What's with all the CocoonJS whining lately?

Seriously, what's happening to the community?

Where does this unearned feeling of privilege come from?

I see so many threads and people whining about how "their game" doesn't work perfectly on CocoonJS and then whine about how Ludei is a horrible company, or how the newest update is "sh*t".

CocoonJS is a completely free third-party software which provides an amazing service. Nobody forces you to use it AT ALL!

You are free to use your own Android/iOS wrapper and port your HTML5 games yourself! However I am sure than no more than 1 or 2 people in the whole community have any knowledge on how to do this.

Yet the rest complain about it as if it's their god-given right to use that free software. I've even read people writing things like "it should just work!".

How many of you have actually checked your game logic for inconsistencies?

Do you know that CocoonJS does NOT debug your game - Meaning if even one line of code is wrong, if a single event is checked against wrong values or even if you have objects that you never use it will crash.

Many games that run perfectly on your PC will crash on CocoonJS because of bad "programming".

I assume many of your have created your projects across many Construct 2 versions. With each new update as Scirra change existing features and code something somewhere. Have you double-checked if your own project is not affect by any of these changes in game logic?

Have you tried re-doing your entire project in the newer version? That would eliminate anything that's left over by error from the previous ones.

That is most often the reason why your games crash - You've done something wrong. I recommend you double-check your entire project before you conclude that CocoonJS doesn't work.

Of course unless there's an acknowledged problem, like the Dynamics library wasn't working.

There is mostly only the Sound issues left which i'm sure are being worked on.

Let's give Ludei some more love because without them HTML5 gaming on Mobiles would still have been in the stone age. And so far they've done it for FREE!

My game runs pretty good the last time i ran it (no physics), but i have not used the 4.1 update yet. The only thing that sucks bad is that i need the letterbox scale working... Otherwise i can't release on mobile yet, and my game is nearing its completion stage.

As far as criticism goes, everyone has a right to criticize a product if they are unhappy with it. Rightfully or not. Generalizing a community is stupid. Stop defending their company, because they are big boys and can come to the forum themselves.

I think the main reason people are unhappy is because everything seems golden about the upcoming update, like "Oh the next CocoonJS launcher will fix the errors that are there!" and then when it has finally come out after quite some time, it's either not improved, or for my experience, it's become worse :(

I never have considered the people behind CocoonJS to be a terrible company or anything, I'm highly appreciative and never shown hate towards them... but I don't really agree with how you're defending them, and how you are you are generalising everyone as being ungrateful. You acknowledged one bug and blame everything else on people not checking their events, which I dunno, I would have thought most people would test on their PC via Chrome or something first, before going onto their phone and realising it's not consistent. Then again I can't doubt you, people may genuinely just be messing up in their code.

Saying "It's free, you don't have to use it", people are aware that CocoonJS is going to cost money in the future, but just imagine if it wasn't free and contained the bugs it does at the moment. Would be a pretty big ripoff to pay for broken software if you ask me. It's awesome that it is free for now ofcourse :P. Also most people rely on CocoonJS when it comes to mobile; iirc all the other exports and using the Chrome browser on Android aren't viable solutions and don't offer the same performance CocoonJS does, but CocoonJS does contain bugs, so it's a difficult situation.

I think it's best to think in the mind of an average Construct 2 consumer. You get promised easy mobile exporting stuff in Construct 2 via third party, but then this third party is giving something not exactly reliable (GOOD, but not reliable), and you don't really have any other choice. Some people need to get their game out asap and it would work perfectly when testing on a PC, yet when going onto CocoonJS, it would have glitches everywhere.

In my experience, I have 3 main bugs in my project that aren't present when on a PC, they all revolve around physics though, so it's understandable. I get the "Dynamics library" thing you mentioned if I export to cocoonjs, and if I preview over wifi, it crashes when physics happens. On the previous launcher version, I had some glitched up collision masks (it don't appear this way on PC at all) where physics object appear sinked into the ground. I also have bits of code that disable physics collision between a few objects, and it all works perfectly on a PC, but in CocoonJS, all physics objects would always collide with eachother. I'm aware that all my issues are not my fault. I can play on any browser just fine, but not in CocoonJS.

And also, it's a form of critisism to be angry at something. Not exactly the best critisism but it's still helpful nonetheless. Come the day where CocoonJS is spot-on perfect, people will do the exact opposite of what they are doing now and begin to worship them lol.

My game runs pretty good the last time i ran it (no physics), but i have not used the 4.1 update yet. The only thing that sucks bad is that i need the letterbox scale working... Otherwise i can't release on mobile yet, and my game is nearing its completion stage.

Letterbox will not be available for a very long time. You have to use Scale Inner or Scale Outer and design your game to work with one of the two methods. Ashley has written about it in Supporting Multiple Screen Sizes

I think the problem is that Scirra has created a fantastic product that is updated regularly. Beta every 2 weeks, stable every 6 appears to be the average.

CocoonJS keeps becoming more unstable as the product is updated. 1.3 was good. 1.4 was broken. 1.4.1 is slow.

The difference between the two companies? Construct2 is developed by a team of 3. CocoonJS is developed by a team of around 17.

Now, maybe that's not the main issue. Maybe CocoonJS is simply too complicated for regular updates. Maybe they're working on an awful lot of topics or products. Maybe that's just what people are not happy about.

Personally, my problem is the lack of communication or transparency. There's a problem with C2, and we get a post on the forum, twitter, facebook, and even emails if necessary. If the problem is serious, it's fixed as soon as possible, even with the team working overtime, and releasing a patch within a couple of days.

I can't recall the last time I heard from Ludei. Maybe I've missed some posts, who knows. However, if they popped up after the occasional release and said "Whoops, sorry to hear some of you are having problems! We'll fix it soon!"

I've been unable to use CocoonJS for over 3 months. So yeah, I'm afraid to say I'm a little impatient now.

Just installed the latest version of the cocoonjs launcher on my iPhone5 and I have to say it is still a big dissapointment. Some of their own demos are so low on fps it�s just embarrasing. One of the webgl demos go down to 14fps and that is with just 3 dancing robots. C2 desperately need native compilers!! That would without a doubt put it on top of all the other game making engines out there.

Agreed — I think the vast majority of us are very grateful to have CJS, but some expectations aren't being met. I've been reading and participating in many threads, and I can say I don't remember anyone saying CJS is sh*t (maybe 1 or 2 outside the forums here).

Xionor - I'd refrain from making inflammatory and generalized remarks. You're entitled to your opinion but if you insist on offending everyone, don't expect a lot of respect or assistance in return. Tact goes a long way.

As far as criticism goes, everyone has a right to criticize a product if they are unhappy with it. Rightfully or not. Generalizing a community is stupid. Stop defending their company, because they are big boys and can come to the forum themselves.

Actually we are forced to use CocoonJS; we have not been provided any better options. We've been waiting for YEARS, man. Every update fixes one thing and breaks 50 others. Now the vast majority get nothing but a black screen.

Considering some users have paid upwards of $500 this is unacceptable and they have every right to bitch all they want.

I've given up on it entirely and no, it's not a problem with my "logic". I've been using MMF, CC, and C2 for over 8 years.

I love working with Construct 2 and I will continue to support Scirra for a long time but the mobile side of it is a complete bust.

I'm the one who wrote "It should just work". I wrote that because I was made to feel like it was my fault CJS wasn't working properly. Like it was my responsibility to tweak and sleuth my project to make it work properly with CJS. This isn't how it's supposed to work.

And the same goes for our games. They should just work. Free or not. If someone can't understand how to play our game, or a section of our game is unclear, it our fault. It's not because the player isn't smart enough to get it. It's not because they didn't read the instructions carefully enough. It's because we didn't do what we needed to do as designers to make them understand how to play. If any part of our game seems "broken" to them, no matter how simple, then it's broken.

Like I said before, these guys can fix CJS no problem. If I handed them a million dollars and said "fix it" it would be done overnight. But it's a business, and time is money. They will eventually fix all the problems but for now we're getting exactly what we pay for.

Just for the record, I feel Construct 2 is genius software, ahead of it's time, and Scirra's dedication and involvement in the community inspires confidence in the company and the product.

If I handed them a million dollars and said "fix it" it would be done overnight.

Lol I'm not sure if you already know but it's funny you say that:

finance.yahoo.com/news/ludei-secures-1-5-million-100000568.html

Well, the new update seems to set back the fps in most cases so in my opinion it is not whining to let Ludei (and Scirra) know about it. That said, of course we should always optimize and test our games all the time if planning to release on mobile. At this point I have tried every trick in the book to make my game run faster with the version 1.4 but still 1.3 works better in all devices I tested my game on. I have also made new test projects to see if the problem persists, and it really seems that there is something fishy in the 1.4 version - even the simplest projects seem to lag a lot more than before.

I am not worried tho, we all just have to wait patiently and see what Ludei has to say about this and then make conclusions!

I think you seem to have missed the point. Yes, some people are exporting and expecting it to 'just work'.

But most of us are carefully refining and retesting to try and get good mobile performance through CocoonJS. We've done that on 1.3, and now found significant issues with 1.4 that are out of our control. Having committed to using CocoonJS for our projects. And we have no fall back, there's only one compiler!

Yes, it is 'free' but that is Ludei's call - I would pay for good support and good releases if I had that option.

We do have a right to be disappointed. The work we put in, the commercial risk we take in adopting CocoonJS, is all very real and costs us.

And actually I'd say most of the discussions here have been very constructive.

Ludei will get our money in the long-run, if they keep early adopters like us happy - that is the nature of start-up business.

The main problem seems to be that they've got millions in backing and huge pressures, which forces them to deliver 'headline' features like 3D. Instead of concentrating on the user base they have, building excellent support, and refining a good product.

Ludei should take a leaf from Scirra's book. They could easily be releasing beta versions - a beta compiler and a stable compiler will stop much of the frustration we currently have. And the launcher could also simply have a tick box for 'beta'.

If I have to start paying for Ludei to provide separate stable and beta compilers, with good support I certainly will. I'm sure other would too.

The work we put in, the commercial risk we take in adopting CocoonJS, is all very real and costs us.

What commercial risk? You don't pay anything for it so how can it possibly cost you anything?

It costs you in missed sales maybe? If it wasn't for CocoonJS you wouldn't be able to publish, much less sell that product to begin with.

Xionor don't be so naive. You maybe doing this as a hobby in your spare time but many here do this to support ourselves/family/business.

Hiring someone to draw sprites/background for 4 months is not cheap. Having a programmer work on a product for four months is not cheap. Committing to to C2 and cocoon is of course a commercial risk. We have now launched our app but for while it was looking very dodgy.

Whether Ludei like it or not we are all stakeholders in their project. I love what cocoon represents and the opportunity it promises but Ludei's lack of communication and transparency is something that they need to work on.

Due to the instability of cocoon I'm looking for another game development solution, even if I love C2. Many ppl bought C2 because on the main page you can see exports to Android and IOS, but it's not totaly true, you can't export your work directly to this platforms, you have to the same work twice and expecting 60fps in your 10 sprites games.

I'm using C2 in a goal of commercialization, so yep I can whine.