Club Penguin style game not for profit

Hi all,

Please note this is not a commercial venture. I do not want to recreate Club Penguin, Moshi Monsters etc and make millions: I'm just a dad trying a project with my kids <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> .

I'm a .Net developer by trade so am pretty proficient on the coding front but not familiar with game development sdks/engines. My kids have been asking if we can make a Club Penguin style game on a specific theme (guinea pigs!) and so the basic format would be:

• point and click to direct position of character
• character interaction with objects (pick up, drop, give, wear, take 'home' etc.)
• short animated sequences when using objects - e.g. feeding guinea pig, running in a wheel...
• ability to select core map and from there select different zones to move to
• preferable although likely to be the trickiest part: interaction with other guinea pigs (multi-player online) in form of simple conversations, item exchange

I'd just like to know if this is achievable using Construct 2, and if so, whether this sounds like a hugely complex or straightforward project. Alternatively, would anyone recommend a more suitable sdk to do this - GameMaker etc?

Thanks for reading and all constructive comments appreciated.

It all depends on if you want multiplayer. If not, you should have no problems building this in C2. If you do want it, you have a difficult road ahead.

Thanks. If I go the multiplayer online route, can anyone recommend a good entry point - either with Construct2 or another engine if more appropriate?

If I don't go the multiplayer route can anyone give some basic pointers on where to start / how they'd go about this?

If you want to go for the multiplayer route, I'd suggest going with another engine (Sorry, I don't know much about other engines, so I can't give a suggestion). I have not mucked around with multiplayer in C2 but I gather that non-realtime multiplayer might be possible, but realtime is out of the question. At least for the moment.

In regards to the second question, the best thing to do is start smaller. Follow the beginner's tutorials, read the manual, relevant tutorials, FAQ, and build up until you feel comfortable enough to build the game.

Hello fellow .net prisoner! What platforms are you looking to target? If it is just XBox and Desktop, XNA is still your #1 bet for your skill set and requirements for multiplayer. Azure makes a good target for a game master server. If you fancy yourself looking at mobile platforms more, you need to check out Unity3D. Ignore the 3D part... it can do 2D pretty well. The thing about unity, it uses C# for scripting. So you should be ready to go for that. Large learning curve on both. But it is worth it.

If you really like C2 as much as I do, you can try and make it work for multiplayer. It will be very tricky, and you will have to master jquery. But THEORETICALLY, you can have C2 call jquery functions to talk to you master server for multiplayer.

Hi - looking to target Desktop. XNA looks interesting but C2 looks like the tool of choice for quick wins which I think I'll need to keep the kids interested! I've also seen SmartFoxServer mentioned quite a bit on the MPORPG front.

I'll start small with the tutorials and keep it as single player to begin and see where we end up, but there's certainly plenty to think about if we progress...no doubt I'll be back with questions. Many thanks.