Listen, I have nothing against Scirra because I've worked for a long time on a game in C2 and am about to release it (even though I gripe a lot). My biggest peeve with C2 is the almost complete lack of documentation of anything really useful. The manual is extremely sparse. And you're expected to hunt for little bits and pieces of useful code in dozens of different sources, tutorials, and videos, and everyone gets on your case if you didn't do a zillion Google searches (well that used to be the case, not anymore; the community has gotten a lot better or maybe those used to be fake accounts). This literally leads to hundreds of hours of frustration and wasted time for software that's supposed to be "intuitive" and "user friendly." I'm pretty sure Scirra, if not the founder has made millions at this point. Honestly, what would it cost, just to hire a person to concatenate all the most useful examples and codes in some time of library or preferably the manual, which from a layman's perspective is a joke.
This is supposed to be software to make our lives easier, and honestly, for someone who's over 40, it has been a nightmare. It has gotten easier with a lot of support from the community, which has been great (and all it took was a 4 year part-time apprenticeship haha), but not before I had to pull my hair out. Some of it has been useful because I learned a lot, but honestly the curve could have been significantly shortened by someone who cared.
I get the feeling C3 is going to be the same way. There is a remarkable lack of caring in terms of making the software user friendly and easy to learn which is exactly what C2 purports to do.
#
I totally agree with you in every aspect with the lack of documentation
I couldn't agree more with you, I have exactly the same problem I don't think is the age or anything like that, I'm still on middle thirty and i experienced the same
The lack of documentation is frustrating because you end up going in circles without any direction, back and forwards like you stated we have to keep finding (bits and pieces of useful code in dozens of different sources, tutorials, and videos) like a puzzle, witch that way, I ended Up with nearly close to two years now learning C2 and still I haven't got any foundation to start and finish a game. And is not because I'm lazy or i don't have the time, because i spend endless of days and nights looking, studying and learning none stop because I really wanna learn, but the funny thing the most time consuming is searching for the right tutorial, capx, etc.... and it doesn't end there some times you spend weeks trying to find out how to do just one thing and when you finally find it, later on, you find another tutorial wich contradicts the first one. and that is very frustrating.
or some times you spend weeks months studying a particular tutorials for a concrete subject trying to understand in the best possible way, to find out later on another tutorial with different info and WTF, just to learn that the info in the first tutorial were you spent time and effort it was outdated because was from 3 or 4 years ago wich makes those tutorials outdated.
Then Guess what? you say to yourself ok maybe I'm not ready for any medium or big game so lets make a mini game and target the mobiles, so i can start and finish my first game and learn that way maybe is quicker and more rewarding much easier. so you enter in the second loop circle (screen sizes?aspect ratios?memory management? how many objects? how much CPU? don't put this behavior!! don't put that, don't put those effects!! some tutorials says one thing another one other things and you OOOOOMG!!!!
And If that wasn't enough you keep hearing all those horrible histories about exporting night mears etc....so you say man this is even worse how I'm going to do this? back to the beginning again star from zero let go back to PC platforms games and you keep going like this in circles.
So the point here is, if we had the right tutorials from the beginning the right documentation the best capx examples from the most important things that a game must have in each category, platform, RPG, etc......And all of it was in One place or section were are all the tutorials and capx are up to date not from 5 years ago, and some one maintaining it to keep them clean old from new. the most up to date info.
the things that took us years to learn maybe would have been just months if we had the right guide from the beginning and in one place.
I'm pretty sure this is happening to many people using C2 especially beginners like me, and I'm pretty sure that is why you don't see many success Games with C2, because its very hard to learn foundation without the right tutorials and guides. you get just confusion and not confidence in your self+ you spend 10 times more than you should have spent in learning.
The best part if is than correctly every one will win, example:
1-people who bout C2 or c3 will learn how to use C3 quicker, you will see more successful games more often that means more promotion for C3
2-scirra will have more people attracted to C3 = more sells = higher more people to work with C3= More awesome features for C3 = company grows
If it was me that i sell C2 or C3 i will make every effort to teach my customers the best and quickest possible ways on how to use my software to use the full power of my software + teach them how to make the games, tips on different ways of doing things and wich ones are with the best performances etc...... so they can be more chances that any of my customers can become successful, because that's mean more publicity for my business = more money to spend on higher more programers or teachers etc....... + more support for mobiles making it easier.
And I could say many more things but I think you get the point.
All of this I say it in the good way as an advice from my experience.