trouble loading some stuff

we have a school project were we are supposed to make a game using construct but after working on the game for some time we have begun to have some troubles with some things not loading properly. for example some backgrounds or sprites not always appearing and some objects just not appearing. we believe this is because the project has grown very big and has alot of large backgrounds and such. any tips?

i'd love to upload the .cap but i dont see any way to do it and its pretty big(15MB)

i'd love to upload the .cap but i dont see any way to do it and its pretty big(15MB)

Get a dropbox or box.net account, both are free and you can upload there.

Also, have you tried your .cap in Construct .99.84 to see if it works any better.

ok, thanks for that. the cap is uploaded on: http://www.box.net/shared/xzos4movqo

also i am using .99.84.

the strange thing about this all is that things only fail to "load" sometimes. sometimes restarting construct is all it takes to fix it but sometimes we have been trying to fix it for several hours and then it just starts working again when we havent done any major changes

I got a chance to look at the .cap file and it is quite a mess. It took nearly 3 mins before it would start in the debugger! At this pace it isn't even practical for me to try to troubleshoot. However, here are some things you can do to drastically reduce the size of your game (on disk and in memory):

1. Don't make the backgrounds paintings!! You should instead have smaller sprites or tiled background objects for different parts of the background. This alone will reduce the size of the game dramatically.

2. I don't know if you are doing this, but don't import the same graphic twice. Once you import it once then copy it into the other layouts where it may be needed.

The game isn't nearly big enough or complex enough to warrant a 15MB .cap. Once you fix your backgrounds then your game should only be 1-2 MB and perhaps your problems will go away as well!

ok, thanks for the feedback.

1. Don't make the backgrounds paintings!! You should instead have smaller sprites or tiled background objects for different parts of the background. This alone will reduce the size of the game dramatically.

we kinda saw this one coming, but it would really ruin the feeling in the game. were still debating on what to do regarding this. the huge loading times is something we can accept but the problem is that construct keeps failing to load stuff(backgrounds not appearing and falling through platforms when entering new areas). we might end up doing tiles anyways but thats not gonna look as nice.

2. I don't know if you are doing this, but don't import the same graphic twice. Once you import it once then copy it into the other layouts where it may be needed.

thank you for this. we have been copying most things already but we might have imported some things several times. worth checking out

thanks you very much for taking the time to actually test our game even though its such a mess.

anyone got any other advice?

we might end up doing tiles anyways but thats not gonna look as nice.

There's absolutely no reason why it couldn't look exactly as it does now by using tiles.

Think of it logically.

Every piece of graphic you have in your large bitmap can be cut into small pieces, eliminating all the blank space in between.

You can then stitch together the scene using the smaller pieces, getting just as much variation, but using a lot less resources.

It just comes down to planning.

If this is indeed for a school project, then you're going to get marked down severely for ignoring one of the more important aspects of game design.

Krush.

What KrushBrother says is true, it should look just as good tiled.

were still debating on what to do regarding this.

There is really nothing to debate, it should be a no-brainer to go back and fix it. I have a strong suspicion that the large backgrounds ARE the source of the problem. So instead of wasting countless hours with bugs you can't reliably duplicate spend that time instead doing the game right.

Another option is to reduce the resolution on the game and graphics and see what that buys you.

At the very least your game will have a significantly smaller disk and memory footprint and if you still have bugs then people might be willing to help ( I don't see many people willing to wait through the long load times to troubleshoot the game as-is).

Other than the backgrounds, I didn't see anything glaringly wrong in your events. It seems like it will be a cool game!

ok, thanks for the help guys. its greatly appreciated!