Attempting to rebuild my Metroid-like in C2. ?'s!

Hey everyone. I'm new to Construct 2. I love its features, and for the longest time have been wanting to learn it. I've been using Stencyl in the past, but it's lacking in some areas that I feel are holding me back.

Since platforming action games are my area of interest, I've decided the best place to start would be to try to learn how to rebuild the functionality of the game I already had, but this time in C2.

This thread is to chronicle my process here and be a place to ask the many questions I'm likely to have while trying to figure out C2. I'm an artist, not a programmer, learning new stuff like this is always a bit painful. I'm slow on the uptake.

The game I was building in Stencyl is called Ghost Song.

<img src="http://www.ghostsonggame.com/miscd/battle-s.gif" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.ghostsonggame.com/screens/sc1.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.ghostsonggame.com/screens/gshot01.jpg" border="0" />

I built the game entirely using the design mode in stencyl, where I built the logic and functionality outward by the same few principles -- setting variables, conditions, and things that happen as a result. The game has a map, new abilities to gain, stats, crits, a pet, all kinds of stuff.

Having so much experience with stencyl, it feels a bit odd starting back at square one. But here I am, with the dumbest questions imaginable.

I've taken a cursory glance at the interface and poked around the beginning tutorials. I've identified what seem to be the key points for making stuff work -- Make a layout (this is a scene in stencyl), attach an event sheet that controls the layout. And it seems that I'll want to make separate event sheets for most objects (such as the player character or an enemy) so I can embed those within the main event sheet for the layout, so they can easily work from one area to the next.

I'm getting started with my experiment. My very first questions are sure to be idiotic. I managed to figure out how to lay down my backgrounds (tiled background object then drag it over the area).

Next up, I've already encountered my first problem:

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I wanted to start implementing my tiles from their tilesheets. I wasn't sure how, so I looked up the platforming tutorial, which describes making a sprite object for your tilesheet, and cutting up your sheet into separate animation frames -- and then hand placing instances of the sprite over and over and manually setting the frame number for each one.

So... yea. For me, this is already incredibly impractical. This may be fine for small tilesets and small areas, but this is what a tileset of mine typically looks like: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18592720/temp2/162.png

When I cut them up into a sprite object, I get an indecipherable list of graphics. Hundreds of small tiles that are relatively small and not super obvious what is what, when viewed out of context. I can't see what my sheet looks like and where I should place each tile to make a coherent section of terrain. It's like dumping an unassembled puzzle on my lap and telling me to build stages from it. And then that I have to manually set the starting animation frame for each tile, when I'll have hundreds and hundreds of tiles on screen... It's not doable.

Any suggestions about how to tackle this issue? Should I simplify the tile process and instead use larger sections as single graphics to cover up the tiles?

Unlike almost every other game creation system, Construct 2 doesn't have a tile editor system, which is something many of us have wanted since the Construct Classic days. I'm hoping that Ashley considers this soon rather then creating another exporter option such as WII U, which is just about dead in the water :/

An option is to use a plugin from rexrainbow called TMX importer that allows you to use the Tiled map editor and then import the results into C2. The plugin with examples is HERE.

Hi,

That is currently the only way to use a Tile Sheet in Construct 2 apart from the TMX zenox98 mentioned.

You can build up larger sections in another level editor or something and then just import the whole image to Construct, for example.

It will use many many times more memory, but that's the way to do it unless you want to do it all manually in Construct : )

I think what I'd have to do is use stamp style graphics to dress everything up... bigger graphics.

As a newcomer, it IS a little jarring to see that there's no form of tile editor whatsoever. It seems like C2 has everything else but is missing something obvious.

Does anyone know if I can attach an event sheet to a specific object, in the sense that if I put that object into a layout, it'll bring the "behavior" with it automatically?

No.

Event Sheets are connected to Layouts. You can however make a list of common events, shared between all or some event sheets.

You can also create a Group of events inside the event sheet that is activated only when the object is present, if that's what you're after.

so if I want to make common event sheets (for things such as player controls or enemy behavior) I have to manually embed each and every one of those into a given layout's event sheet?

Yep, that is exactly what you have to do.

Tho it's not as difficult as you make it sound.

You make an event sheet with all common and shared events, called "Common" for example.

Then there's an option that lets you embed or attach it to the Event sheet of another Layout.

You simply attach it to the Event Sheet of a layout and then add in all the specifics events that are unique only for that layout : )

sounds good.

is there a way to add momentum/speed to an object? to set its speed? stencyl has a built in physics engine, so there were command blocks to either set the speed of an object or "push" it with momentum, making it simple to manage forces and movement.

I'm trying to get started on how to figure out gravity and forces and motion using the event sheets. I don't particularly want to use prebuilt behaviors, I need to be able to understand this stuff myself.

Can anyone point me in the right direction about how to set up gravity, and set up movement based upon input? I'm looking at the actions and I'm a bit confused so far.

You can "Activate" Construct's Physics engine by adding the Physics behavior to an object. Check the Tutorial/Manual.

It uses the Box2D physics engine. No better way to make realistic physics unless you're a math geek + expert programmer.

Is that the "custom movement" behavior? I started playing around with it and noticed my character going through tiles. I'm curious about how to set up collisions and -- in stencyl we had "collision groups". you set up as many collision groups as you wanted, and any given "actor" (aka object in c2) would belong to one of the collision groups. and you specify which collision groups connect with which.

edit: I've since noticed the "physics" behavior (duh). I see the stuff here. The problem is my sprite and the tile sprite still won't collide with eachother, even if I attach solid behavior to each.

C2's physics behavior is a bit cpu intensive for anything but the desktop.

Perhaps you might take a look at the platform behavior before you try to reinvent the wheel.

newt

C2's Physics behavior works just fine on any platform.

I have an Android game running 30,000 collision checks a second at like 500 iterations and it runs smooth as butter on a phone.

Maybe you just haven't tried it recently? : o Could have been a lot worse before.

I'm sure it will work just fine for a few objects in a platformer.

twotimingpete

No, Custom Movement is something else. There's a behavior called Physics. That "includes" the object into the Physics world and into the calculations.

Also what Newt said about platform behavior.

Also I suggest you start looking into the tutorials and the manual since Construct 2 does most thing you ask of, apart from Tile Editor.

so "families" are basically collision groups, I see.

just the one more question for now.. why won't my sprites collide with eachother? I tried putting the "solid" behavior on them both, and the character still falls through the "tile" after I set up a gravity force.

Objects with Physics don't interact with Non-Physics object in any shape, way or form. That is by design.

You have to make your Tile a Physics object too and make it Unmovable. That means its permanently placed there with infinite mass.

Oh, I see that. But how do I make it unmoveable? I don't see that behavior, if it is one.

And just in case you think I'm COMPLETELY incapable of learning on my own, I did figure out how to call a subroutine.. in stencyl I'd frequently execute actions or sequences by setting up "custom events" (static sections of commands that don't do anything unless called). I was trying to figure out a way to do this in C2 and I think I figured it out.

<img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18592720/temp2/subroutine.jpg" border="0" />

I made a subgroup to see what it does. I saw that you can turn them on or off. They keep firing if on, though, every frame. So inside of the subgroup I made it turn itself off. Seems to work for firing, one time, a section of code with a command.