Construct / multimedia fusion / game maker ?

Hi everyone,

I'd like to know if somebody here has already used both GM/construct or mmf/construct, and if using this soft makes him working faster ? I'm leading the development of a 2d tactical-rpg actually, using mmf and... you know, its core is old, it doesn't feature as much usefull shaders and systems as construct has got basically... but we have chosen this one because some time ago, construct was still quite unstable. So i'd like to know how it's going right now ?

thanks in advance.

Using Construct, in my experience anyway, is kind of like driving my car. My car is falling apart, and regularly has some weird hitches in it, like the speedometer stops working, or I have to go into neutral along the highway to keep it from overheating, or whatever. The car works great, and it's actually pretty fast, but it's a death trap.

Construct is extremely powerful, but quite unstable. It's like sending yourself to the moon by strapping a few million bottle rockets to your back. With that said, the stability has improved over the last few years, so take that as you will.

Oh, right... We'll keep using mmf though, as the game is meant to be sold. Thanks.

If you know C++ I would not dismiss Construct so easily, as it's power increases exponentially if you can make your own plugins for it.

Oh, right... We'll keep using mmf though, as the game is meant to be sold. Thanks.

Is this under the presumption that due to its open-source nature, you can't sell games created using Construct? Because it's quite false. Or am I misinterpreting what you said?

[quote:96s6skpt]Is this under the presumption that due to its open-source nature, you can't sell games created using Construct? Because it's quite false. Or am I misinterpreting what you said?

Nope. We need a really stable engine, more than anything else, that's what i meant.

[quote:96s6skpt]If you know C++ I would not dismiss Construct so easily, as it's power increases exponentially if you can make your own plugins for it.

Well, i was only wondering if the soft could permit us to work faster than mmf2 with more stability. I haven't programmed in cpp for a while, and i'm not fond of such programming. I'll see with the programmer.

I think while construct doesn't have perfect stability, arsonide's description was a bit of an exaggeration. I haven't used mmf to compare, but as far as gamemaker there's no comparison, it's so much faster in terms of both developing an idea into a working model, and also in terms of graphical and computational performance it's not even in the same class. I paid for gamemaker, and I wouldn't even consider looking back. Also, there are many on the boards who migrated from mmf and haven't gone back. So, yeah, stability isn't perfect, but flying to moon with bottle rockets strapped to your back is an unfair analogy. the crappy car is a better analogy, though we should say it's a beaten up ferrari.

Keep in mind Arsonide is a developer of a procedural space game with infinite (for all practical purposes) universe, that had moved away to try out Unity, and come back to Construct with continual updates on the development to his game for the last several months. Seems a large investment of time for something if he was so sure it wasn't going to work in the end. I don't think he was trying to deceive you, just warn you that stability is an issue at times. It's just the analogies he used seem to indicate it's impossible to work with construct without it all ending in disaster, which I personally disagree with.

Construct v99.96 is quite stable although there are some memory type errors that pop up every now and again.As long as the game that your'e creating does not involve too many complicated events then Construct should be pretty stable.

I have worked with mmf and game maker ,They are good ,But not as versatile as Construct.And like Arsonide pointed out you could always create plugins which could make CS more stable.The possibilities that Construct has with plugins are almost endless.

Construct v99.96 is quite stable although there are some memory type errors that pop up every now and again.As long as the game that your'e creating does not involve too many complicated events then Construct should be pretty stable.

I don't think complexity must be avoided, it just becomes more quirky. Not like "OK, gotta take that out of the game", more like "OK, guess we'll have to do it this way" instead of the other way. both ways have the same result, just one might trigger said glitch, the other is fine

I have worked with mmf and game maker ,They are good ,But not as versatile as Construct.And like Arsonide pointed out you could always create plugins which could make CS more stable.The possibilities that Construct has with plugins are almost endless.

as a plugin developer, I don't think you can develop plugins to make construct more stable, only more powerful and easy to use. basically any feature construct doesn't already have that you'd like to add, you can make a plugin for

In fact, I've sent the references about scirra to the programmer yesterday, and he'll choose if we switch softwares or not.

Making this game involves the creation of a lot of complex events. A part of them has already been made both in cpp (external dungeon generator) and inside mmf.

Can construct create add-on exe files ?

[quote:2h7zixmu]as a plugin developer, I don't think you can develop plugins to make construct more stable, only more powerful and easy to use. basically any feature construct doesn't already have that you'd like to add, you can make a plugin for

Well a more stable plugin could be created if another plugin seems unstable.

Can construct create add-on exe files ?

add-on exe files?

Did you mean Add on exe's aka patches or dl content.Like adding extra characters through updates or extra level add ons etc...The best way to find out which program will work the best is by testing it yourself,Write down the positive and the negative aspects of each program.Then choose the one which has the most positive aspects for the type of game you want to create.

Im using 10 different programs and each has it's up's and down's.Personally i think the good old C+ or C++ programming works the best , But it's very time consuming and often very frustrating.Choose a program which is best suited for you and your programmer.I have chosen Construct for all my 2d projects because i can create complicated games in a fraction of the time compared to c+ and c++.

I don't think complexity must be avoided, it just becomes more quirky. Not like "OK, gotta take that out of the game", more like "OK, guess we'll have to do it this way" instead of the other way. both ways have the same result, just one might trigger said glitch, the other is fine

This is my experience to the letter.

Keep in mind Arsonide is a developer of a procedural space game with infinite (for all practical purposes) universe, that had moved away to try out Unity, and come back to Construct with continual updates on the development to his game for the last several months. Seems a large investment of time for something if he was so sure it wasn't going to work in the end. I don't think he was trying to deceive you, just warn you that stability is an issue at times. It's just the analogies he used seem to indicate it's impossible to work with construct without it all ending in disaster, which I personally disagree with.

Well, I'm using .91 for my project, and am too paranoid to upgrade the cap to .96. That said, I'm like a year behind on the updates, which explains my experience with stability.

Construct isn't UNSTABLE, by any means. I'm just saying, it does have it's quirks and I've learned to live with them. Its power certainly outweighs them.

Haven't used MMF, but I have Game Maker, and as Lucid said GM isn't even in the same class.

If I were to continue the comparison in metaphor I would say GM is a program with a front end like a bike with training wheels, and the back end like an eighteen wheeler.

Obviously a huge learning curve in between.

On the other side of that I would compare Construct to a hot rod in the making, put together by a couple of shade tree mechanics. Now in this case the front end, is just about as powerful as the back end, even though its pretty much street legal, it still needs a lot of work.

Both programs can have seemingly random crashes, like just about any other program out there.

But unlike most closed software out there, if you can identify the problem, there's a good chance it will get fixed in Construct.