Construct 2 - Realistic State after 1 gazilion downloads

Ok, maybe I shouldn't give my 2cents right now, as I'm a real C2 newb. BUT my head being full of ideas, having enough programming knowledge to theoretically be able to finish a game in a 'normal' programming framework, I never was able to really finish a game. Why? Clustered and little free time (children... young children, etc..)

I actually finished an app with gamemaker years ago (the old version), but it was tedious and took me a realy long time.

Now with C2 I'm progressing at such a fast pace every day, like I never would have imagined. That's really really motivating. And it's by no mean simply drag&drop. No, I refactor every time a little milestone is reached.

So, in terms of getting things done C2 is a godsend for me.

That said, I know that I won't be able to do all types of games I would like, but that's ok, every tool has its defined purpose. That's why I learn Unity 3D, too. But it's 95% C2 and 5% Unity.

Of course, the main purpose for having bought C2 is being able to actually produce sellable games. And that's the little concern I have. Little, because I tested some Android and iOS games and they were working and mostly fun, with and without adds. So it's doable. The whole process could be more streamlined and dummie-safe, but when you rely on 2nd hand services it may cause grief, like cocoonjs does. Ashley was confident that they would prove to be an essential service, but helas, it didn't happen and everybody here feels let down.

What to do? Difficult. Concentrate on the base stuff of C2 and hope that very soon a working solution will emerge? I think that's what Ashley is actually doing right now. My idea (right or wrong) would be to help out an open-source solution like Ejecta. Maybe even paying someone from the Ejecta-Team, so to better influence the direction it's heading.

Whatever, I'm happy to see my game grow steadily and at good pace, so I'm confident to have it released this year.

I haven't encountered any deal-breaking show-stoppers inside C2 yet, so it can't be that bad

Hear Fimbul please. An IDE SDK should be the next priority, that would open doors for many cool IDE plugins, even some commercial, supported ones.

And, why the hell are you talking about Windows XP? o_o Bejesus, people only use that on their office networks, who are too lazy to update.

- I understand that youve got a lot experience. im shocking that these thoughts are from an experienced developer like you.Because experience means years and you are not a child to speak this way. What it means we pressure for mobile and you with your rights will pressure Ashley to NOT focus on mobile. Ashley is not a dog or a cat...He has his plan for what he will do. And for the moment he gave us many alternatives desktop,mobile,consoles and we are talking about our problems/our worries to find out where things will go.

In the end you bought c2 for a specific thing, others (like me) also bought it for html but mainly for mobiles. All have opinion there is no need to push someone.

Well everyone has opinions, sure. I'm not saying mobile users deserve nothing. You and I want different things, and it's ok.

I can understand if Ashley spends time creating a facebook/twitter plugin or looks for solutions to mobile-exclusive issues, even if I never use any of that. I understand. But it has to be done within reason.

If everyone starts chanting "mobile mobile mobile" and no one disagrees, Scirra might get the impression that everyone wants mobile stuff, and that is not the case, so I speak - this is what I mean by "pressuring" Ashley.

I want scirra to see that people like me, people who don't care about mobile, exist. And people like me would prefer if the desktop got a bit more attention.

Heck, the decision to support an open source solution like ejecta might even be a good choice! I can stand a few months of Ashley working on that, even though it won't benefit me. But spending the next few years working on native exporters? No way.

Still, I would expect HTML5 developers, by definition on the bleeding edge of tech, to not care about outdated/unsupported platforms.

Quite a few of us are only HTML 5 developers because we want to make games with C2 but have no other export options.

Why shouldn't the state of MMF be used as a baseline for comparison? You're well aware Ashley, or as he was known back then, Tigerworks, made construct due to dissatisfaction with clickteam's solutions. This is in part due to Ashley being a better developer, but the vast majority of it is due to learning from clickteam's mistakes!

You just described why the state of MMF shouldn't be used for comparison. Ashley has proven to consistently be a better developer with better design ideas. MMF has been stuck on legacy code and structure for ages and C2 was built properly without those problems. They're just too different to compare.

Hiring someone new doesn't change anything: that is one person that is sucking money from Scirra. That same person could be developing something else instead. It's as if you all think the editor is perfect already when it's far from it!

Someone's not 'sucking money from Scirra' if they are contributing to C2 and implementing features people want, even if you personally don't want them.

I don't think the editor is perfect, and I haven't gotten the impression that others arguing for native do either. I've stated repeatedly that if native exporters were to happen without hiring someone else, then they should be made later after the rest of the todo list is done.

Actually I can, and I just did. My personal grievances with Apple aside, the point is that you're always reliant own third parties

That... Doesn't make any sense. It sounds like you're calling iOS overpriced hype because we're reliant on apple, a third party, to develop iOS? We're even more reliant on microsoft for their development of windows. Not to mention...

And there's that "third parties are unreliable" issue again. Back when clickteam was developing the android exporter, they ran into some bug in the official Android SDK that prevented them from continuing. Chrome for windows 8 ARM still has many of it's capabilities artificially limited. JIT compilers for iOS are inaccessible, third parties cannot compile. Apple's software can, though, so it's not an engineering or technological problem. This goes to show that even when making native compilers, the list of possible problems with third parties is huge!

You're arguing FOR one of the main reasons to make native exporters - exporting HTML 5 only causes scirra to be much MORE reliant on third parties, and more third parties, rather than less!

I'm not saying making native exporters would be problem free, of course it wouldn't. However, as said, the jit compilers on iOS being inaccessible is one of the points that native would solve since we wouldn't have to use them at all.

Sticking to HTML5 has its cons, but at least there you know the issues will eventually be fixed, since you have giant players throwing their weight behind HTML5's success.

That's still relying on third parties to fix them. Besides, how do you know that they'll be fixed? Because they're large companies? Google just discontinued support for hardware acceleration on XP and vista. I know you don't care about it, but a lot of the rest of us do. Who's to say they won't make some other decision that significantly impacts us? As you stated, apple doesn't let anyone compile JavaScript except for themselves. They've had this stance for years. What makes you think they'll change that stance? I'm very grateful to intel for making node webkit and crosswalk, as well as them making it free, but what if they change their minds? What if ludei changes course and decides to become a publisher or makes some other decision that ends their service for getting HTML 5 games on iOS? What if they desire to use an exorbitant pricing structure that most of us can't afford? What if they never manage to get their platform working properly for everyone? Guess what happens - our only option is to switch over to another third party - if there even is one - and hope they do better.

By making native, we rely on third parties far, far less than sticking with HTML 5, where every single device C2 exports to is more dependent on third parties than if it was native.

Example dependencies:

Native windows desktop: Microsoft.

HTML 5 desktop: Microsoft, google, intel. Possibly others, I'm not sure who else is involved (node.js, webkit, etc).

Native iOS: apple.

HTML 5 iOS: apple and ludei or intel.

It's like this everywhere, and not only does HTML 5 require support of a company's operating system, but it also requires that company to additionally properly support HTML 5 in a way that is sufficient for us making games (for example - sony. Ps4. Gaming machine. Yet C2 games run terribly on its browser).

Why do you think Ashley's solutions would be better than existing solutions?

I've already explained that in my previous posts. Another point I didn't mention is they did quite a good job on construct classic's runtime, and that was their first attempt. I imagine a 2.0 would be even better, same as how C2 is better than CC.

can you imagine the waste it would be if we had a native blackberry exporter? Symbian? Tizen? XNA? Ouya? Windows Mobile? Ubuntu touch? Palm OS? Bada?

It's pretty obvious which platforms are the successful ones by now. Native could be made for the major players, and HTML 5 would still exist for the rest. A native exporter would not have to be made until a platform had proven itself.

Keep in mind I'm talking about the IDE only, not the engine powering the games or the exporter. The most complicated parts are the event editor, the image editor, and the saving/loading of it all into XML. Sounds like, at most, a few months work to convert, though only Ashley can say with any certainty.

I'm doubtful the IDE could be easily decoupled from the exporter engine and such (and besides, what would be the point then if you had to bring it back from the web to desktop to export?), but because neither of us know the specifics of how C2 works behind the scenes it's pointless to speculate.

If you guys want to pressure Ashley to focus on mobile exporters, then I am within my rights as a buyer to pressure Ashley to NOT focus on mobile and keep his current strategy of a pure-HTML5 product. When this product started (and when I purchased my license) it was all about the desktop, so when business decisions start impacting the quality for me (and make no mistake, if Ashley were to focus on native exporters, the desktop side would suffer), I have to speak.

You have a lot of opinions about how what you want is whant really matters which largely makes those opinions irrelevant to many C2 users. I don't want to pressure Ashley into doing anything other than what C2 claims it can do, regardless of my own uses for it. If he doesn't have the team size to support those things maybe it would behoove Scirra to stop implying those things are supported. C2 and mobile is not ready, and the fact that there isn't a huge 'Beta' or even 'Alpha' tag when they advertise that means that Scirra is misleading us. Scirra can't have it both ways, where they tell paying customers their product can do something but it really can't. They should support both mobile and desktop because that's what they claim. They should not support only desktop but proceed to collect money from mobile game designers by promising a mobile game design product and then funneling that into only improving desktop game quality while mobile game quality is, at this point, unworkable in most cases.

You're thinking about this only from Scirra's perspective and your own perspective, but not from the perspective of small design teams with small budgets who blow their budget on C2 due to misleading promises of mobile support only to find that they can't actually make their games. C2 is not CC, where Ashley is making it for free. Ashley is selling us a product and making claims about that product. The options are to either stop making those claims or to fulfill those claims for all customers. Anything else is not acceptable, nor do you get special preference because C2 originally started with desktop support.

Steam stats say XP usage is around 10%, and steam's demographic is the same as the one you're probably aiming for. XP usage stats are

If you believe that 17.5% of the market is Russian, then maybe you should learn to speak the language.

Juryiel

"The options are to either stop making those claims or to fulfill those claims for all customers."

+1

so it should be:

Android*

iOS**

* - via beta Crosswalk

** - via CocoonJS, small games***

*** - games with large memory use can cause "force close" on devices with too less memory (512 MB Ram: iPhone 4, iPod Touch, old iPad)

Arima:

You just described why the state of MMF shouldn't be used for comparison. Ashley has proven to consistently be a better developer with better design ideas. MMF has been stuck on legacy code and structure for ages and C2 was built properly without those problems. They're just too different to compare.

nd clickteam has many developers, and had many others in the past. Like it or not, they were pioneers. Sure, they could've ditched old structures long ago, but saying Ashley has better design ideas is telling only part of the story. Construct is the superior product, sure, but it wouldn't exist if it weren't for clickteam.

In addition, you're suggesting we forego the only baseline we have available to compare! Yes there are products that have successfully implemented the exporter strategy - unity comes to mind - but why are those better as comparison models?

Someone's not 'sucking money from Scirra' if they are contributing to C2 and implementing features people want, even if you personally don't want them.

wasn't very clear, sorry. I meant that a new employee is using resources regardless of what they're working on. I would rather have a new hire working on features that benefit everyone.

I don't think the editor is perfect, and I haven't gotten the impression that others arguing for native do either. I've stated repeatedly that if native exporters were to happen without hiring someone else, then they should be made later after the rest of the todo list is done.

he todo list will never be "done". What I wanted to say is that it seems like people want the exporters now, which in my mind implies - mobile issues asside - that they'd be happy if the software stayed the way it is now for a few more years

That... Doesn't make any sense. It sounds like you're calling iOS overpriced hype because we're reliant on apple, a third party, to develop iOS? We're even more reliant on microsoft for their development of windows. Not to mention...

don't like apple - maybe our cultural differences are making this feeling hard to understand - in my country, an iPhone 5s costs the equivalent to $4500 (adjusted for GDP per capita) so maybe now you can understand why I think it's overpriced hype (in the US it costs $800). I think they provide one of the worse environments for developers. Microsoft sucks as well. HTML5 at least is stable, in that there's less of a risk it will be discontinued, like both Apple and Microsoft have done time and again.

You're arguing FOR one of the main reasons to make native exporters - exporting HTML 5 only causes scirra to be much MORE reliant on third parties, and more third parties, rather than less!

disagree. With HTML5 you're reliant on a single technology stack. The responsibility for complying with the standards lie with the vendors. And that's not even counting the ease of use of the APIs, the many frameworks/OSS solutions and the community - an esoteric bug with HTML5 is more likely to have a solution or workaround than an esoteric bug with Android/iOS/WP8/etc.

I'm not saying making native exporters would be problem free, of course it wouldn't. However, as said, the jit compilers on iOS being inaccessible is one of the points that native would solve since we wouldn't have to use them at all..

nd I think it would only compound the problems. Just go to any forum for a product that offers exporters: the vast majority of posts are either complaints about lack of functionality or complaints about bugs.

That's still relying on third parties to fix them. Besides, how do you know that they'll be fixed? Because they're large companies?

The chances of something being fixed are better if you're not the only one experiencing the issue. I doubt XNA would've been abandoned if it were the primary mean of developing for the XBOX.

As you stated, apple doesn't let anyone compile JavaScript except for themselves. They've had this stance for years. What makes you think they'll change that stance? I'm very grateful to intel for making node webkit and crosswalk, as well as them making it free, but what if they change their minds? What if ludei changes course and decides to become a publisher or makes some other decision that ends their service for getting HTML 5 games on iOS? What if they desire to use an exorbitant pricing structure that most of us can't afford? What if they never manage to get their platform working properly for everyone? Guess what happens - our only option is to switch over to another third party - if there even is one - and hope they do better.

ecause if you're using a widely adopted tech, there's always someone you can run to if your current vendor doesn't work (see phonegap). If Apple wasn't considered a status symbol, I bet they would've gone the way of the blackberry.

By making native, we rely on third parties far, far less than sticking with HTML 5, where every single device C2 exports to is more dependent on third parties than if it was native.

aybe, but you'll also have less leverage if you need something changed or fixed.

It's pretty obvious which platforms are the successful ones by now. Native could be made for the major players, and HTML 5 would still exist for the rest. A native exporter would not have to be made until a platform had proven itself.

s time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to make money on app stores. If you catch the early boom, money comes much more easily, which means you'd have to figure out whose phone/os is going to be the next big thing. You also have to factor in the time it takes for you to create a working exporter, as well as a feature-complete exporter. Also the time it takes for a developer to create their game on said exporter. And that's not even counting the fact that versions change and SDKs break. By the time you're finished, what guarantee do you have that the platform will still be financially viable? It's a risk you have to take. It's a risk clickteam took, and they've been bitten in the ass for it many many times.

... and besides, what would be the point then if you had to bring it back from the web to desktop to export?...

'm not talking about turning C2 into a web app. I'm talking about rebuilding the IDE in javascript while retaining it's status as a desktop software, downloads and all. See the brackets editor for an example.

Juryiel:

If he doesn't have the team size to support those things maybe it would behoove Scirra to stop implying those things are supported. C2 and mobile is not ready, and the fact that there isn't a huge 'Beta' or even 'Alpha' tag when they advertise that means that Scirra is misleading us.

I wouldn't use the word misleading, as that implies malice, but yes, I agree. Maybe Scirra should clarify that exporting to mobile is quite finicky, especially on anything older than a top-of-the-line smartphone.

You're thinking about this only from Scirra's perspective and your own perspective, but not from the perspective of small design teams with small budgets

...

nor do you get special preference because C2 originally started with desktop support.

hoah, it's not like that! If I really cared only about myself, I would be pressuring Scirra to add more application-making features, since that's my primary source of income.

What I'm advocating are features that help EVERYONE, not just mobile users:

• Better/more integrated tilemap object
• more/better modularity features such as widgets and nested objects
• ability to run construct apps without draw calls - for server-side programming in multiplayer, so you won't have to code your server in a different language - this would make small MMOs possible within construct, for instance.
• better ajax support
• collaborative design capabilities (two people working simultaneously on the same game)
• an IDE SDK
• converting the editor to open web tech and opening it's source code (for the IDE only, again I'm not talking about the game engine or the exporter)
• who knows, maybe even an exporter SDK, so people like

  tomsstudio can try making their own native exporters

—:

If you believe that 17.5% of the market is Russian, then maybe you should learn to speak the language.

ou want to convince me that localizing games to Russian is a good idea? I'm convinced. Hey, maybe learning Russian isn't so bad either.

Whoah, it's not like that! If I really cared only about myself, I would be pressuring Scirra to add more application-making features, since that's my primary source of income.

What I'm advocating are features that help EVERYONE, not just mobile users:

• Better/more integrated tilemap object
• more/better modularity features such as widgets and nested objects
• ability to run construct apps without draw calls - for server-side programming in multiplayer, so you won't have to code your server in a different language - this would make small MMOs possible within construct, for instance.
• better ajax support
• collaborative design capabilities (two people working simultaneously on the same game)
• an IDE SDK
• converting the editor to open web tech and opening it's source code (for the IDE only, again I'm not talking about the game engine or the exporter)
• who knows, maybe even an exporter SDK, so people like

  tomsstudio can try making their own native exporters

But how are these features useful to everyone? I've already completed both a game AND its sequel (by completed I mean they work on desktop) but I've been sitting on them for a while now because mobile export is not working well. How exactly does anything on your list help me or others like me? The issue is, all the things you ask for are extras in the face of basic functionality lacking from mobile users especially on iOS. Those things are all good, but before they become useful to me in any way I need to first be able to reliably export my games to my target platforms.

As far as whether what Scirra is doing is 'malicious', I'm not sure if that's how I would describe it, but it is certainly willful. They are aware of the state of mobile games with C2, yet rather than making it clear they choose to only say positive things about it. My guess is because doing otherwise will cost them customers. So it is clearly willfully misleading.

I've already completed both a game AND its sequel ... I need to first be able to reliably export my games to my target platforms.

Scirra ... are aware of the state of mobile games with C2 ...So it is clearly willfully misleading.

Yes, the current state of mobile games with C2 is bad, I'm not denying it. But exporters don't help you either! Making feature-compatible native exporters for android AND iOS would take a long time, so you would have to seat on your games for at least another few years! Also, by the time those years pass, the devices in the market will already be powerful enough to run your games, so the exporter would probably be redundant.

Now, I'm assuming you already tried to optimize your game and even sent a capx to Ashley for guidance, and those things didn't work. If so, right now your best bet is to hope intel exporter works better, or that C2 integrates with Ejecta, and that ejecta somehow solves your problems.

There are no quick solutions to your problem. You are right to be angry that mobile sucks (but to be honest, threads complaining about performance are nothing new, why did you insist on making mobile games when the whole board consistently complains that mobile is broken?)

> I've already completed both a game AND its sequel ... I need to first be able to reliably export my games to my target platforms.

>

> Scirra ... are aware of the state of mobile games with C2 ...So it is clearly willfully misleading.

>

Yes, the current state of mobile games with C2 is bad, I'm not denying it. But exporters don't help you either! Making feature-compatible native exporters for android AND iOS would take a long time, so you would have to seat on your games for at least another few years! Also, by the time those years pass, the devices in the market will already be powerful enough to run your games, so the exporter would probably be redundant.

Now, I'm assuming you already tried to optimize your game and even sent a capx to Ashley for guidance, and those things didn't work. If so, right now your best bet is to hope intel exporter works better, or that C2 integrates with Ejecta, and that ejecta somehow solves your problems.

There are no quick solutions to your problem. You are right to be angry that mobile sucks (but to be honest, threads complaining about performance are nothing new, why did you insist on making mobile games when the whole board consistently complains that mobile is broken?)

I'm still finding workarounds to things to get my game to work and have largely moved on to my larger Unity project until an undetermined time, for now. The particular game is not the issue because these are small autorunner test games mostly based on the autorunner template and therefore SHOULD work (but don't) since the meat of the games is mostly made by Scirra themselves. The problem is, if I can't get these games to work right there is no way I can get a larger project to work right. In essence, these test-games demonstrate that C2 is useless to me for putting out games right now so I do not invest more time with it at the moment. I understand that there are no quick solutions, but I disagree with the problem. I think the problem is one of 1st vs 3rd party. The problem is that scirra doesn't control their own exporters, so no matter what the quality of their product as far as C2 goes, the resulting game quality depends on other parties, and many of those parties don't care about my game because I am not their main target customer (e.g. Ludei). So I think 1st party solutions are necessary, even if it takes long, effort has to be started sometime, or if not, at least official partnerships between Scirra and third parties have to happen. Scirra has to do something to ensure quality since they are the only party who has any responsibility towards me (as I am their direct customer, I am not google Chrome's customer). If it's not started now we'll be in the same boat a year from now.

The reason I insisted on mobile is for a few reasons. CC is good for desktop, I don't need to use anything else. If I want something more than CC, there is Unity. The fact that CC exists largely allows me to not care too much about the money I spent on C2, I try to think of it instead more as a donation toward CC, which deserves it. Another reason for mobile is that I had tried CC and seen that Ashley is a great developer and very knowledgeable. His expertise gave his defense of C2's state more weight in my eyes rather than other users who complained. People complain all the time for all sorts of things, and it's hard to know if those complaints are valid, especially when Ashley, whose work and knowledge is proven to me, posts disagreements about how things are the users' fault. He's been getting a lot of push lately so he's been more willing to admit shortcomings especially in this high profile thread, but that was not the case for a while. The third reason is largely, again, because I trusted the people behind Scirra, I gave their 'sales pitch' page more trust than I guess I should have had. I should, in retrospect, have done more homework. Unfortunately that was not possible because mobile export is not testable on the free version. I think in retrospect, given my bias to trust Ashley's expertise, I think the only thing that would have convinced me that the users were right and Ashley was just overselling the state of mobile would have been those videos Arima posted earlier comparing C2's performance. It's a shame I didn't find those ahead of time.

In any case I don't see why it matters. Clearly many mobile users seem to agree that they were mislead about C2 capabilities and that should be enough to conclude that it was not somehow just me misinterpreting the message Scirra was putting out. Therefore my specific reasons for picking up C2 for mobile development are not relevant.

in the end i think that i will be using C2 for quick prototyping and keep on developing the actual games natively, as i can't keep waiting a year or 2 for the android & ios wrappers to support monetization & game center, etc...

This is by no means bragging, but I've sold three non-exclusive licenses for three of my games for a total of $1,500 last year. I paid about $125 for my personal license. So, I feel pretty good about that. This doesn't invalid anyone's comments above and everyone is entitled to their opinions and views, but from my perspective, I'm very happy with my Construct 2 license purchase and look forward to making more money.

I'm currently creating my Redacted game series for Google Play, releasing my first two games for free and hoping to sell my third game. I am using Construct 2 and building Android APK with XDK. After getting the kinks worked out, I feel like this is a good combination, and it will meet my needs for the foreseeable future.

— well done my friend. I want to ask you something. Where you sold it?Cause i just saw a site called marketJS and i find it interresting.Or somewhere else?Can you give me a guide?It will be very helpfull.

And something else, i am a little curious. have you a link of your games?thanks in advance if you want send me a pm.wish you best of luck , creativity and success

— well done for generating some profits out of your hard work. How can you sell non-exclusive licence for a game? does this mean that you sell the rights to someone to sell the game AS IS in his own name, whilst you continue to sell it yourself?