phone. Phones are cute .

Can I recast my vote? I voted for a web browser platform, but after reading the opinions of the other members, I am thinking of favoring the Android platform.

bit off topic but did someone played with mmf2 recently? they already can publish games to java (works quite nice) and they released something called swf exporter, and i'm wondering how its working - anyone try that already?

If you port it to Linux, you can pretty much run it on any device that linux has been installed on (phones, consoles, computers, cameras, pda's, etc).

In terms of web game creation, I think it would be a nice feature, but very hard to sell if you were to try and make your game commercial. However, if the games are exported in Java, they could potentially work on most phone devices (even the IPhone, if you jailbreak it you get the features that "Apple is too good for").

Hmm.

So, as it stands, the top 3 look like this:

Web Browser

Mac/Linux

Console

Apart from the Console option, there's not a lot there for commercial use.

I suppose it comes down to what the Dev's ambitions for Construct 2 are.

If it's similar to what MMF2 seem to aim for, then maybe the Web browser option will do.

If, however, they want to cater to both casual game makers and Indie devs on a more professional level, then I think it's important that they future-proof Construct 2 as much as possible.

The Mac will always be there, XNA technology will no doubt be utilised in the next version of the XBox, and both Android and iPhone are very important.

Although it might be more work than they envisaged, if the Devs want Construct to be taken seriously, I really think they should consider including the following out of the box:

Web Browser or Flash

Mac

Android

iPhone

Xna/Xbox

Unfortunately, if the poll is anything to go by, this isn't going to happen, and looks less likely that Construct 2 will be for me.

Which is a shame, because Construct is by far my favourite R.A.D tool.

While tools like Stencyl and App Inventor will no doubt get better, currently, Construct has a huge lead over them (Qualifier: I beta test both) and should take that on-board when planning Construct 2.

Krush.

I'd say Mac/Linux is the most important thing. Web browser is a bad idea in my opinion, since that'd basically mean Flash or nothing, and that's stupid. You can't play certain Flash games everywhere anyway, so supporting all kinds of PCs would be the best choice - that way'll the game will be playable on all the major PC platforms. I think mobile platforms should be left out of Construct completely, since due to the fact that we're talking about embedded systems getting everything out of the platform tech-wise is a lot more important than with desktops/laptops, thus it'd be a better idea to use stuff specifically meant for those platforms.

Making Construct capable of exporting to Flash/Java would most likely just make the program less capable overall, even worse in terms of performance than what it offers now. I hope you people voting for web browsers realize this.

I'd say Mac/Linux is the most important thing. Web browser is a bad idea in my opinion, since that'd basically mean Flash or nothing, and that's stupid. You can't play certain Flash games everywhere anyway, so supporting all kinds of PCs would be the best choice - that way'll the game will be playable on all the major PC platforms. I think mobile platforms should be left out of Construct completely, since due to the fact that we're talking about embedded systems getting everything out of the platform tech-wise is a lot more important than with desktops/laptops, thus it'd be a better idea to use stuff specifically meant for those platforms.

Making Construct capable of exporting to Flash/Java would most likely just make the program less capable overall, even worse in terms of performance than what it offers now. I hope you people voting for web browsers realize this.

What I was thinking when I voted for flash was that you can choose application from file > new > applications

These would be Direct X9 or OpenGL (since C2 will use it, replacing DX9) and Flash, OGL will be for desktop which unleashes all power of C2 and if you choose Flash from the applications list you could make .swf files but it won't pack as much power, is this possible to do or this is too complicated? if so then I'm sorry about voting for web browsers myself, I got this idea from Clickteam's mmf2 .swf exporter which you could optionally export to flash but still can export a desktop .exe file normally, if this poll means it will export to 1 specific program (web browsers means just flash and removing the possibility to export to desktop) then I want to take back my vote

My original post basically states that the platform you choose here is in addition to a Windows desktop runtime, so I wouldn't worry that you're going to lose that.

So if I understood correctly this means that it will have both windows and flash exports, very well then, that interests me.

I like the idea of being able to export to Wii homebrew. While it does seem rather weird, installing homebrew on the Wii is pretty damn simple, and there's an open-source set of libraries for Wii homebrew development. (Though, for some reason, I can't vote. ) It's mostly for the novelty of it, though WiiMote intergration might be a sweet bonus.

However, if not, go with Mac or Lunix. You can't go wrong there, really. But if you're going for web integration, don't use Flash. Please. Flash is a terrible thing, slow as hell. The only reason it's the de-facto standard for web games is because early versions of Java, which should have filled the niche of web-based games that Flash mostly owns, were so slow and so unnatural looking that Flash actually looked good in comparison, and by the time they fixed the problems, Flash had already caught on. Construct might as well have its web plugin like Unity has, unless you want Flash dragging it down severely.

http://slick.cokeandcode.com/

Use that library for the runtime and you'll get 4 operating systems (Windows, OS X, Linux & Solaris). It uses OpenGL

I know I'm casting my vote late on this, But I'd highly recommend SDL. With this, you'd be able to export games to nearly everything!

http://www.libsdl.org/

Hmm Consoles dont get much vote. I guess its because we all know that consoles evolve from time to time. Which means, developers might not support the PS2/3, Xbox or any other consoles they have in the future which is due to having a new better one being sold in the market.

I can't speak on PS3, but in regards to the XBOX 360 I can say that XNA and C# are going to be around for a long, long time. It's not going away. Its base is already huge, and lots of people would like to make games for its formats but aren't language coders. With XNA you can make games for 4 different platforms (Zune, 360, PC, Windows Phone). If there was an export for this, it would be huge.

There is an event-based program that exports to XNA called the Express Game Maker (In closed beta), and there is the Indie Game Maker which I've heard a lot of complaints about and has little to no instructional help available.

At some point, someone is going to successfully hit with an export for XNA and it's going to be very valuable. I can see companies going after cell phone exports and whatnot, and it's just going after current trends that have no long-term future, and a much smaller developer and consumer market than going with exports for the MS platforms. I'd say something web-based would be #1 with XNA being 1A, but after that everything else is just reaching for fads or markets that are much smaller... too small to even warrant the effort in some cases.

Perhaps the next poll should be "What features can you live without?".

When you take into account that many of the given platforms cant have all the current features of Construct, or C2(official), IE hwa, shaders, connectivity, non homebrew/cracked, etc, your list becomes a lot shorter.

> Hmm Consoles dont get much vote. I guess its because we all know that consoles evolve from time to time. Which means, developers might not support the PS2/3, Xbox or any other consoles they have in the future which is due to having a new better one being sold in the market.

>

I can't speak on PS3, but in regards to the XBOX 360 I can say that XNA and C# are going to be around for a long, long time. It's not going away. Its base is already huge, and lots of people would like to make games for its formats but aren't language coders. With XNA you can make games for 4 different platforms (Zune, 360, PC, Windows Phone). If there was an export for this, it would be huge.

There is an event-based program that exports to XNA called the Express Game Maker (In closed beta), and there is the Indie Game Maker which I've heard a lot of complaints about and has little to no instructional help available.

At some point, someone is going to successfully hit with an export for XNA and it's going to be very valuable. I can see companies going after cell phone exports and whatnot, and it's just going after current trends that have no long-term future, and a much smaller developer and consumer market than going with exports for the MS platforms. I'd say something web-based would be #1 with XNA being 1A, but after that everything else is just reaching for fads or markets that are much smaller... too small to even warrant the effort in some cases.

I agree with some of this. I think XNA export would be huge, insanely huge even, but I don't think android or iphone are fads. iphone is obviously huge, and jobs knows how to innovate just in time to avoid death. the iphone will get awesome again, and android is only beginning, every month there's like 5 new WOW I WANT THAT phones that are android based. just using it, and knowing google, are enough to know it isn't going away any time soon. during c2 development it will be clear if windows mobile 7 emerges as the supreme leader or not, though, which could easily happen, which once again, makes XNA a good candidate. like I said, I agree with that part, but I think the cell phone thing is only just beginning

Perhaps the next poll should be "What features can you live without?".

When you take into account that many of the given platforms cant have all the current features of Construct, or C2(official), IE hwa, shaders, connectivity, non homebrew/cracked, etc, your list becomes a lot shorter.

not sure what you mean by nonhomebrew/cracked, but I know I want hwa, and shaders, that'd be like not supporting accelerometer on phones, because it wouldn't work on pc.

I know you didn't say those should be taken out, and you were just giving examples, but I think c2 should take full advantage of any platform exclusive features if possible. if not it will just be a jack of all trades, master of none, instead of a supreme ruler over all dominions