What you may have missed in May 2012

<center><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36472942/construct/wymhm/wymhm.png" border="0">

<font size="5">in May 2012</font></center>

Hello all, here's the time for the monthly recap of what went on in the community.

May has been a very rich month.

Five new releases (one of which was a stable) for Construct2 :

• Release 88 (beta) - Bug fixes and usability tweaks
• Release 89 (beta) - Export to CocoonJS
• Release 90 Stable - Stable update, and export to AppMobi directCanvas.
• Release 91 (Beta) - Family behaviors, letterbox fullscreen, Dictionary plugin.
• Release 92 (Beta) - Import project files, spritesheeting on export.

(The features listed here are only the "highlighted" features for each release. Check each release page to see the complete changelog and comments for each version)

<font size="4">Be sure to keep updated to the most recent release of Construct 2</font>

<center><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36472942/construct/wymhm/C2logo32.png" border="0"></center>

A plethor of new custom plugins and behaviors for Construct2 were released, adding ever more functionalities and game making possibilites. There were also quite a few changes to the SDK, be sure to check the changelogs.

• Notice by Ashley for plugins/behaviors developers: Plugins might break or worse with CocoonJS, make sure to check the compatibility of your extensions
• Plugin Cookies - Ubivis - http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugin-cookies_topic51805_post326187.html
• Behavior Image effects for sprites - Pode - http://www.scirra.com/forum/behavior-image-effects-for-sprite_topic51702.html
• Plugin Board,SquareTx,HexTx - Behavior Grid Move - rexrainbow - http://www.scirra.com/forum/pluginboardsquaretxhextx-behavior-grid-move_topic51891.html
• Plugin Image button - septeven - http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugin-image-button_topic51829.html
• Plugin Sentry - pckhoi - http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugin-sentry_topic51885.html
• Plugin Base64 Audio - Pode - http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugin-base64-audio_topic52192.html
• Behavior Car Physics - CodeMasterMike - http://www.scirra.com/forum/behavior-car-physics_topic52225.html
• Behavior Scrolling for TextBox - rexrainbow - http://www.scirra.com/forum/behavior-scroll-down-for-textbox-plugin_topic52277.html
• Behavior Scrolling for Text - rexrainbow - http://www.scirra.com/forum/behavior-scrolling-for-text-plugin_topic52557.html
• Behavior Boundary - rexrainbow - http://www.scirra.com/forum/behavior-boundary_topic52539.html
• Plugin Text highlighter - Pode - http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugintext-highlighter_topic52545.html
• Plugin FacebookMod - juantar - http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugin-small-mod-to-facebook-plugin_topic52653_post330566.html

<center><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36472942/construct/wymhm/C2logo32.png" border="0"></center>

In this month of May, Scirra team had a lot to say. They published 6 new blog articles:

• A new way to learn how to program by Ashley - A reflexion and "comparison" between C2 and coding language and a demonstration that event-driven is still programation in the same right as a coding language.
• Optimisation: don't waste your time by Ashley - In answer to a wave of "is this event faster than this event" questions in the forum, Ashley displays and explains the process of logic and rendering for a game, the ominous "logic takes 10% of the time of a frame" and some drawbacks of optimisation as a bad handling of dev ressources.
• Drivers problems complain to your graphics card vendor bu Ashley - One more article about drivers problems, Ashley exorts you to contact your graphic cards vendors so that they improve and pressure on laptop manufacturers as well so that they improve their drivers too.
• The great HTML5 mobile gaming performance comparison by Ashley - An article with a comparative charts of performances of a C2 project exported on up to 23 platforms, and the results.
• "GameMaker has no competition", we beg to differ HTML5's scalability by Tom - An article to remind/explain further on Scirra's policy and why Yoyo games is making a mistake in not considering them as competition.
• Under the hood: Spritesheets in Construct2 by Ashley - An article explaining the way the spritesheet generated on export (in beta release 92) works and the motivations behind the way it is implemented.

<center><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36472942/construct/wymhm/C2logo32.png" border="0"></center>

Topics and tutorials that are really worth to have a look at, participate to and share to all your friends:

• A thread about the possibility of an exporter towards Xbox360
• A thread about the community's appreciation for the makers of Construct2
• A tutorial about arrays for beginners, a nice work by Ramones. As questions about arrays gets asked quite often in the forums, let's hope this tutorial will help newcomers get the hang of arrays.
• This post from Ashley enumerates the exporters/wrappers that are currently being worked on.
• Cloning the classics: Pacman, a nice WIP tutorial by Professor Stemkoski. Learn useful techniques while recreating one of the legends of video games: pacman. Meaningful explanations and capx provided.
• Cloning the classics: Breakout (Video tutorial) another nice tutorial from Professor Stemkoski. This tutorial video serie shows you how to make a complete breakout clone in about an hour and a clear example on how to use Construct2 to make your games.
• In the second page of the comments on the blog article about the new spritesheet export system, Ashley let slips that the next feature he'll be working on is probably the image editor. Shhhhh you didn't read this from me.

<center><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36472942/construct/wymhm/C2logo32.png" border="0"></center>

And so this closes this monthly recap. A rich month as I was saying, with even more promises in the future with ludei's CocoonJS and all the "magic" Ashley insanely put in C2.

May is over, see you next month <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

thanks, you forgot to say "ITS SUMMER HOLIDAYS WIIIII"    <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

i liked this month

you're awesome for making this list every month Kyatric <img src="smileys/smiley20.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Always nice to read these recaps of the month gone by, nice work!

thanks, you forgot to say "ITS SUMMER HOLIDAYS WIIIII"    <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

i liked this month

zsangerous: I think it depends on the country you're in. For now in France it's no holidays yet.

And if yourself are in holidays, well then ENJOY <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

All: thanks for the kind words.

aaaaaaaa sorry to hear that ,

new plan : never go france in saudi's summer holidays ^^ .

thanks, you forgot to say "ITS SUMMER HOLIDAYS WIIIII"    <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

That's becuse it's Winter Work for some of us <img src="smileys/smiley6.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Velojet

i just have 4 months summer holiday and 1 month on winter , i think 5months isn't much enough hehehe ^^

but really here is too hot i think if any other west country has these weather they will take more holidays that what we have , we takes holiday when we have rain o.o after all that i love my country ^^

If Im suggesting correctly - after 9 releases we will have 1.0 stable? That would be really great and by the way get strong Scirra! Game Maker 9.0 is on the way! Give your best to pass it! <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

RacerBG - we have had four stable updates now, see http://www.scirra.com/construct2/releases. There is no "1.0" (or, if you like, it was r80.2 because that was the first stable release). We're continually developing and improving Construct 2 so we prefer to use an increasing number like r95 than the old-fashioned "1.0", "1.1"...

Okay, anyway good luck you deserve to pass GM. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

thanks, you forgot to say "ITS SUMMER HOLIDAYS WIIIII"    <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

i liked this month

Sorry dude, but not in Argentina <img src="smileys/smiley19.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> here we are in winter, and still no vacation...

But anyway, thanks for the info Kyatric! it's good to know the changes and have someplace to check them up!