Porting from Gamemaker

Hi guys

I'm a Gamemaker user and i created a retro platform remake using only D&D actions. I can't get my head around GML and becasue of that all of my moving platforms creation attempts failed miserably. So i decided to give Construct another try. In some areas is much better than GM , however is some others it lacks behind. I'm not trying to start a GM vs Construct thread here lads, i'm just seeking advice if it is worth porting my game from GM to Construct.

I know that at the end of the day i'm the one to make the right decision, i'm just asking you to inform me in which areas Construct lags behind. For example the UI needs some time to get used to it. I'm a slow learner and i need all the help i can get!

For drag and drop game making, Construct does not lag behind GM at all. It's much more logically organized, and the runtime is much MUCH faster and more powerful. As far as drag and drop is concerned, the only way in which Construct lags behind GM is this:

• GM can play in a browser

And...that's about it. Anything else, such as "GM can do online" or "GM has a large userbase to get support from" or "GM can use gamepads" or anything like that... Construct has plans for all of these, so it's just a matter of time.

Yes, there are lots of things that GM can do that Construct can't, but you have to dig into GML to do them. Like 3D, or using .dlls.

[quote:2l0e31xp]i'm just asking you to inform me in which areas Construct lags behind

Actually I was going to ask you where Construct lags behind Gamemaker. Personally, I've never actually used Gamemaker - I did try to give it a shot but it crashed on startup and nobody on the forums could help me (I'm sure it's just a bad luck/my PC sucks thing). Also, since we're constantly actively developing Construct, if you let us know where you think Construct is behind Gamemaker, we can either help direct you to the right features to solve the problem, or add new features which improve it.

I think the main area Gamemaker is way ahead of us on is popularity. With a huge community comes lots of other benefits like lots of tutorials, documentation, and numerous useful sites. We don't have a lot of that right now, but obviously we hope to one day take over the world, and we still have things like Deadeye's excellent Platform School tutorial and the freshly started community site Construct Corner.

I'm not interested in dll's or 3D and all that crap . I just don't want to spent much time and effort to learn Construct then port the game from GM only to get stuck due to some bugs etc. I didn't want to upset u Deadeye! I think the interface is a little bit cramped and it is much easier in GM to enable/disable transparency . Don't take me wrong i believe that Construct is an excellent piece of software, i m just telling u what i dont like much about it.

I'm not upset. Did I sound upset?

Anyway, what's the deal with transparency? There's an opacity setting in the object properties, or you can set the opacity at runtime with an action. Granted, I haven't used GM that much, but I don't see how that could be much different... how does GM do transparency?

Or do you mean cutting out the "transparent color" from a sprite sheet? There's an easy way to do that... use .png with the transparent parts already transparent.

Or when importing your sprites, use the "Color mask" button and enter your mask color and Construct will take it out automatically.

The platform behaviour in Construct is amazing. For platform games I would prefer Construct over Gamemaker.

Yes Gamemaker can play in a browser. But I believe that is a very simple activeX plugin. I think you can fairly easy create ActiveX plugins for any application so I see no reason why Construct would not be able to do the same (in a hopefully near future).

The main reason that I pick Construct over Gamemaker is that the Construct layout editor is so much better than the GameMaker room editor. Its things like layers and locking objects. In general editing levels in Construct seems so much easier than in gamemaker.

The event action system in Construct is fairly strong but when it comes to more complicated stuff i would so much prefer a scripting system like GML. (or even better python )

The forum support for Construct is very good. The autors of Constructs seems to be very active on the forum and on releasing new versions of Construct. This is another top reason to pic Construct.

In gamemaker Objects are more flexible in the way that you have to create the behaviours your self. In Consturct there are a lot of build in behaviours... but they are limited and you can not easily extend Construct with new behaviours. I wish there was a way of creating new behaviours using python.

At the moment I actually prefer Gamemaker over Construct for most tasks. But Construct has a lot more potential in the future.

In gamemaker Objects are more flexible in the way that you have to create the behaviours your self.

You can do that in Construct too... there's nothing that says you have to use built-in behaviors. You can create your own with events... which I would assume would be similar to creating your own in GM, only the event system doesn't, well... suck.

[quote:16k2sjz1]The event action system in Construct is fairly strong but when it comes to more complicated stuff i would so much prefer a scripting system like GML.

Yeah, but we're talking strictly drag and drop here

drag and drop systems are great but i think it's also very wise to have support for a scripting language. should be nice when Construct properly supports python.

I used GameMaker for awhile. For me, the biggest thing it has over Construct is organization. In Construct, I don't like how you place objects in the layout rather than an object library. I think it's messy (I know you can hide them but that's just an unnecessary step). I guess I'm used to it now, but it seems more intuitive to put an object into a library then call it through code or place it into the layout from there. Being on other layouts, I should just be able to pull from that library and place an instance, not have to open the other layout, copy it, then paste it into the new layout. Deleting an object from the layout should not delete it from the library. Also being able to make object folders in the library is huge (I know this is coming later)

I also like how GameMaker places code onto objects. As a non-coder, that makes more sense to me. I found it a little easier to handle enemies as opposed to Construct's picking which I haven't fully grasped yet.

I quit GameMaker once I found out about Construct, so overall I think Construct is a much better game maker.

the construct interface is much better then gamemaker among many other things. I don't think you have actually given construct a fair chance. I started out with gamemaker my self and when i tried out construct it was confusing. the more i learned the more i realized how constrained gamemaker is. I still have to use gamemaker for a class i have, but luckily my teacher allows me to use construct for my own class projects. the stuff I do in construct would be a nightmare to do in gamemaker.

also, what future does gamemaker have? how many years has it been since an update? how many features do you have to pay for? Construct is not at version 1 yet and is arguably surpassed the seventh version of gamemaker.

i am not an expert at either program, but i would like to know what gamemaker does better. in construct i feel free. that is the best way I can describe the difference.

Well if GM does use activex to play in browser then after IE8 it may not work anyway (Microsoft may be dropping IE after 8 for a newer base).

->http://www.osnews.com/story/21120/Microsoft_s_Next_Browser_To_Be_Based_on_Gazelle_

Just thought i would mention that for future use i think Construct is better since it is open source and actively developed with an ever growing decent community.

So how can we help in order for Construct to reach a wider audience? Are there any plans for translation in different languages? The Platform tutorial is top notch, however there are not many tutorials available, especially for noobs like myself!

So how can we help in order for Construct to reach a wider audience?

That's not entirely up to us developers... a lot of people need to get involved in spreading the word, writing documentation and creating tutorials for us to be able to get anywhere near the impact companies who have advertising money can achieve.

The benefit of using Gamemaker is that it's done and stable, and that's all. Construct (will) provides more features than the free flavor of Gamemaker, and Gamemaker Pro still lacks a feature or two that Construct has (built-in physics, for example). Also, in terms of visual quality, Gamemaker is decades behind Construct because it lacks support for even basic graphical effects, not to mention pixel shaders.

Gamemaker hasn't had an update in more than a year, but a few million dollars was dropped into development, and an OS X port is in the works.

The organisation of gamemaker's interface and workflow is cleaner and better than Construct, IMO. You have sprites, objects and rooms - draw a sprite, assign it to an object, give the object actions and events, put it in a room, and hey presto - a game! Every component of the game is available in an organised tree structure on the left hand side - sprites, objects, rooms, fonts, sounds, backgrounds, timelines, paths and scripts.

Obviously, Construct's workflow is hugely different, but I still think it could benefit from a central library panel like some other programs (e.g. Adobe Flash). Right now, all the different parts are spread out all over the place, and you can't access all functions from all parts and modes of the UI.

Also, another thing that I think Construct could benefit from is the inclusion of a proper tilemap system. The current method combining sprites and tiled backgrounds (as found in Deadeye's platform school) still feels like a hack or a workaround for something that is quite a fundamental feature of many 2D games and engines. I don't know how it would fit in the current workflow, but I think it's something that should be added in some form.