Construct 2 - Realistic State after 1 gazilion downloads

Why should they refund it? Its not like you can't try it out before you buy it.

Just saying he should compare the other options, which coincidentally usually must be purchased before use.

You cannot try out before you buy it.

Only with a license you have the option to export for mobile inside c2.

I am at the same disappointing level as many of you here and maybe more.

Ashley

A game engine what needs GOOD,polished, published games to relay on advertise and grow. (there are some? 2-3)

Polished games need a way to be made (done and great),

a way to be exported ( mmm not so much)

and finally the people to make them (you start loosing them, eventually everyone will cross the hobbyist line and jump over to another engine)

so why scirra doesn't listen to us ?

i feel helpless here ( I am a visual disigner and I have 2 finished games in a Really great quality, not published a screenshot yet due to the lack of the tool i chose (or the export options don't eat me it was my choice either way))

Arima which quote?

Yeah the second is a bit calloused, I admit that, but I stand by the first.

You should be out there trying other products, finding what works for you.

Or at least finding things you would like to see in C2.

mrnannings

That's not a very good argument as most of the mobiles that can play the game have browsers that play the game, and offer even more features.

Maybe Ashley could look into something like Ejecta (since it's open source):

http://impactjs.com/ejecta

Ejecta is like a Browser without the Browser. It's specially crafted for Games and Animations. It has no DIVs, no Tables, no Forms – only Canvas and Audio elements. This focus makes it fast.

JavaScript code is executed directly by a JavaScript VM (JavaScriptCore), the HTML5 Canvas 2D and WebGL API is implemented in native code with OpenGL, Audio is implemented with OpenAL. Several other APIs (touch, accelerometer, localStorage) behave like those in a real browser.
Many HTML5 Games run out of the box, or with minimal modifications – with better performance, better sound support, Game Center integration and more.
[/code:1idaxfyk]

and incorporate it to Construct 2, so we don't need to rely on 3rd party exporter anymore ?

Arima which quote?

Yeah the second is a bit calloused, I admit that, but I stand by the first.

You should be out there trying other products, finding what works for you.

Or at least finding things you would like to see in C2.

mrnannings

That's not a very good argument as most of the mobiles that can play the game have browsers that play the game, and offer even more features.

Great, I already own gamemaker but I will go ahead and purchase the game maker exporter to android to try it out. You cover the $100+ I spent on C2, and I'll cover the other $100. Let me know your preferred method of payment so that I can implement your extremely useful suggestion.

The browsers over WIFI don't work the same as exporters. My game right now doesn't work at all on Crosswalk, runs ok but slow in Chrome mobile. Look if you're not having problems that's great, but telling people who are having problems that they are in fact not having problems, and that they should throw money which they gather from local trees to try other engines' exporters is just not productive.

newt - I was responding to both. I guess my response "If a lot of people are complaining about something, then it's likely a real problem" should have been just to the second quote.

I also stand by my response that the 'if you don't like it, look elsewhere' mindset is detrimental to scirra's success, and constructive criticism of C2 should not be discouraged. We've allowed and encouraged honest discussion of construct in the past when it was still in early development, and we should continue that now that it is more complete. Honest discussion of a product's flaws helps bring awareness to scirra how to improve the product based upon the customer's needs. That process has helped make c2 as great as it is.

I mean, look at the people who have said these problems are causing them to look elsewhere. That means less business for scirra. It's a issue of real importance to scirra's customers and potential customers which directly affects scirra's business, so should be discussed. C2 is great, but that doesn't mean it can't be even better.

Gonna have to agree with a majority of the posts here. Construct is an awesome tool and there are so many things like like about it, but the fact that Cocoon.js is our only somewhat stable option by now is sad. I tried for about a month to work with cocoon.js on different hardware but results were not satisfactory. I even tried developing my own accelerated chrome view project so I could achieve what I wanted.

Eventually I gave up and fled to another product (one that I am sure Construct got influence from, if not directly took the concepts from) and I purchased the Android/iOS exporter. Games run great, files are small (under 2mb). No funky wraper to deal with, access to the mobile OS features. I'm afraid Construct 2 is shelved for me as of now. I will continue to check up and see what improvements come of it in hopes that one day I can return to C2 for a serious project without having to jump through hoops.

Sorry, but flash???

Flash is the bi-word of cheap small 2 minute games. Personally, if it says flash, I won't even bother playing it, because I know it's just a 2 minute cheap boredom occupier.

hmm?

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ironhid ... -frontiers (this one can be done with C2 too, tho i doubt will have half of the performance on standard systems)

http://www.kongregate.com/games/ConArti ... -dead-zone (shockwave flash, of course its 3d...) and multiplayer... So play more flash games before confusing stuff.

just a few quick example, flash have the possibility to make much more complex games, due to performance and tools. I cant blame scirra for that, it takes time, but just give me the tools and support to make the small games you tell i can, as polished its possible.

Not like now where on Android, Amazon and Samsung i have to remove music because otherwise it will crash on resume/lock.

On web html 5, i can go as further the engine can hold and the technology, which is not a lot i can tell you by now, but at least you can use everything available, and make small little games.

On mobile html 5, omg there you can make games from 30 years ago, more than that it wont work. I cant blame Scirra much here, its the browser, the young tech and so on.

I cant make medium games(as in more complexity than a platform/puzzle/runner), because there is no performance to sustain them, and on mobile its not even possible with the exporters available and so on.

What i dont like is fake advertising and features. Just check home page:

Make games for...

Web (HTML5) - yes you can html 5 web works, small games, but it works as it advertised

Wii U - lol 5k dev kit, and no support right, ill jump in right now

iOS - You can with Cocoon JS or Ejecta(all third pary), if u hit a wall good luck with the support.

Android - Use a third party early compiller for poor performance, no portrait/landscape lock, no support, still it might be the best option in the future or use cocoon js, but no music, high loading times and poor support, good performance tho.

Windows 8 & RT Windows Phone 8 - will try no ideea, how bugged it is

Windows Desktop Mac Desktop Linux Desktop - we screamed for this for months, eventualy we got a node kit wrapper, better than nothing, dont expect high performance on complex games.

Amazon and Samsung - app will get reject because of low performance, or because it crashes because you have music.

Saying this, C2 could potentially benefit from having more than just one person working on it. C2 looks as if it's struggling with the concept of advancing from a hobby, to becoming a significant product in the marketplace. Simply put, C2 does need to make this step, else all it'd take is for something to come along that more friendly than YoYo, and it'll be dream over.

Yeah i agree, thats my frustration, its interesting engine, i dont care about HTML 5 crap, it helps to put online demos, thats nice, but i like the workflow and how easy is to use for smallish games. But i am in to make games and eventually some income to keep me making games, but if this means knocking on doors Ashley sends me to, i dont see it working for long. I actually published games on google play, web, amazon and ios, so i got a little experience with whats goin down and for me is a little frustrating, we are not in 2012 anymore to live on promises.

I've turned my head away from mobile development for now with C2.

I started a brand new project to enter into the Tizen competition. It was a low-graphic platformer game split into somewhat small layouts with physics. I'm very confident with optimizing events and know which events would be more detrimental to performance and to order events and everything, but when I got round to discovering the Tizen emulators, I tested it out and found the FPS was at 10-15fps. I designed the game in mind to be low-quality and not have much media (not many sprites, ect) but I got a low FPS on a device that supports native HTML5. I think it may have been to do with the Physics objects so take what I've said with a grain of salt, but I'd only have less than 50 physics objects, not all would be active at once either. But yes, I never intended to do mobile games anyway, but after making a super simple game that didn't even look too pretty wasn't performing well on mobile, I've given up for mobile.

However, Node-webkit is a godsend and this is what I primarily wanted to use C2 for in the first place! Whilst I'm aware people are asking for native mobile compilers, I think I speak for everyone when I say that Node-Webkit is literally perfect (aside from when Chromium ends up updating with really stupid things ¬.¬ ) and if C2 was to make Native exporters, then Win/Mac/Linux wouldn't need to have one (Unless ofcourse there was a massive performance boost somehow ).

I've begun making a more detailed game with lots of WebGL effects and more physics objects and lots of customisable equipment for multiple characters that can be onscreen at the same time, and the game would run at 60fps on an old dual core with intergrated graphics (AS LONG AS THE GAME IS DESIGNED CORRECTLY, certain options need to be done, including setting the "Fullscreen Scaling" property in the project's settings to "Low Quality" and changing the canvas size + zoom in/out depending on if the player has chosen to have "Low Graphics" mode in the options menu. Without doing these extra things, the framerate would be 25fps or less. )

But again, old laptops are getting playable speeds on a pretty, sprite-littered, WebGL-ridden game. C2 is phenomenally brilliant for Desktop games!

The only bad thing about Desktop that I can think of at this moment, is the files that contain your exported game are far too easy to extract and I feel it needs at least some form of low-level encryption. I totally get that if someone wanted to extract protected files from a game, they'd find a way, therefore this doesn't really affect me, but I could see this becoming a problem in the future, allowing people to blatantly and easily spoil the game or spoil in-game secrets, especially since the filenames are named after the Sprites name in the editor (iirc).

I'd see myself turning back to mobile if I see others are really happy with whatever exporter (XDK looks hopeful!)

I desperately want Construct 2 be able to export quality mobile titles with great polish and performance so we can produce games that people will actually love to play!!

That's why I bought C2 in the first place, that's what I still want from this software.

Thanks for participating with constructive posts — Like i said i like the engine otherwise i would just hop into GM or Unity, but i am a little disappointed after 2 years, about performance and exporters. Yes, the performance of the engine has been improved, but this reliance on 3rd party tools its annoying and not reliable. Even click team has now flash and html 5 export with pretty good performance. And now i see multiplayer on the table, did any of these people even published a game on web, mobiles to that has more than 10 objects on screen and not a static scene? Before i made my games, i checked the others and almost all were very simple games, and even those had their problems.

Anyway i just hope things will improve i still have hope, but after 1 year and half i dont know... Like i said, ill make 2-4 small games, maybe even jump into html 5 cash grab, and see whats updated in the mean time.

Also Arima you shoot yourself in the foot by using this engine to make a medium-ish game from the start.I dont think its possible, on mobile its clearly not, on web maybe, but not sure how it will work on standard laptops/pcs.

I've turned my head away from mobile development for now with C2.

I started a brand new project to enter into the Tizen competition. It was a low-graphic platformer game split into somewhat small layouts with physics. I'm very confident with optimizing events and know which events would be more detrimental to performance and to order events and everything, but when I got round to discovering the Tizen emulators, I tested it out and found the FPS was at 10-15fps. I designed the game in mind to be low-quality and not have much media (not many sprites, ect) but I got a low FPS on a device that supports native HTML5. I think it may have been to do with the Physics objects so take what I've said with a grain of salt, but I'd only have less than 50 physics objects, not all would be active at once either. But yes, I never intended to do mobile games anyway, but after making a super simple game that didn't even look too pretty wasn't performing well on mobile, I've given up for mobile.

However, Node-webkit is a godsend and this is what I primarily wanted to use C2 for in the first place! Whilst I'm aware people are asking for native mobile compilers, I think I speak for everyone when I say that Node-Webkit is literally perfect (aside from when Chromium ends up updating with really stupid things ¬.¬ ) and if C2 was to make Native exporters, then Win/Mac/Linux wouldn't need to have one (Unless ofcourse there was a massive performance boost somehow ).

I've begun making a more detailed game with lots of WebGL effects and more physics objects and lots of customisable equipment for multiple characters that can be onscreen at the same time, and the game would run at 60fps on an old dual core with intergrated graphics (AS LONG AS THE GAME IS DESIGNED CORRECTLY, certain options need to be done, including setting the "Fullscreen Scaling" property in the project's settings to "Low Quality" and changing the canvas size + zoom in/out depending on if the player has chosen to have "Low Graphics" mode in the options menu. Without doing these extra things, the framerate would be 25fps or less. )

But again, old laptops are getting playable speeds on a pretty, sprite-littered, WebGL-ridden game. C2 is phenomenally brilliant for Desktop games!

The only bad thing about Desktop that I can think of at this moment, is the files that contain your exported game are far too easy to extract and I feel it needs at least some form of low-level encryption. I totally get that if someone wanted to extract protected files from a game, they'd find a way, therefore this doesn't really affect me, but I could see this becoming a problem in the future, allowing people to blatantly and easily spoil the game or spoil in-game secrets, especially since the filenames are named after the Sprites name in the editor (iirc).

I'd see myself turning back to mobile if I see others are really happy with whatever exporter (XDK looks hopeful!)

Thats good news with node kit, i haven't resumed my work on my medium project since i need more budget for graphics, so i started making small mobile and web games, to test the market.

You can protect your files, there are few plugins, packers, search on forum, i found a similar topic here or on google, about this. Cant remember now sorry, but you can.

Mobile at the moment are for very simple games, no audio music(if you use that it will make ur app crash on resume/lock), i am scared to even try the physics, ill do that in my next game.

The only bad thing about Desktop that I can think of at this moment, is the files that contain your exported game are far too easy to extract and I feel it needs at least some form of low-level encryption. I totally get that if someone wanted to extract protected files from a game, they'd find a way, therefore this doesn't really affect me, but I could see this becoming a problem in the future, allowing people to blatantly and easily spoil the game or spoil in-game secrets, especially since the filenames are named after the Sprites name in the editor

That was my point on other thread... I found a way to get all data into one encrypted exe file but it's not a perfect solution - if you have a very large game you will end up with one huge exe file (which I don't trust and don't know how it will behave) - without a way to split data into few separate parts.

Also Arima you shoot yourself in the foot by using this engine to make a medium-ish game from the start.I dont think its possible, on mobile its clearly not, on web maybe, but not sure how it will work on standard laptops/pcs.

It's entirely possible with node webkit, as has been demonstrated by games like airscape, our darker purpose, the next Penelope and others as well as my own tests. The downsides are still there though like potential long loading times and no hardware acceleration on XP/vista.

Just about every point made in this thread is why I made the decision to switch to Unity full-time. I love the idea of Construct 2, but real world results are what matter. For me, C2 isn't meeting my needs (though, native support and a few other common requests would tip the scales a little bit...)

I understand the vision of a world purely run by HTML5, but the future is not the present. Windows Store games made with Construct 2 having "stutter" issues even on my Surface Pro isn't all that acceptable.

My two cents anyway..