Concerns from a "Serious" developer

> People aren't attracted to Construct because it's html 5 based - it's the great workflow.

>

I might be in the minority, but I was (and still am) attracted to Construct 2/3 because it is HTML5-based.

My target audience prefers browser-based interactives (education). I do see the point for those who are trying to make money strictly off of games, however. It is hard enough to make a living off of games, and to choose a tool that restricts you to only a small fraction of your potential market is financial suicide.

That being said, I would love to see a great 3D game built in Construct 3 that showcases HTML5's capabilities. The key is that enough people would need to play it and become inspired by it to encourage more developers to shift over to the platform so that more great games would be built using the tool. A lot of stars would need to align for this to happen.

In the end, I love HTML5 because pretty much every kid in school is carrying around a device with a browser, which makes the web such an awesome way to democratize the art form of games. I think Construct 3 has the potential to get there, but am worried about the financial risk to developers.

HTML5 is the reason why I'm interested in Construct as well. Especially now when new platforms like Facebook Messenger are starting to embrace HTML5 games. I think this could possible be a new opportunity for smaller casual games almost like app store was a decade ago.

In an ideal world, Construct would be an IDE for another engine.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that the majority of Construct developers use the software for it's event sheet system rather than HTML5.

Scirra is unmatched with regards to visual coding. It baffles me that none of the bigger players haven't produce anything even close to this; even similar tier future products like GMS2 and Fusion 3 are laughably behind Scirra in this regard.

Construct is miles ahead of the competition with regards to input, but the output simply doesn't scale and despite technologies being cross-device friendly , quickly falls apart in the real world.

I trust Scirra, you don't make software this good without knowing what you're doing. HTML5 is the future, AWP and instant apps are proof of the ever shifting progress away from native. I'll stick around for this ride, but I'd love Scirra's thoughts on what's been brought up so far.

signaljacker

So actually, Scirra would probably do way better by doing an event sheet plugin for other editors, since they can't cater for the other needs by many of the developers here?

The event sheet is the only reason I chose C2 and still sticking with it. I don't have time, energy, and willpower to learn any coding language. So I kind of have to live with the limited export options in favor doing any game at all... lol.

They would probably do very well I'm sure, but they've built up a nice empire here and are obviously very ambitious and talented. I would like for them to succeed with their own product, but I also think that to do so listening to the community is very valuable. I'm in the same boat as you, without the time or inclination to properly learn to code. I'm comfortable with the event sheet and would love to continue to use it. I can forgive Construct a lot, even having to jump through the many hoops because of its quirks. But to see the dev team so out of touch with its core community really worries me.

It's hard to adequately respond to a 6-page forum thread that springs up over the weekend, but I'll do my best. Also these threads often turn in to everyone throwing in their own different concerns and it's pretty exhausting to even try to address everything - often I reply to the OP and then everyone piles in afterwards with "what about X? Y? Z?", and this happens a lot even when I do try to address everything... so anyway, here we go, focused on the OP:

HTML5 on Wii U: the main problem here is Nintendo's weak support of HTML5. Technically we're under NDA so I don't think I can go in to too much detail on this, but I think by now it's common knowledge that the NWF doesn't support WebGL, and that's really just one of several aspects. It's possible to publish smaller scale games on the Wii U, but larger scale stuff will run in to these limitations. There are similarly-specced mobile devices that can far outperform the Wii U due to having better browser tech. Things like this are really frustrating because they unnecessarily make HTML5 look bad. If Nintendo used modern web support, it'd have been far better. Yes, this is a shortcoming of HTML5 that we get stuck with browser engines like that sometimes. Yes, users don't care whose fault it is and just want it to work. But I honestly think it would have been impossible for us to write a native engine with the size of team we are within the timeframe of the Wii U being replaced by the Switch. In other words, it was that or nothing, really.

Wider console support: it's an interesting time to complain about console support, because the only reason we don't already have Xbox One publishing (which does use a modern browser engine!) is we've been busy with the C3 launch. See this Microsoft announcement which specifically mentions Construct 2 from early March.

Wider HTML5 reliance: I would actually credit Scirra's entire success to our reliance on HTML5. Sure, it has some downsides, but no technology is perfect. We've seen other competitors with native tech fade in to irrelevance with limited features and dragged down by difficult bugs and development inefficiencies. I'm actually really glad we went this way. Also HTML5 was laughably bad when we started in 2011 (and some people literally laughed at us for choosing it over Flash). Originally, we never even expected to support mobile at all. Things have come a long way and it's still going strong, so I think HTML5 still has a bright feature.

I also have to wearily point out again that graphics drivers are a concern everywhere, and we have direct experience of that given we've worked on native tech in CC and the C2 editor. It's actually worse in native than it is in HTML5. It's so bad, it has actually ruined AAA game launches in the past. Most indie game developer's post-mortems I read, when they used native tech, almost always involves some kind of section excoriating the woeful situation with graphics drivers, to the extent they say things like "I wish I just had never even tried to release on Mac because the OpenGL support is so bad". Big companies can usually (even then not always) muscle through it by putting several engineers permanently on the problem, but when you're small, HTML5 probably actually makes this better than it would be otherwise.

Not listening to customers: this is pretty hard to take, as the original company founder with over 23,000 posts on this forum, as high as a constant 10 posts a day on average in some cases. How many companies can you go on the forum and talk about something directly with the original founder of the company? We try to make ourselves available to customers, and I do my best to read all the posts and feedback on the forum, but it's pretty tough to respond to everything with hundreds of posts a day. I do in fact hear everyone's concerns loud and clear. There's a lot of reasons why we can't always immediately do something, ranging from the technology to overall direction of the company, but I am here, and I do listen, even when that involves quite a lot of criticism. Sometimes even when I explain the case, it doesn't stop the criticism. For example some users hit graphics driver related issues and then say they wished we had native engines; these people would be in for a very nasty surprise if we actually did that! But it's never stopped the criticism, so I think to some extent I've just come to accept that some users are going to be unhappy and won't understand some things we do or the reasons behind it, and that's part of the nature of running a company.

In an ideal world, Construct would be an IDE for another engine.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that the majority of Construct developers use the software for it's event sheet system rather than HTML5.

Scirra is unmatched with regards to visual coding. It baffles me that none of the bigger players haven't produce anything even close to this; even similar tier future products like GMS2 and Fusion 3 are laughably behind Scirra in this regard.

Construct is miles ahead of the competition with regards to input, but the output simply doesn't scale and despite technologies being cross-device friendly , quickly falls apart in the real world.

I trust Scirra, you don't make software this good without knowing what you're doing. HTML5 is the future, AWP and instant apps are proof of the ever shifting progress away from native. I'll stick around for this ride, but I'd love Scirra's thoughts on what's been brought up so far.

I think you put the nail on the head there, or how they say....

Input - super easy to create games - output, a nightmare sometimes depending on what platform you target. They have nailed the input, so now they need to nail the output, everything in-between, like plugins and behaviors can pretty much be handled by the community until they sort the output out. So they need to focus on the editor capabilities and export options in my opinion, so you don't end up there with a finished game, but nowhere to publish it.

Put in regards to plugins etc. Community supplies a lot here.

I like the way BrashMonkey and Photon Cloud does it for example. They provide their own plugin, and they do it well with great support. Pushing different plugin support over to Scirra's table is not the right way to go, then blaming scirra for not listening to customers. Chase down the ad network instead because they probably have way more money time and developer resources to provide plugins than Scirra has.

As I'm also mostly interested in mobile, I'm very curious about the build service. If it's hassle free working great, it's a big big step for scirra, and the mobile dev crowd here. But monetization plugins for different kind of ad networks and platforms.... meh.... I don't think that's what scirra should focus on right now. It would be better if the ad networks provided their own plugins.... and we still have the option to make our own if we really want to, with SDK's and a bit of know how, willpower, brute force or cash.

If you need a specific plugin for you project, why not hire a dev to do it? Or get together a couple of people in need of the same plugin and crowd fund it together?

Here's a non rhetorical question.

Would an exporter sdk still be doable? This was one of the promises of C2 as part of its "modularity" if they ever finished the html5 framework.

Here's a non rhetorical question.

Would an exporter sdk still be doable? This was one of the promises of C2 as part of its "modularity" if they ever finished the html5 framework.

I love an update on the state of modularity - I'm taking it as a nice idea, and definitely one that has the userbase backing, but one that Scirra was never quite engaged with due to the underlying architecture change it would present.

Given that the editor SDK won't be around until after the full C3 launch (September?) I think we can cross off any other SDKs

I think most issues ranted here are non issues. You have a pretty basic editor, with a basic toolset, and a basic setup of behaviors and plugins. Where Construct shines is that they have the Event sheet and the capability to make and add your own plugins.

Nothing for serious developers? Out of the box no, but if you're really that serious and in need of monetization the only thing stopping you is your own ability to create the plugin to fit your needs. Blaming the devs for not providing this and that plugin is a bit childish.

I wouldn't call anyone "serious" who can't even invest in their own business, blaming everyone else for not providing a smörgosbord of everything that you "might need".

I have no need for monetization plugins, I wouldn't wanna ruin my game by slapping ads on it, so for me those kind of plugins is not something I would like them to spend their time on.

So you're going to sit here and act like the engine wasn't advertised to have all of these things included? Now where is the word "basic" used in the marketing? It's promising exporting to a plethora of devices and every one that I've tried had a lot of issues. I've always had to use 3rd party software to make things work. Now is that ultimately a big deal? Well, yes, actually. If you're going to create an engine and advertise it as basically a one-stop-shop for game dev, then I think it needs to be.

Bringing up the cost of the engine is also pretty irrelevant because I didn't dictate the cost, Scirra did. If they charged $1000 I probably still would have paid for it given the event system alone.

You not wanting to "ruin" your game by slapping ads on it is a personal choice. What does that have to do with projects that I build around that style of monetization?

Have you completed and released a commercial project with Construct 2? If you have, then you'd understand what I mean. Also the engine is promoted as a "non-coding" engine which will obviously attract artists, designers, and people who don't know how to code in general. It doesn't mean you're not serious... You're using a tool that's advertised to suit your needs.

With things like this written all over the front page..

"No Programming Required!

You can now make advanced games without writing a line of code. Construct 2 does the hard work so you don't have to.

Our highly intuitive event system makes putting your games together quick and easy.

You've finally found it. The powerful, full featured and professional game development software you've always been looking for.

Build Once. Publish Everywhere.

True multiplatform support. Build your game in Construct 2 and publish it to all these platforms."

It goes on to list the Wii U, iOS, Android, etc.

Maybe YOU don't need these things but if I pay for something that promises these things, then that's what I (and I'm sure the majority of customers) will expect.

And seriously, calm down with the "childish" name calling.

As for people saying jump to another engine. Yes, I know that's an option. But I do enjoy Construct's workflow and I have been a part of this community for years. I don't simply want to jump ship. I'd like to at least first voice my concerns and see how the community can shape the software before deciding to do that.

At the end of the day, working with an easier game engine made me waste more time. I came to realize that having a better notion of coding and also using better tools was the solution.

this is a terrible outlook. it's never a waste! it's all iterative! the more games you make no matter what your engine or platform the better you get and the more you develop as a maker of games. C2 teaches good game development techniques because of it's limitations. You find that with any engine. I teach C2 and Unreal 4 at a college and all the concepts are the same.

I think some people want too much from a tool.. seriously.. Construct, Unity, GM, UE4 they are all tools.. and all have pluses and minuses. Sure deployment to specific platforms is a huge deal when considering financial returns. But Construct has never been the goto engine for xbox or any other console. To simply wait for Construct to change and adopt that kind service is not a great decision.

I think some people want too much from a tool.. seriously.. Construct, Unity, GM, UE4 they are all tools.. and all have pluses and minuses. Sure deployment to specific platforms is a huge deal when considering financial returns. But Construct has never been the goto engine for xbox or any other console. To simply wait for Construct to change and adopt that kind service is not a great decision.

To be fair, the Wii U is mentioned and under the "true multiplatform support" section... Also highly on the list. The SECOND export option advertised

And you stated people want too much? I'm arguing literally what's been advertised. I specifically mentioned the exporting (Wii U, mobile, etc) and monetization. Nothing else.

I'll ask you as well... If you bought the engine with these promises and you create a project to find out what's been advertised basically doesn't work nearly as well as the wording would make you think, would you be okay with that? Teaching coding concepts and releasing a game are two different things. Not saying you haven't and not talking down on your profession in any way. Just making that clear. This tool is supposed to be a professional 2d game dev software. Every commercial C2 dev I've spoken to share my sentiments.

I agree with NotionGames about the fact that it was always advertised that C2 could export to consoles. Or at least, some of them.

Now, I know making games is iterative, heck I've been working in game companies for the last 12 years so and I've worked with either in-house engines and also commercial engines. But

all I can say by experience is in how many ways C2 was limiting me. Each time I found either bugs or missing features that blocked more than coding would do.

You should take into account that a few big games started on C2 ended up moving for same reasons.

Then the identity and marketing of Construct as a whole should change in my opinion. People's resources, time, energy are being wasted when buying into something that promises to suit their needs. It takes months and sometimes years to build a project. Who wants to reach a huge milestone to find out the engine they thought could export to X platform actually doesn't? OR at least doesn't without the need to use an assortment of 3rd party software.

Construct is frankly aimed at hobbyists, artists, designers, etc. who would love to make a game but can't code. It also gives them the promise of being able to create professional projects and release them commercially.

And yes, I am very disappointed. I put a lot into the engine and the community. I taught C2 in classes and more. I just want the software to do what it promises

And you stated people want too much? I'm arguing literally what's been advertised. I specifically mentioned the exporting (Wii U, mobile, etc) and monetization. Nothing else.

How many games are on WiiU that use C2? Maybe 2? I actually have no idea. But I know it's very few. My point is if your goal is WiiU, why are you using C2? I say never mind what is advertised. Go with what is being practiced. If anyone is a good example it's The Next Penelope who released on Steam and wanted a WiiU release. http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/0 ... uld_happen

>

> And you stated people want too much? I'm arguing literally what's been advertised. I specifically mentioned the exporting (Wii U, mobile, etc) and monetization. Nothing else.

>

How many games are on WiiU that use C2? Maybe 2? I actually have no idea. But I know it's very few. My point is if your goal is WiiU, why are you using C2? I say never mind what is advertised. Go with what is being practiced. If anyone is a good example it's The Next Penelope who released on Steam and wanted a WiiU release. http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/0 ... uld_happen

My goal was Wii U back in 2013. At that time, no one had a game on the Wii U because the system was new.

The Next Penelope wanted a Wii U release right? Well we were in the same boat. We thought the engine we had would do it, found out the hard way.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/06/super_ubie_land_set_to_emerge_this_august

People's resources, time, energy are being wasted when buying into something that promises to suit their needs. It takes months and sometimes years to build a project. Who wants to reach a huge milestone to find out the engine they thought could export to X platform actually doesn't? OR at least doesn't without the need to an assortment of 3rd party software.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20.. but honestly if you are about to set out 2 or 3 years to make something you better do your research and know if that engine has success deploying to your target platform. You shouldn't take Scirra's marketing materials as a sole factor in choosing an engine.

I'm not bashing anyone that this has happened to.. I'm just saying.. live and learn, it makes sense. But to do so is a HUGE risk.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20.. but honestly if you are about to set out 2 or 3 years to make something you better do your research and know if that engine has success deploying to your target platform. You shouldn't take Scirra's marketing materials as a sole factor in choosing an engine.

I'm not bashing anyone that this has happened to.. I'm just saying.. live and learn, it makes sense.

Understandable. But someone has to do it first, right? We happened to be the first who have. If it weren't for us who have put a lot into the engine, there wouldn't be any example games to promote with... Now I've reached a point where I have to call them out on it.