Concerns from a "Serious" developer

NotionGames

Yeah... Some things have workarounds, like using VM's or WINE to run Construct 2 in Mac/Linux, but certain things don't have a workaround, such as this WiiU Export issue. You hit a dead end and there's no solution or workaround. Makes me wonder why time and resources were focused on doing things browser-based for Mac/Linux support when there was already a workaround for doing that, when there's loyal serious developers that would throw all their money at Scirra raising the concern that their export runs poorly and is hindering them. (Correct me if I'm wrong, as i have not used Mac/Linux, just going from memory here.)

Perhaps spending years to have C3 be browser-based may not be strictly for multiple operating system support; I believe there are things such the new Array editor that may not have been able to be developed in C2's environment... but couldn't that have had a workaround? Have a tiny EXE that is a small lil array editor within C2's directory that you can run from C2 by clicking the "Array editor" button or something, which then hooks onto C2? I don't know the logistics of software development that well, I could be completely wrong here.

On a more personal level, NotionGames, it's commendable that you are here voicing your concerns, especially in your position (Anyone else reading this that have been vocalising their opinions lightly or strongly, it's great! It's great to get everyone's opinion and learn what everyone is here for, even the frequent opinion of "can we have native exports".). I have mostly taken the back seat and observed, I've stopped developing in C2 due to a fear of a random unexpected direction that Scirra may/may not take, heck I've stopped developing completely and it sucks, although I'm only a hobbyist. But your thread has taken off, seeing it suddenly appear on the forum with so many pages really shows you have made an impact and created a lot of discussion, hence why I've crawled out from under the shadows once again to comment. Perhaps the sudden surge of discussion is due to your position, or it's the way you've written your posts, but either way, keep on keeping on, you speak for more people than you may realise.

NotionGames No offence but my opinion but I think you are in this for the money mostly only

and I find that a really poor way to make games ... just because call of duty and I know you've talked about this with your friends

but even though call of duty makes millions selling a game that plays with human natural instincts to cash in doesn't mean you need to do that

with stylized casual games that have been ripped off for years even before mobile was around .

You may take offence but Id be interested to hear your reply in a respectable manner.

Construct Engine too me is an engine about allowing you to take your ideas an turn them into reality

in as simple as a way possible and have the ability to let others play it what platform that is

personally to me is irrelevant aslong as the platforms it export to are ones people are into

like the internet that's more then enough for me and people don't directly have to download anything

to play it win win who cares about console unless your game design requires console support are you a big company

trying to make 10k a month to fund your team I think you need to build a fan base who are into your games

and that number can be reached eventually but if you need it really quick then you better hope your game is super meat boy level

or has same technique of impact that tetris had on silly game addicts, I don't know big companies was never a very interesting idea to me

Id prefer to be as small as possible?.

— there was really no call for that level of name calling. Full-time Indies need food and that means money. Even part-time Indies sometimes need resources that cost money. If your opinion had any factual/legitmate basis behind it Construct would still be free and open source for those same reasons!

Agree with —

But the main thing is...If you want to do Console Games, why do you chose, C2?

I think Construct is it's own nemesis sometimes. It's so easy to do a basic game that pretty much anyone can do it with a little bit of learning how the event sheet works. The problem with this is, do the games run well? I can only speak from my own experience trying to develop for mobile. At first I thought, bleehhhh performance sucks, but it turned out it's my own code/events that sucked. It was easy to make the game do what I wanted, but it's so hard to make the game do things efficiently.

I'm sure there is a lot of talent on this forum, and a lot of people have great ideas, but just because you can do things, doesn't mean it will perform great on your desired platform. I've been struggling on and off with my first game for about 2 years. Often I put my main project to the side, and just mess around with C2 and it's capabilities, doing small test projects, just to try out some features/plugins whatever, and learning.

But one thing I noticed, is that it's much harder than you think, very similar to my previous job developing for consoles. When I worked at DICE, we had a very very limited memory budget for UI, for Battlefield: Bad Company. You have grand ideas of what you wanna do but is set back by technology and what you actually can do....

Developing for Consoles is more to it than just pushing out a game. Every console has their own QA department making sure things are up to par, and performing well. It's not like Google Play store where any "developer" can upload their clones and shovelware. You have to make sure on screen elements for buttons follow UI guidelines, and is clearly visible for a variety on TV screens and resolutions. Your game is not going to pass, if it's not up to par, at least that's what it's what like working on AAA title a couple of years ago. I don't know if it's a bit different if the console has an indie dev section.... but anywho

So even if Scirra provided console export, you have a lot more working against you that just creating a game. Even if html5 games were supported better on consoles. It's gonna be pretty hard I guess.

TLDR:

When you have a game you want to develop, I think it's better to chose the tool right for the job, than expecting your tool to adopt to your needs. Your best bet is to chose an engine that is specifically designed for your purpose and does it well.

So back to my first question. If you want to do Console Games, why do you chose, C2/C3?, it's not designed for it. And consoles are generally not designed to run HTML5 games.

It's like choosing MS paint to do advanced photo editing like what you would do in Photoshop.

Maybe people chose C2 for console because they claimed Wii U support? And over a year ago, announced XB1 "beta" support, and again recently announced XB1, to the point where it's listed as a supported platform for C3? Wii U export was more or less unworkable and WebGL shader support in Edge (which would have to be depended upon on XB1 export) is almost entirely broken, so claiming "support" for those platforms is misleading at best, purposely vague overstatements that are known by Scirra to be not entirely true at worst. Combine that with those of us who've already had their games approved for release on Wii U & XB1 not being able to do so because of the engine not being able to do anything close to what's event remotely been promised platform-wise, and you're headed pretty deeply into the territory of misleading marketing. Consoles don't need to be designed to run "HTML5 games." Games built in HTML5 need to be using HTML5 tech that can run on consoles - all of which are capable, spec-wise, of doing so. Scirra's complete lack of desire to support consoles in such a way that the HTML5 games it exports run well on consoles is the issue. The "we're sticking to standards" approach falls apart when nobody else, including web browser developers on PC/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS, sticks to standards. It's an oft-repeated excuse used to dismiss criticism of engine performance and feature set. With C3 just being an editor update on top of the same engine, I think the length of this thread points to the more experienced devs trying to make money by releasing games built in C2 being over the excuses.

You're basically ignoring those facts to tell everyone who wants to port to the platforms that Scirra has claimed are supported by their engine that they're wrong for expecting the tool set they landed upon to do what's advertised, as are those of us who are well aware of what's required to get a game running on multiple platforms or as wide a range of hardware as possible on a single platform like PC. I certainly didn't spend time hacking resolution switching - even if it's just the canvas, it helps with performance on lower-end GPUs, however many times Scirra may say it doesn't matter (they're completely wrong) - into Sombrero for my health. Reading UI guidelines isn't a big deal for me or others who use C2, since we've spent decades having to do exactly that for UI design for other types of software products. Experienced used are what Construct needs to grow beyond a userbase of hobbyists and students - unless, of, those are the target audiences for Construct moving forward, in which case experienced users will move on and the showcase for C3 will end up looking pretty sparse. Well...more sparse.

I built Sombrero in C2 because I dug the idea of the event sheets. Heck, I switched from Unity to C2 because at the time Unity didn't really have very good 2D tools. The issue isn't the editor/interface/whatever, though don't even get me started on how every concern I had with going to a browser-based IDE has proven true in a single week of stress testing. It's the woefully out of date or missing features of engine itself. Scirra saying "no, we're the best with a super-advanced HTML5 engine" is kind of nonsense after a certain point when the games can barely run on PCs that can handle games made in other engines just fine. Nobody cares - especially those purchasing games - how many times graphics drivers are blamed, when it's not an issue with other engines. I'm pretty over that excuse when I can run advanced games that came out a month ago on a tablet PC like a Surface Pro 4, but just about any complex C2 games is choppy as all hell, and they blame a graphics chip that can run advanced 3D games (even if at lower resolutions). "It's just as fast as native" is such a bold-faced lie that I don't know how Scirra keeps thinking they can get away with claiming it, outside of a mostly inexperienced user base. Being "the best tool for 2D games" involves more than just saying a tagline. It involves results. That we haven't seen.

I don't understand why are you guys still talking about the Wii U since :

1- It didn't sell pretty well.

2- Everybody is talking about the Nintendo Switch.

So It won't be any surprise if Nintendo decides to drop support of the Wii U next year.

Scirra should be focusing on the Switch since most engines are preparing exporters for it.

NotionGames, Jayjay, tarek2....

Strongly agree as well.

I fell for it to.

"Build Once, Publish Everywhere" instead should be:

"Build A Prototype, Port to none of the platforms we have listed unless it's just the browser." You may

get lucky in the future with more support--but it is a gamble--and just know you will likely be wasting

your valuable time unless all you want to do is make browser games. Also the team has shown no real interest in solving this issue so be warned."

I don't understand why are you guys still talking about the Wii U since :

1- It didn't sell pretty well.

2- Everybody is talking about the Nintendo Switch.

So It won't be any surprise if Nintendo decides to drop support of the Wii U next year.

Scirra should be focusing on the Switch since most engines are preparing exporters for it.

Switch has no browser yet (available to the public at least) so we don't know how well it will/wont run.

However WiiU is still a valid audience, theres a lot of people with WiiU who won't upgrade to Switch any time soon. It's an audience starving for good games

Microsoft Construct. There's your roadmap.

I spent a year learning Construct a few years back because it advertised "no programming," and I didn't want to learn programming. And then I noticed most of the games I was creating looked like everyone else's, a pack of clones and mobile-looking derivatives. I learned to program. Now I don't use Construct.

Scirra spent years taking C2 and putting it in a browser and equipping it with some features they weren't able to put into C2. I had high hopes for the engine. Maybe it would be something fresh and evolved from C2 with more power. No, it's C2, in a browser. It targets devs who make browser games and probably the education market for teachers to show kids how to make games without programming.

Then, they'll probably sell to the highest bidder. I would. They might not, but I've used a lot of programs over the years that are now owned by a different entity.

Even if you do a research about x game engine, there's always bumps in the road. 2 years ago for a release in the previous studio I was working for, when Unity switched version to 5, a lot of plugins specially for rendering were broken in the process. There's always issues that you can expect and there's always a way or workarounds. In the case of engines like Unity and Unreal there's a reason why you can obtain source code now.

But to be honest, personally I don't see the issue, I mean, if Scirra can't offer export to consoles, then you change projects. In the world of indie dev you can't just stay with one product just because you are an artist and can't code. I'm an artist and yet I learned to code. Necessity pushes you to it, that's all. is not the first time a dev quits Scirra to change engine.

Slain which saw a major release was a C2 project and yet was forced to change to Unity. Engine was simply too limiting.

I...don't think you understand how game development works as a commercial interest. If you start working on your game in an engine that claims to have X features, and then after working on a project for a year or so it turns out that the claimed features are a total fabrication, you've just cost yourself potentially tens of thousands of dollars in lost time, not to mention sales revenue. You can't always just "change your products." Maybe if you're making games on the side or just for fun you can, sure. But not if you're developing commercial products.

I...don't think you understand how game development works as a commercial interest. If you start working on your game in an engine that claims to have X features, and then after working on a project for a year or so it turns out that the claimed features are a total fabrication, you've just cost yourself potentially tens of thousands of dollars in lost time. You can't always just "change your products." Maybe if you're making games on the side or just for fun you can, sure. But not if you're developing commercial products.

Exactly!

Also how much research can one really do? You generally look for games that have been published (which there are very few because of exporting reasons, abandoned projects, and more), you look at the free version, etc. But here's the thing, you won't know the major issues with exporting by using the very limited free version. From my knowledge, you can't even export. So what's given to prove the claims on the front page? Especially before the majority of the showcase projects went up around 2013 and later.

I feel like there's this strange divide between c2 users who have tried to create a commercial project and experienced the shortcomings, and those who have not. Stating we could simply change engines is really unfortunate and a really messed up solution after developing a project that took time and money/resources to complete.

What this thread should show everyone is that yes you can make games with Construct! But what can you do with said games once they're complete???

That's a MAJOR issue!

On a more personal level, NotionGames, it's commendable that you are here voicing your concerns, especially in your position (Anyone else reading this that have been vocalising their opinions lightly or strongly, it's great! It's great to get everyone's opinion and learn what everyone is here for, even the frequent opinion of "can we have native exports".). I have mostly taken the back seat and observed, I've stopped developing in C2 due to a fear of a random unexpected direction that Scirra may/may not take, heck I've stopped developing completely and it sucks, although I'm only a hobbyist. But your thread has taken off, seeing it suddenly appear on the forum with so many pages really shows you have made an impact and created a lot of discussion, hence why I've crawled out from under the shadows once again to comment. Perhaps the sudden surge of discussion is due to your position, or it's the way you've written your posts, but either way, keep on keeping on, you speak for more people than you may realise.

Thank you, I was the same way. I lurked the forums daily and never really said much. But I am seeing that more and more users are feeling jaded and there are a lot of us who really do care about Construct. I finally felt I had to say something about it, regardless if some people dislike me for bringing up issues. I've listed my projects to show that I have a lot of experience and that I have brought a lot of them to completion on various platforms... and every single platform besides hosting online I've had huge problems.

I'm glad you decided to comment as well. Good to hear from more of the community

> I don't understand why are you guys still talking about the Wii U since :

> 1- It didn't sell pretty well.

> 2- Everybody is talking about the Nintendo Switch.

>

> So It won't be any surprise if Nintendo decides to drop support of the Wii U next year.

>

> Scirra should be focusing on the Switch since most engines are preparing exporters for it.

>

Switch has no browser yet (available to the public at least) so we don't know how well it will/wont run.

However WiiU is still a valid audience, theres a lot of people with WiiU who won't upgrade to Switch any time soon. It's an audience starving for good games

It's not a valid audience for C2 developers, sadly. Somewhere upthread Ashley mentioned something about it "not supporting WebGL," which, like many statements Scirra makes, is only true in the vaguest sense. As Nintendo typically does, they rolled their own graphics acceleration solution that IS supported in NWF (pretty sure that's public info, so I'm comfortable saying it publicly). Scirra chose not to support it and went with their usual "this is non-standard so we won't support it" line of defense that I've never heard any other engine developer use because no product sticks 100% to the mythical idea of "standards" to succeed. I mean...C2 can't even move a single sprite across the screen smoothly on Wii U. That's not an issue with the console. That's an issue with the underlying engine technology.

Thank you OP for creating this thread. I agree. I love, love, love the event sheet system. But I dislike being limited by the HTML5 only output.

Also I dislike to see many good ideas, suggestions, fixes getting shut down very quickly with dismissive replies.

In my humble opinion I want to see alternative output other than Javascript/html5. Of course many of the stuff, plugins rely on that but I know we will get new authors for plugins that will work for the new output code be it c++. c# etc.

I have a feeling people will be screaming "TAKE MY MONEY" by then.

Well, I can say from personal experience having had many long debates with both Ashley and Tom on these same subjects for the past few months that Ashley does not listen to other people.

So unless we can convince Tom and the other Scirra staff of the need to make the C3 features and exporters available to the large number of C2 users that do not want a browser based subscription engine then it is all for not.

If they are going to abandon C2 then they should release it to public domain and let those people that developed the plugins and addons work it over to include those features and exporters but I don't see that happening.

So all we can do is just keep telling them what we want and let them see if C3 is profitable and if it isn't maybe they will come back to C2 and decide keeping their base happy is important.

If not- there are other options out there and more every year it seems!

digitalsoapbox

12 years of experience as Dev working in companies in Montreal is not experience enough? I'll be damn then.

I went through a long process of the whys I would need to change and even if it cost time = money still my best solution in the long run is to switch to another engine. Its simply a matter of risk and reward. Business are also made of that, it seems.

Then you understand that working as a developer isn't the same as being the person selling games commercially, correct? Or that when a company such as Scirra says their tool can do something, it should be able to do them, and not do them in the most half-assed way possible, if they actually do them in any way that is commercially viable at all?

I can't believe people are still here having this convo after all this time. You can argue and point things out all you want, but it's not going to change anything. JayJay and I have learned from our mistakes and we've moved on. This is not and can not be a serious development tool (C2), and yes it was advertized as such and those of us who are serious devs have paid for the software and may not have gotten what we wanted out of it. That's life.

But you've blindly put your faith in something that isn't going to change, even after being told time and again that it won't. After being shown that your problems have fallen onto deaf ears. There have been enough signs to show people that if they really want to make a game and port it for that matter, this is not the tool to do it.

I love the editor to death, but the engine can't be taken seriously. And the bottom line is, it's not your engine to change and they don't have to do it.

If you don't like what it is, it's time to move along.

I'm with you on what you are saying here.

However they clearly say it's an HTML5 Gameengine for 2D games so I can't understand the discussion about 3D and Native Export. Since that was known before buying the product.

I do not like C3 as it is right now but I wouldn't say that their marketing was misleading. You get what you saw, it's just not THAT easy to achieve and does not work for all and every case. But I get the anger and frustration that's in the air and that's totally understandable.

Anyhow, we should be happy to habe the freedom to take such things out in the official forums. Other communities are way more restrictive in that case.

Tom and Ashley should consider working on a second / complimentary product which brings in native exports by taking the JSON structures that contain the project logics and having it run by a native implementation of the c2/3 runtime. At least they would not need to remake the editor :S but I believe that might be really more complicated to keep features even across all export options. I'm sure people would throw their money (additional to the subscription) at them.

NotionGames off topic: so happy to see you around. I've been stalking you every now and then, eagerly waiting for your next game.