Switching from GMS to Construct2 ?

Hi everyone, I'm a new member here, and I hope my question is not too much to ask. Or stupid. Or something wrong. Anyway, please forgive my bad english and me if it is <img src="smileys/smiley12.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I work in the videogame industry for quite some time as a graphic artist, and one year ago, I decided to switch to indie dev, and make a game in Game Maker Studio (code, art, music). I love it, the script language is great and very powerful, but when dealing with shaders, sound, or even controlers, it can be a pain in th* ***.

For a few weeks now, I'm looking at Construct 2, and damn, it looks super sexy. I tried the free version tonight, and the effects presets just rock. All pannels seem very intuitive, and fresh.

So, before thinking about a full switch, I'd like to ask to you, pro C2 users, what is right or wrong in the things bellow?

• C2 is powerfull enough to get a full HD game to run if I export it to PC desktop, with 60 fps, additive blending, some particles and shaders effects in it.
• C2 can export to Mac, but not Linux. (or?)
• iOS and Android exports are not reliable for the next months. It can be done, but it's dangerous because of old third party tech.

Mobile dev is not a dealbreaker for me, my main usage would be the desktop exporter.

Thanks A LOT for your time, wish you the best!

Aurel.

There are a few caveats for memory management(most of those are for mobile), but otherwise everything is doable.

Thanks to your post, I just bought a personal license to test the desktop export.

Looks very solid, I'm very excited to be honest!

Thanks again! Any other advice (on perfs or about switching from another dev tool) welcome!

'sup dude, another artist on board :)

agreed, SC2 is easy and powerful,

TBH: iOS and Android export right now sucks, HTML5 on iOS crashes too, is a headache...

BUT, native platform AFAIK seems achievable,

Game Closure looks like a posibility,

I'll dive into it in the next couple of days,

too bad there's no plugin ATM

Hello and welcome to the community ;)

about the export to desktop it depends on the quantity of effects, particles and shaders u are going to use at the same time in the 'active' window.. it it is too much the framerate will drop

Thanks Ghost and Guif0DA,

I'm now making the ghost chaser tutorial. I'm amazed by how the interface is well done. I feel at home right from the start.

Then I will try to add way too much effects, particles, fat sprites with alpha gradients and camera scrolls, to get an idea of the software limitations.

Thanks again, I'm glad you took to time to answer me, much appreciated :)

Then I will try to add way too much effects, particles, fat sprites with alpha gradients and camera scrolls, to get an idea of the software limitations.As far as desktop exports are concerned, those tests would be more testing your hardware (gpu, cpu) than software limitations. C2 is open to a lot of ways to design and program your game. In fact it's close to "If you can think of it, you can do it". That's mostly owed to a very clever event system.

Oh man, your post is beautiful. You were in my mind, and answered everything I needed to know!

Thanks a billion for your time. And for THAT PRETTY WALL. :)

One last question if you don't mind, can you flush the memory with C2? I mean, how do you handle textures loadings/unloads? You can say at the end of a layout "delete textures" and it will automaticaly load the needed next ones?

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BONUS!

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" 19. C2 IDE is less stable then GMS IDE. " Yeaaaah, I've seen that! Four IDE crashes in one night! Ol?!

Oh man, your post is beautiful. You were in my mind, and answered everything I needed to know!

Thanks a billion for your time. And for THAT PRETTY WALL. :)

One last question if you don't mind, can you flush the memory with C2? I mean, how do you handle textures loadings/unloads? You can say at the end of a layout "delete textures" and it will automaticaly load the needed next ones?

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BONUS!

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" 19. C2 IDE is less stable then GMS IDE. " Yeaaaah, I've seen that! Four IDE crashes in one night! Ol?!

Right now if the app is webgl enabled it is done per layout.

If you are loading textures via url it will be by the browsers garbage disposal.

Ok, glad to know :)

Well, time to play with the new toy then!

Thanks guys for all this great feedback, it's very nice to be welcomed like that.

Are you guys still having instability issues with r146? Is it just the crash on exit or other issues as well?

Ashley - I still get frequent crashes where the banner buttons all start going black and the event sheets go all funky. Some other window appears and disappears a few times in the centre of the screen (so fast the text is never visible) and then you can no longer select anything.

I get it about 4-5 times a day, yet I know others who have never had this problem once.

That's very weird. I can't imaging anything Construct 2 could be doing to be creating windows. Especially given it involves display glitches, I'd be tempted to say it's a graphics card driver issue...

Hi Ashley, Congratulations for making this incredible tool. It's a blast to play with.

I don't know if what I'm writing is relevant, because it's my first construct2 day, but yes, same here, the event sheets can be slow, then even slower, then crash. I had it several times this night on the Steam version, when browsing rich examples with a lot of assets / events in it.

That said, no crash today on smaller ones.

Again, I don't know if it's useful or not, I'm answering to be polite, but I'm sure confirmed users are way more relevant.

Ashley

Just to throw in two cents, I get several crashes in C2 and I noticed it's usually when switching between different system windows, like if I finish editing a sprite then close the window, the whole program will crash sometimes , or if I switch from events to layout screen. IT's rare enough to not be a serious off putting issue, but enough that I save pretty much before clicking anything.It seems like CS2 does sort of "secret loading" in the background after some operations and if you overload it during that process it will crash...if that makes any sense.