Construct 2 - Only A Toy?

Maybe this tool is more professional and better suited for your needs:

https://scratch.mit.edu/

They should have built-in controller system and I think it's a lot cheaper tool.

Really, lack of floating dual analog touch controls. My work has Unity licenses($70/month) and Unity has a buy price of $1500. There are no built in touch dual analog touch controls. I'm done with this thread.

...says the guy whose website upon entering it immediately catches the visitors eye with naggings about C2.

"Working the C2 SDK is not elegant. In fact I would say that the C2 engine was not designed for other developers. There is a lack of documentation and overall a lack of an SDK engine. Instead most of the work with C2 engine is through a small set of callbacks and properties. Often Scirra(Ashley) encourages that Plugins and behaviors have little interaction with others of similar type. Such as no Plugin to Plugin interaction and no Behavior to Plugin interaction. Also no Plugin to Behavior interaction, but Behavior to Plugin interaction is encouraged… whew."

Also further down on the site:

"Sorry Ashley, but this seems poor design architect..."

I stopped scrolling right there. I'm sure however that there is more hate on your blog/site cause there's lots of text. Why is it so hard for you fanboys to line up the flaws of C2 instead of burying them deep in your depression? Maybe Scirra will read your comments and fix some of the issues which irritates us all.

The touch control was just one small but still nonetheless an important example (I haven't come as far with C2 as some of you guys). Other people has mentioned local storage issues but also huge and serious performance issues on mobile units. And much more. And I'm thinking, really? Is this what I'm gonna buy? Aren't these all important and relevant questions? Including your C2 SDK issue?

And by the way, you're comparing the finances of the company you're working for with mine, as an individual?

I wouldn't go as far as calling C2 a toy, a lot of games on the market doesn't require a lot if more than what C2 can deliver. Why I wouldn't call it a toy, is because I have used it for a long time and you can make a lot of stuff in it. But where the biggest problem is with C2 in my opinion is, that its always a bit of a gamble when starting a new project. You have these ideas of how things should work, and initially it seems to not be a big problem, but then when you start and you get further and further into the project, things starts to pop up, lots of lacking features, features that seem half completed or just made to a bare minimum of what is needed to work or said in another way, lacking details that does drag C2 towards being more of a toy than a professional program. And in lots of cases these things can eventually make you drop your project because what you are trying to do is simply not supported by C2, even though it should be and there are no reason for it not to. In some cases features are already added to the program and can be accessed from some menus but not others.

So making any complicated things or even simple things, can turn into being very complicated and you quickly start realizing that you spend by far, the most time making weird workaround than developing you project. But all this does to some extent I think draw C2 towards being unprofessional and unreliable in the sense that you are never really sure, if it can do what you need and therefore towards being more of a toy, because you as user suddenly loose control of what you want to do, and C2 is directing what way things should be or not be in your project design. but to be a professional program, this should be kept to a minimum in my opinion, but at the moment I think its a bit off to be honest.

Even though I like all the updates that comes, I also think they are the cause for a lot of these issues. As new features get introduced it also means that old features doesn't really seems to be extended or completed to the point needed for them to give the impression of being completed, and therefore you have all these weird gaps all around C2, that in my opinion doesn't benefit it if they want it to appear more professional.

nimos100 - Some of the stuff you say are exactly how I feel and what I said in this thread.

I will still call C2 a overpriced, flawed and unfinished toy which overpromises and underdelivers. Trust me, I told myself early stage that if I managed to create my game I would instantly buy this tool. But instead after investing months of work and only see myself stumble non-stop on one obstacle after the never ending other, ruining motivation, inspiration, focus and flow. I'm just about to give up, looking for other tools at the moment.

The whole C2 experience in itself could be compared with a badly constructed game which ultimately makes you furious and... you get my point.

I agree that features seem to be added once and then rarely extended after bug fixes.

Kinematic bodies, anyone? Steam plugin?

That's not the same as the OP complaint about not understanding local storage or receiving advice on how to publish...

I agree that features seem to be added once and then rarely extended after bug fixes.

Kinematic bodies, anyone? Steam plugin?

That's not the same as the OP complaint about not understanding local storage or receiving advice on how to publish...

My post was not meant in a way that I agree with what the Mr. X wrote. Only a comment on his view on whether C2 could be seen as a toy. I like C2 a lot overall and use it more or less every day, and firmly hold the position that if something is broken or could be done better, then it should be changed or fixed for the better, and in cases where it is so needed that it could break projects, then I would probably go with supporting changing it anyway and just fix my project afterwards. However have never experienced any of my projects being broken by any changes made by Scirra so not to concerned about that and Ashley seems very careful about avoiding it whenever possible.

Obstacles and roadblocks are things you have to deal with in game development, or any other creative endevour for that matter. I don't see how working with C2 is any different?

Obstacles and roadblocks are things you have to deal with in game development, or any other creative endevour for that matter. I don't see how working with C2 is any different?

But I'm not talking about THOSE obstacles and roadblocks. I'm talking about the flaws of the tool itself, not the general challenges in making the game like how you need to figure out flow, logics and events etc. You know what I mean? Get the difference?

I know what you mean, I have implemented many features in my game that wasn't part of C2, there's a lot a little dedication and hard work can do.

Yes, I also have to agree with that features should be extended, not just added and bugfixed. However in my opinion this alone does not qualify C2 as a toy.

Is C2 an overpriced tool? Well, that is just ridiculous. Have you ever checked the other engines' prices?

GameMaker Professional costs 150$ and the cheapest export module for it (the HTML5 module) is 200$ more. If you go with the master collection, it's 800$.

Stencyl Indie is 100$ a year. To be able to export to more platforms, you'll need the Studio, which is 200$ a year.

ClickTeam Fusion is 100$ and around a 100$ more for each export module. The Developer edition is 400$.

The only considerable product on the visual programming market that is cheaper is GameSalad with 20$ and 30$ per month, and if you want a restricted software, go with it.

C2 gives you all the features for 130$. Forget about the business license for now. You won't get any new features with it. You only need it if you have more developers on your team who uses C2 or if you reach 5000$ in revenue. No always online stuff, you can use your license even offline and you'll get all future updates for free.

Obstacles and roadblocks are things you have to deal with in game development, or any other creative endevour for that matter. I don't see how working with C2 is any different?

Its not, however as a tool for developing games, the primary roadblocks for the users should be with your game design, how to make it work the way you want it, meaning skills, movement, balance, combat system etc. that's the purpose of C2. How to make it possible for the users to make it is the roadblocks and obstacles that Scirra's faces. That's what there program is all about.

Think that is a very important distinction to make, regardless of how you twist and turn it, you/we are the users and Scirra the developers. There are no reason as I see it to defend C2 in areas that clearly falls outside our area, but areas where something is said, for instant that C2 just can't do something or like some people complain about performance and blame C2, and then it turns out that they made some bad design, then C2 gets "defended" when it is pointed out what is wrong with there program.

GameMaker Professional costs 150$ and the cheapest export module for it (the HTML5 module) is 200$ more. If you go with the master collection, it's 800$.

You can't just compare these tools with each other based only on their price. I have no experience with GM but MAYBE, just maybe GM is... a finished product compared to C2?

Does anyone here know how GM handles the issues that C2 has, the issues we've discussed in this thread? Some examples:

* Performance on Android, iPhone.

* On-screen game controller.

* Plugins

* SDK

* Game data storage.

The way I see it, no tool is perfect, you have to beat it into submission in one way or the other. And I agree that C2 is not perfect, I'm just trying to see the silver lining through all this bitterness I've seen towards C2 not being a cookie-cutter program made for everyone and all (it isn't, it has limitations just like everything else). What I mean is that if there's a feature missing, make it yourself. For most programs I've used I have wanted to do a specific thing only to look it up and see that it isn't part of the suite, so I either change my design or try to find a way to bend the program to do what I need. It is very important to understand the scope of the suite you work with, never expect something of a program you use, always read the manual, do your homework and you'll spare yourself the heartache.

And if all else fail, learn to code and make it yourself.

Maybe I'm just easily impressed, I don't know. I think C2 works just fine for what you pay for it.

You can't just compare these tools with each other based only on their price.

I did not compare the tools based on their prices. I compared the prices of these tools based on their prices.

There are no reason as I see it to defend C2 in areas that clearly falls outside our area, but areas where something is said, for instant that C2 just can't do something or like some people complain about performance and blame C2, and then it turns out that they made some bad design, then C2 gets "defended" when it is pointed out what is wrong with there program.

We can gather quite a few issues about C2 yes. Should these issues be fixed by Scirra? Yes. Will the good hearted community defend it? Of yourse. They just love it (I do too). I can understand both sides (just not the "toy" and "overpriced" thing). I think that Scirra should put more effort on fixing these problems that the experienced developers point out. But keep in mind, that they're a small team and they also have to keep up adding new features because of their competitors. Not an easy task. For one, IMHO the best would be to set up a seperate page to collect the bug fixes and suggestions for the engine based on community posting / voting and drop this forum based bug reporting method (it works, but it's not so efficient). I think I already posted it before in an other topic.

Mobile support/performance can be bad on older devices, but I wouldn't really blame Scirra for that. AFAIK it's just that some parties were slow to properly start supporting HTML5/WebGL. On my Galaxy Note2, that's nearly 3 years old now, I can run my mobile game at 58-60 FPS. And that's with WebGL effects and particle effects.

Like said above, every competing engine also has their own limitations (and some of these engines cost a lot more). There's always the option to program your own engine, but that's something most indies don't have the skills or time for.