In defense of Construct 2

ok, after starting to make the game i was making in C2 in Unity, the idea that Unity is superior to C2 in all aspects got demolished really fast

now, dont get me wrong, Unity is very powerful, and in general is superior to C2, but there are somethings about Unity that i need to facepalm about, because somethings Unity are overly complicated, at least for 2D, i would say, Unity is still on its infancy, examples?

1. you cant change the origin of objects.

2. the scene view makes it really akward to set objects, in C2 the way you can lock objects in a grid make it really easy to set them in place, in Unity not so much

3. Unity has not way to produce the same effect that TiledBackgrounds offers, the most useful tool in C2 in my opinion, the only way to have tiling sprites in Unity is using Tilemaps, wich i hate

so yeah, i must say it, C2 is the superior 2D engine, every second im working with Unity im saying in my head "god in C2 making this would be so much faster and better"

if only, IF ONLY C2 would not have the problems of reliying on 3rd party exporters, had better performance, and was able to make game for Playstation and Xbox, C2 would be the holy grail of engines for 2D.

the eventsheet system and the editor are almost perfect, with the exception of the porject explorer wich i hate.

i will keep learning Unity, but i still dont trow away C2 as an option to make my games, until Unity gets better at 2D, C2 it will be the better option for me.

what are you expiriences or toughts about this?

I hear you! I stopped my Umbra_Unity distraction a couple of months ago when I realized how complicated it was going to be just to do anything - progression would be really, painfully slow. And I too decided it would not be worth the effort, even though some features in Unity are really powerful. Problems like, as you say, no facility to make an image into a tiledbackground (!). If you don't mind writing a couple of pages of code then it's easy to work around... but that only applies if you find code-writing to be easy.

I have my fingers crossed for the front to back renderer in c2 (it currently has some bugs, but what I got to work had zero jank in chrome ) and the potential for native export with W10 just around the corner - things are certainly looking up for desktop. No Mac/Linux export that won't be reliant on NW - but how many game buyers use those platforms anyway? If you want to make a good game for mobile then I think c2 will never be able to compete - if you want to use physics or lots of moving AI driven objects.

Eh. Unity is astronomically more powerful than Construct will ever be. Thing is, when people say it's great for hobbyists/indies, they still mean ones with extensive histories with coding and game development.

My only gripe with it is the workflow..at least for 2D/retro games. It's absolutely ridiculous how much work and knowledge of the engine it takes just to create, say, an animated sprite character, or a working tilemap system, or custom platform behaviors/controllers. Even if you know what you're doing, you'll spend 10x longer doing it in Unity than C2.

But yeah...if C3 had Unity's exporting capabilities, it'd probably wipe everything else off the market. Shame.

Dito on the above post. But I would add that It takes alot longer to get comfy with unity, but it is more powerful. by a long shot. And to be honest it is more flexible too, but you have to know how to code. You have to understand that what makes construct "easier" is that some of the things needed in a 2d game are already taken care of. But if you are in the habit of writing all your own plugins and behaviors anyway... unity is far better, and is much more extensable than construct. Contruct was made to be fast and easy to make games for those who can't or won't code. Unfortunately, much of the way contruct operates makes assumptions about what the game dev needs. I find those assumptions to be uninspiring and somewhat limiting. Based on a number of conversations with ashley, I feel construct is developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. And for something that is supposed to be easy for all, that makes sense. But it makes it hard to make unique, innovative games in the best of circumstances /:

My main project is in unity, my prototypes are in construct.

If Microsoft can keep their promise of Xbox One will possibly run Windows 10 apps from the Store, then you may see your C2 game running on the One, if the upcoming exporter will support it.

Won't code.

Btw, no offense to Scirra, but if you don't demand the exporter sdk you won't get one.

Just know a third party making an exporter will probably cost extra, and Ashley won't commit to an official one.

Not to mention that a new exporter means new plugs.

Contruct was made to be fast and easy to make games for those who can't or won't code. Unfortunately, much of the way contruct operates makes assumptions about what the game dev needs. I find those assumptions to be uninspiring and somewhat limiting. Based on a number of conversations with ashley, I feel construct is developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. And for something that is supposed to be easy for all, that makes sense. But it makes it hard to make unique, innovative games in the best of circumstances /:

Uuuugh, this a million times. This type of game engine needs to start at the top and work its way down, like SuperPowers is. Otherwise you're only setting limitations and restraints for the future. /offtopic

Dito on the above post. But I would add that It takes alot longer to get comfy with unity, but it is more powerful. by a long shot. And to be honest it is more flexible too, but you have to know how to code. You have to understand that what makes construct "easier" is that some of the things needed in a 2d game are already taken care of. But if you are in the habit of writing all your own plugins and behaviors anyway... unity is far better, and is much more extensable than construct. Contruct was made to be fast and easy to make games for those who can't or won't code. Unfortunately, much of the way contruct operates makes assumptions about what the game dev needs. I find those assumptions to be uninspiring and somewhat limiting. Based on a number of conversations with ashley, I feel construct is developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. And for something that is supposed to be easy for all, that makes sense. But it makes it hard to make unique, innovative games in the best of circumstances /:

My main project is in unity, my prototypes are in construct.

I share the sentiment. The preformed idea on how games should be made is C2 biggest obstacle. I find that there are work arounds to these obstacles. But then that requires building plugins from the ground up, that have to work around C2 Runtime engine and current plugins. This leads to the end result that plugins that open the doors for C2 require more work than what they would if they were done without the C2 system in place. It's daunting that some plugins I want to right and have started have to work around C2.

However as with the OP. I tend to find C2 base 2d game design far outstrips Unity's 2d. Also C2 game library is fantastic in comparison. Unity doesn't have much of a game library as it's mostly engine. However unity does have a good controller input library.

> Contruct was made to be fast and easy to make games for those who can't or won't code. Unfortunately, much of the way contruct operates makes assumptions about what the game dev needs. I find those assumptions to be uninspiring and somewhat limiting. Based on a number of conversations with ashley, I feel construct is developed with the lowest common denominator in mind. And for something that is supposed to be easy for all, that makes sense. But it makes it hard to make unique, innovative games in the best of circumstances /:

>

Uuuugh, this a million times. This type of game engine needs to start at the top and work its way down, like SuperPowers is. Otherwise you're only setting limitations and restraints for the future. /offtopic

Reminds me of the frustratings "close as won't fix for retrocompatibility" (almost happened for the wrong order of operations!), "close as not a bug but [actually broken] by design" (8 directions everyone, who uses it and who prefer to not use it because of how weird it can feel?) and "the feature you are suggesting relies on another thing we did that is very hard to maintain/unmaintainable so good one but won't happen, maybe in C3 ..." (tilemap, jump-thru) moments we sometime have (added some minor exemples).

I share the sentiment. The preformed idea on how games should be made is C2 biggest obstacle. I find that there are work arounds to these obstacles. But then that requires building plugins from the ground up, that have to work around C2 Runtime engine and current plugins. This leads to the end result that plugins that open the doors for C2 require more work than what they would if they were done without the C2 system in place. It's daunting that some plugins I want to right and have started have to work around C2.

Thats ironic if you believe Ashley started CC because he got fed up of writing custom plugins for MMF.

For 2D Games: Construct 2 rules and Unity3D drools!

I believe that part of the fun of developing c2 is just the challenge of adding additional cutting edge features to the editor. I mean: none of the scirra team use c2 on the side to make awesome games - developing it is the reason they get out of bed, and I think that sometimes that diverges from what many c2 users wish for. Not always, but things like having only 1/2 a physics engine are perplexing without explanation. Same for solids collision groups, and so on.

Unfortunately, much of the way contruct operates makes assumptions about what the game dev needs. I find those assumptions to be uninspiring and somewhat limiting.

Can you elaborate on what those things are? We've always designed C2 to be a general-purpose game engine and avoided any "cookie cutter game" type features where you're forced in to one style of gameplay. The built-in behaviors are all designed to be customisable and flexible for different purposes, at least to some extent, and if they don't work for you there's always the option of custom logic via events.

For one in my opinion the built in pathfinding is made for an RTS type game, its especially bad for grid/board based games, and the move costs just don't work for a TBS. You can probably jerry rig it to sort of work but i believe that was the point being made. Thankfully there are 3rd party alternatives as the event system doesn't lend itself well to that kind of thing, though i know a couple of good examples of it being done.

All hail Construct 2 and its prophet Ashley