Will knowledge of GM help in working with C2?

Hiya. I've been scouring the forums and blog posts the last few days and C2 looks very enticing, in terms of what it offers, its price point, and the developers' ethos.

C2 doesn't have much in the way of tutorials or documentation at the moment. This is particularly a revelant issue for me, a complete beginner to game development.

Game Maker is a tool that has plenty of documentation and tutorials and it's touted as a great place to start for the aspiring game designer. My question is this: If I learn how to work in Game Maker, will this put me in a better position to get to grips with C2 later on? That is to say: are any skills transferable between one app and the other?

Please don't read this as an either/or post for one or the other app: I intend to buy licenses for both; GM so I can export to exe, learn the basics of programming with GML and so on; but at the same time I have a keen eye on future developments, namely html5, and for that I think C2 is the app for me. It would be fantastic if my efforts in one could stand me in good stead for moving over to the other at a later date.

C2 doesn't have much in the way of tutorials or documentation at the moment.

We have 58 tutorials and much of the manual is done (just the reference is currently being finished off). What do you think we're lacking? Genuinely curious.

After browsing the C2 forum history that seemed the overall consensus. And I'm not just talking about official documentation/tutorials, but referring to the indie landscape as a whole. If you take 3rd party sites such as TIGsource forums you'll see a ton of user-made tutorials for GM but none yet for C2. Perfectly understandable of course, being as C2 is not even out of beta yet and needs time to mature.

From my position as a complete newbie to everything game development I'm looking for the most support possible. There are even printed and published guides for Game Maker, which I've ordered. A physical book facilitates easier learning, for me at least. This is all besides the point though.

I noticed from one of the tutorials here that C2 can import GM resources, which is excellent. So; what else, from the point of view of a complete novice to game making, can I carry over from learning GM that will make starting in C2 that little easier?

Perhaps, if you haven't already, you should try one of the starter tutorials from Gm, and then try the Ghost Shooter tutorial here.

f I learn how to work in Game Maker, will this put me in a better position to get to grips with C2 later on? That is to say: are any skills transferable between one app and the other?

I use GM a lot and made some pretty good stuff but I'd have to say no, GM was script based, C2 is event driven, with GM you attached the actions to the actual object while in C2 all in one event sheet, if you're used to GML then it's going to take a while to get your head around an event driven game.

That's what I think anyway. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

After browsing the C2 forum history that seemed the overall consensus.

Just a few weeks ago we had no manual. If you're looking at old posts you're probably reading the "there's no manual" consensus, but now it's largely in place and I think that makes the situation much better!

GM has a significantly different UI and workflow. The 'event' system is completely different (and very basic compared to Construct 2's events), and C2 has no scripting short of using the SDK. However, I suppose you could carry over the general principles of logic, coding and game engines, which is of course universally applicable!

I'd recommend just using the materials available for Construct 2 to get to grips with it - obviously we'd love stuff like printed books about it, but we're just not big enough yet for anyone to take that on board.

There's more documentation and help for learning C++, why would use GM if that has more support.

That's a straw man; C++ isn't a good entry point for someone who's never programmed before.

But cheers guys. Even if GM and C2 are like chalk and cheese I'm still interested in them both for different reasons. I'll give C2 a whirl over the weekend and check out some of those tutorials!)

Just to add my own thoughts on it, I used GM in the past, got pretty deep into it to the point where I was coding everything and using the UI purely to quickly test things.

Formerly using GM did, in my case, lend itself to more easily understanding C2 concepts and recognize its strengths.

From my position as a complete newbie to everything game development I'm looking for the most support possible. There are even printed and published guides for Game Maker, which I've ordered. A physical book facilitates easier learning, for me at least. This is all besides the point though.

Also I am an absolute newbie and can not english , but for me Construct 2 is so easy to use and has so many exemple in the how do section , so I think are tons of basic tutorials not necessary. Very intutive software with a less learning curve for fast results. Just right for non programmer like me.

Also, as vidi said, I guess you missed the How do I FAQ that answers/link to many question related with the technical aspect of how to do things in C2.

Most of the links lead to topics with capx and explanations.

I'd say so. MMF helps with Construct helps with GM helps with Stencyl helps with...yeah...As Ashley said, game logic is pretty much universal. For the most part you're doing the same thing, but in a different way.

This is what I've been working on, I'm personally surprised at the speed this is running in full screen. Even with particles. The water effects I haven't gotten to work properly yet, but eh, it'll come along.

scirra.com/forum/platformer-please-check-for-bugs_topic47285.html

I agree with the idea of game logic being universal...as a user of gamemaker myself for sometime...it helped me understand the concept of Construct 2 and made things much easier..and now that i have played around with it for a while it is much clearer to use than gamemaker...Thanks Scirra Team!!

I came from GM too, and Im using it yet. But now that I get the "C2 spirit" I can create a game really easy. I buyed a copy of C2 and Im so happy with it. The C2 manual is being updated a lot and the foruns ppls are really awesome. And one more thing, GM doest have a physic engine without use of external DLL. C2 have a easy to use Phisyc engine and its built in! (Im want it to be more fast though...) :D

flws!