Any tips for working on large projects?

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RobertBrooks

  • I've used Construct products for many years, but only for small demos and single screen games. Now, I'm working on a solitaire game for Steam that will have several different game mechanics, hundreds of levels and over 50 animated dialogue and cutscenes.

    Any tips for working on large projects? (Things I might not have needed to worry about with my smaller games and demos...)

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  • I suggest you keep layout's small and be able to run them stand alone so you can debug any one of them. You will find you want to go through the intro layout screens first like a real user, but it is good to be able to immediately run a layout from the debugger.

    Also, use the template for all your assets (call them basic or default but have one for every asset).

    Don't worry about optimization, do the brute force simplest thing first and get it to work. Nothing ever needs optimization, we just think it does.

    Don't use addons, they get wiped every 5 years for one reason or another or people quit keeping then up to date--I hate to say it, but every time I use an addon I end up regretting it.

    yours

    winkr7

  • Thanks for the reply, winkr7! I'm going to have to study up on templates. I've never used them and I have no idea what they even do!

    I wish I had some tips/tricks to share to return the favor. Hmmm. This might be one! On my last game I added two text files to my project and kept them on my UI. One was for bugs, and the other was a ToDo & Ideas list. It was nice to keep everything together and I never had to leave Construct!

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  • Since most tasks will be waiting for a long time to be completed, using task boards can make the structure more visual for adjustments.

    Avoid polishing cross-cutting mechanics and animations - there is a high probability of reworking.

  • For cutscenes and game events I ended up writing a camera with 23 active parameters - zoom and movement via tween or lerp with various curves, optional input blocking and types of hero tracking and forced scrolling. This saves a lot of time now.

  • For a large project I would suggest saving it as a folder project and then using GitHub as source control. Using GitHub is typically used for teams, but even if you're a solo developer, it provides great tools like reviewing and reverting changes that can be really handy. It also acts as a cloud save service which means you can easily work on multiple devices and also acts as an additional cloud backup to help keep your work safe. And of course if you want to get anyone else involved, it's already set up for collaboration.

  • For cutscenes and game events I ended up writing a camera with 23 active parameters - zoom and movement via tween or lerp with various curves, optional input blocking and types of hero tracking and forced scrolling. This saves a lot of time now.

    envoys: Can you describe your cutscene camera a little bit? The story I want to tell is pretty visual with lots of "sight gags". I can't afford to pay for all that animation so I'm thinking about using static comic panels and the timeline editor to scroll and zoom as needed. (Maybe with some limited animations here and there.)

  • One thing I've found useful for me working on a large project is keeping all of my global variables in their own event sheet and separating them into sections with comments/titles. Commenting stuff is pretty important, I ignored it for years, but the more complex your project gets the more you will wish you did.

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