3 things I'd like to see in future programs

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  • Interesting ideas, just to add my comments...

    1. A Web-style creation system with simple-to-program randomization ... randomly display characters, or numbers ... all much simpler than it is now

    I don't understand your point about randomness. The random() expression gives you a random number. You can use that to jump to random layouts, display random numbers, make random events happen, etc. What are you asking for to be different here?

    [quote:23llzzmp]2. Sports-friendly creation algorithms ... engines built to accommodate shooters and platformers

    Nothing about Construct is specifically tailored to specific games - it's probably the built in behaviors that gave you this impression. If you like, you could develop (or hire someone to develop) sport-friendly behaviors via the C++ behavior SDK. Construct itself is aimed at creating any kind of 2D game, so features are necessarily generalised so they can be applied to as many kinds of game as possible.

    [quote:23llzzmp]3. A Template system

    You can select File - new template/example since we planned a system just like this, but there aren't many that ship with Construct. I'm open to community submissions for the templates dialog.

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  • You could do that though MaxMan777. You could create the underlying template yourself, submit it to the devs and I'm sure if it works fine, they'll probably include it with the other templates.

    That's the closest you're going to get though, because I don't see there ever being some "American Football" behavior or object. Firstly one isn't required, secondly a lot of people wouldn't want it or use it, thirdly, such a thing will simply spawn a great deal of very specific games. The current behaviors are generally pretty open for use in different ways. But what you're asking for is too specific for a behavior itself (and a whole bunch of behaviors that aren't much use to anyone outside very specific single type of sports game will be annoying).

    It sounds like what you're actually looking for is a ready made game that you can mod yourself, rather than make your own game. Can't you mod any of the games out there now, or is EA still making modding difficult for their games?

    Also, even with all the rules of football, it doesn't strike me as all that complicated to make in construct right now. And I'm the first who'll jump in on a chance to prove construct can't do something, but this would be easy for it. Someone recently posted a cap they are working on with controls that could be used for some kind of ball passing movement. Player controls could be selected by distance to the ball without any problems. Scrolling is very simple to setup. Really, if I think something is easy in construct then it must be.

    As for your choose your own adventure thing. You could make one of those insanely easily with just HTML and a tiny bit of PHP (the php for storing stats, inventory etc). Or make simpler versions using Mediawiki. If you're instead thinking about text adventures like Zork or The Hobbit. Then you're looking at text parsers, which construct can do quite easily too (I've spent time looking into this previously, as personal interest myself) or can be done online, again with PHP which has no trouble at all parsing strings.

    I really don't follow this web thing you're after though. Are you instead talking about WYSIWYG? Construct already is. This web thing though, construct isn't a web page builder. It can GET and PUT files onto the net, update and change external files, but that's about it as far as web stuff goes. Though it wouldn't be outside the realms of possibility to make a html editor with construct.

    And I'm with Ashley on the random expression thing being incredibly useful. I've come up with all kinds of crazy things in PHP using mt_rand() that you wouldn't think random numbers would be used for.

  • analog joysticks are as simple as can be, they return the x value and y value for the stick. which you can get the directional angle by using angle(0,0,joystickX,joystickY). the value joyx/joyy returns is simply any decimal number from and including -1 to +1. your getting everything you need and its as intuitive and simple as it can be while still offering complete control. you just need to play around with it more to get to know how to use it and ways to solve your problems with it as you use it. dont dismiss things without completely understanding what it is they can do, thats just a little bit ignorant. its like saying "math isnt good because i cant see how many apples i have in both baskets added together" its simply your lack of experience holding you back, so go get some

    as for sports games needing to have many roudabouts to be made, thats not true. anything you try to make is gonna prove to have some difficulties. try setting up a boss in a platform game for instance. to give it seperate attack patterns that activate as time goes on and at random, your gonna have to do a lot of stuff that isnt simple. but if you think about how you could do it, its seems pretty clear after a while what exactly you have to do, and how you can build it with the hammer, wood, and nails construct gives you. this goes for anything your trying to make.

  • analog joysticks are as simple as can be, they return the x value and y value for the stick. which you can get the directional angle by using angle(0,0,joystickX,joystickY). the value joyx/joyy returns is simply any decimal number from and including -1 to +1. your getting everything you need and its as intuitive and simple as it can be while still offering complete control.

    Mini-thread hijack - You got me wondering, does construct accept the analog input of the XBox 360 left and right triggers too, or are those just seen as on or off?

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  • One reason you might not see any templates for sports games is that sports games are rather complex. The template itself would be a rather complex thing to make. And the more complex something is, the harder it is to modify to your own tastes. If you were to just throw in your own graphics and sounds, it would be readily apparent that you're just using "Template #6: Football" or whatever. You'd have to work a whole lot just to "make it your own," so to speak.

    The reason you see templates for platformers and overhead shooters and such is that those are relatively simple games in comparison. Easy to make, and easy to mod. Well, easier anyway.

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  • >

    >

    > Mini-thread hijack - You got me wondering, does construct accept the analog input of the XBox 360 left and right triggers too, or are those just seen as on or off?

    >

    It's accepted but it's not very accurate, and you definitely need it to be moreso for sports games.

    its extremely accurate, down to 3 decimal points you can control it with your slightest touch to alter it. the rheostats are extremely precise for a simple controller, and its impossible you'd need more precision because your fingers just wouldn't even be able to decisively control them anyways. just make a text object display the output of a trigger or control stick and youll see what i mean. the slightest movement WILL affect the value.

    As for the the stick accuracy being off. no thats not correct, its moreso the way games handle the sticks output thats off. the resting position not properly being accounted for, and probably your punts or whatever, not going in the proper direction is due to the stick not accounting for view angle in the proper manner, making it seem like the control is "off" because things don't go where you were logically aiming them when its simply bad programming and bad methods for handling control (which sports games are notorious for).

    [quote:c1scn14o] In Construct there are some issues with the analog sticks accuracy and the way it decides which stick is being activated for certain commands.

    this is once again bad programming on your part, and bad methods for doing things. if your even using the analog input properly, your post makes no sense, because sticks are never "activated" they simply relay the value the rheostats are getting to the program. its up to you to decide where the dead zones are and when your sticks are accepting input through your programming. you decide everything, so its a problem with the way your handling input. adding a simple falloff type curve to the output you get using some math would greatly improve how your control is affected based on how tilted the stick is. but thats completely up to you to set up, because you need to tailor things to your game and tastes, not construct.

    anyways, im only trying to help with your quoted analog stick problem here, and your coming off pretty rude to me acting as if you had deeper meaning to what you were saying in that section of your post. i said your coming off a bit ignorant because your trotting around thinking you know all the problems with everything when you've got 0 experience with construct besides your simple football game related endeavors and problems, which are probably only existing through your single project due to some strange mistake you've made without realizing (which happens to everyone, but even still, you just throw them around as if they exist outside of it, and are the cause of problems which you couldn't ever be sure of ).

  • Please don't call me ignorant, that's not civil or accurate, especially considering that you completely misunderstood my entire post...

    This has nothing to do with my experience in Construct and if you read what I talked about more carefully without assuming,

    > as for sports games needing to have many roudabouts to be made, thats not true. anything you try to make is gonna prove to have some difficulties. try setting up a boss in a platform game for instance. to give it seperate attack patterns that activate as time goes on and at random, your gonna have to do a lot of stuff that isnt simple. but if you think about how you could do it, its seems pretty clear after a while what exactly you have to do, and how you can build it with the hammer, wood, and nails construct gives you. this goes for anything your trying to make.

    >

    Yes, but all of that is completely beside the point and really has very little to do with this.

    I think you need to stop, take a few steps back, and rethink how you're approaching your game idea. Nothing about this game so far is impossible, or even all that complicated, but it is perhaps above your skill level at this time and you'd be better off experimenting with smaller projects, learning the software and going from there. As for dismissing other's comments. They're actually a lot closer to the answers you need (but perhaps not the ones you want), than you're giving them credit for, and you shouldn't outright dismiss them like that.

    I'm considering that, but I'm not sure how far it can go. Once my Phase 1 and Phase 2 prototype is done, I don't have any plans to complete the entire project this way. It was never my intent to do the full game this way, only a prototype. I'm fairly certain just because of the controller issue alone that a good retail football game is not totally possible in the current state that programs like MMF and Construct are.

    I have another plan for the final project in place, but failing that using Construct might be a consideration.

    Nothing wrong with the controller system, but I think you're thinking too far ahead talking about retail games.

    [quote:21ebaqbi]I don't know if "requirement" is the only qualifier. I could probably make the same statement about a number of things already in Construct like the AVI object for example. But it should be there and it should be supported because if the idea is to be able to make any type of game, then in that regard it becomes a requirement in and of itself.

    As I've explained and continue to explain. You can make the game you're talking about, you're just going to have to use events to do it. Though as I say, it's probably above your current skill level at this time. But it's certainly possible. And if you've read any of my past posts, you'll know that I wouldn't say that unless I believed it.

    [quote:21ebaqbi]If you only consider the people here or most of the people using the product right now, yes, but that's not looking at the big picture. When more of these things are available you'll start to see more creators in this genre. I see requests for this same sort of stuff in XNA forums all the time, but it's not available so the sports gamers dream dies before even getting a chance. They have templates for every other type, but not sports.

    Look at RPG Maker and others of its type. There are large communities of non-C programmers using those, and there are just as many non-C programmers dying for a chance to do the same thing with sports games... but it's just not available yet.

    Erm yeah, you're comparing two very different demographics, which unfortunately makes that a mute point. RPG gamers are very different to Sport fans. And out of the almost 2000 users on this forum, you're the only one I've seen who's asking for something like this. Regardless of your claim that there are large communities out there dying to make football games. It's 1% asking for it right now. Course, if they were all to come and request such a thing to be including in construct, and there was enough call for it. The devs may come up with some kind of alternative or feature which could help. But I wouldn't count on it, as I say, it's too specific and wouldn't do anything you can't already do quite easily if you broke things down into their component parts.

    As I and others have said, what you're wanting would simply cause a great many obvious clones. There would be little originality, and would end up ignored just like any that are using the ghost shooter template.

    [quote:21ebaqbi]

    Hmmm... Annoying how exactly? I don't quite understand. When there is a group of operations specific to a template, if you don't desire to make that type of game you'd never even see them since you'd never open the template...

    I don't think you've checked out how the templates work. They're still really just regular caps, examples as it were.

    [quote:21ebaqbi]When I mention accessibility being an issue, this probably makes you furl your brow because a lot of the people here are so familiar with the program or have had a lot of experience in more complex programs or C, it all seems like no big deal. But there is another faction of very talented concept designers that will never figure out how to make these types of games work in Construct or MMF or similar programs, because on the surface it doesn't "speak" the language they understand to even do the simplest operation of the sport they're trying to recreate.

    As I say, if you read any of my posts, you'd know I'm not a programmer. But I still think there would be no real difficulties (not what I would consider difficult) in doing what you're wanting to do with construct at this time. It just seems complicated to you, that's all. I've seen far more complex things done with it though.

    [quote:21ebaqbi]Difficulty depends on how realistic you want it to be. To make 10-yard Fight, probably not so much. To make Tecmo Super Bowl, much more difficult, though not impossible. To make anything above that, virtually impossible unless you're a genius with this program and have incredible attention to detail that can stand the community scrutiny which even Madden in all it's complex programming glory has not been able to do.

    I just had a look at those. There's nothing there that couldn't be done in Construct, with varying degrees of knowledge (but even then, it still just all boils down to the basics when you strip everything else away).

    [quote:21ebaqbi]There are so many nuances to making an American Football game work properly it's just not done by single programmers, and even large teams have routinely failed. Programs like Construct eliminate a lot of the hassle, but you're still unlikely to turn out a final product better than Tecmo Super Bowl. That's why I know that prototype is more than likely my limit for now and to go further I'm going to have to hire a team of C programmers to work with me.

    The thing is. If all these companies, with their millions of dollars investment, amazing talent pools, far more advanced tools than you're going to find on the shelf, and ability to code things from scratch in C++ or whatever, with access to costly software the common user hasn't. It's illogical to think construct, or the average Joe off the street could do it better by including a few behaviors or making things easier to setup.

    Though you have proven a point I've been trying to make for some time. New users hear "easy" and think exactly that, and their requests and questions are based on "can it do" and not "how's it done" or is it possible for them to do. So can construct do what you're wanting? Yes it can. Could you, yourself, do it at this time? No, I don't think you could, and you should practice with the software more, learn how the various area's work, test things and gradually go from there.

    Everything you're wanting can be broken down into component parts and tackled separately and simply. If you've really worked in commercial game development like you said you have, you should already know that. Football, like everything, is based on rules. From a game point of view, you've got further rules, such as how the ball will behave (well there's physics to handle that). The player AI, again, can break that down so they behave and obey the rules of the game easily enough. Yes you're going to have to get your hands dirty and use events, no it wont be a case of clicking some options and pressing a few buttons. But it's still much easier than you can imagine.

    There just isn't, and never will be a "make game X now" button. Yes construct and it's ilk make things easier. But if pro's can't get something right with all their resources and money available. Then something like construct in the hands of a new user has little chance of shaking the foundations either.

    [quote:21ebaqbi]I have some experience with HTML, I built sites and templates for a few years, but I'm more of an editor than a coder. That said, would the average person know how to do that? Nope, that's where templates come in.

    Well then they have to learn don't they. You can't expect to walk in off the street and be able to do anything you want without any practice or knowledge.

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  • Quazi and MaxMan777, neither of you are coming across as civil and polite in this thread, and I will simply lock the thread if anyone continues to be in the slightest bit bitchy. I don't know why it's so hard to be understanding and diplomatic on the internet, but you've come to the wrong forum if you want to argue.

    There are so many nuances to making an American Football game work properly it's just not done by single programmers, and even large teams have routinely failed

    MaxMan777, I am not getting your point. Do you want me (or Davo, the only other active developer) to go to all this effort that defeats large teams and is fraught with nuances and time consuming coding? And for what, a thousand identical football games with superficial differences?

    We who make Construct do it in our spare time, unpaid, as volunteers. Our goal is not to make pre-made but moddable games - there are already loads of tools out there for that, and a lot of them seem to suck. Our goal is to provide, in Construct, a useful set of tools and high-level primitives (eg. Sprites) that can be used easily to make original games. I don't see your idea fitting in with that - but other developers can always extend Construct as they like with plugins and behaviors. I think that's your best option if you want to take this idea to Construct.

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