Platform School

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TL;DR Version:

Here are lessons 1 - 5 of the new tutorials: http://www.box.net/shared/1nls24ni8d

Here are lessons 1 - 9 of the old outdated tutorials: http://www.box.net/shared/1zzgt8pov4

I will not be working on these any more, but I invite anyone who would like to continue the series to feel free. You may use my Platform School sprites and tiles, for tutorial purposes only, either new Platform School tutorials, or other tutorials as you see fit.

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The long version:

It became apparent to me some time ago that I would never finish the Platform School tutorials. I started the project (over two years ago!) with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Then the rewrites came. As Construct continued updating with new features, my tutorials would suddenly become obsolete. So I would rewrite the tutorials to show the new changes, and then Construct would make more changes, requiring more rewrites, and so on. I believe I have re-written them three times total.

That was enough to sap my enthusiasm for the project, but I tried to keep at it. A lot of people were waiting on them and I didn't want to let folks down. I was actively working on them as recently as January 12th, but I hit a snag. The Lesson 6 file I am referring to in that post had somehow apparently become corrupt. Copy/pasting water sprites would cause other objects in the level editor window to disappear. As near as I can tell this corruption happened some time previous in an earlier lesson and simply didn't become an issue until lesson 6, because I tried remaking lesson 6 from a new copy of lesson 5 and ran into the same copy/paste problem as before.

And... that was that. The final straw. To continue making the tutorials I would have to create lesson 6 from scratch with a fresh .cap, re-importing all the assets and rewriting all the events, and that's something I just will not do again. I don't have the time or energy, and if we're being perfectly honest I just plain can't stand the thought of working on Platform School any more.

But I've had five finished lessons just sitting around gathering dust for a while now. So, for what it's worth, here they are: http://www.box.net/shared/1nls24ni8d

I'm providing these as-is. If there are any errors or bugs or whatever, so be it! If you have questions, they will likely go unanswered! I wash my hands of Platform School.

And with that, I'm offering an open invitation to anyone who is willing to continue working on the tutorials. I give you all permission to use the sprites and tiles and code I've made for PS so far and continue the lessons from here, or to use the sprites and tiles in other tutorial projects (but tutorials only please! I don't want to see Charlie running around in your game, okay? Okay.)

Oh, and in case you're wondering where the buggy Lesson 6 went... well, so am I actually. I have a million backups of the old lessons, and a half-million of the new lessons 1-5, but for some odd reason 6 is just gone. I thought I had it backed up when I reinstalled Win7 a couple weeks ago, but I can't find it anywhere now.

I got as far as lesson 9 (of 12 or 13) in the old tutorials. If you want to use them as reference, or you need to rip sprites out of them or something, then here they are: http://www.box.net/shared/1zzgt8pov4

And to those of you who were waiting so patiently for me to finish these up, I apologize. I know I've made all sorts of promises to continue working on them no matter what, but I just really can't any more. Hopefully someone will pick up the reigns from here and make something cool out of this mess.

Thanks for the update

Even your old tutorials had many good points. I look forward to looking at these new ones. Many thanks.

Hurray for letting down people who trusted you to deliver!!

no seriously, it makes me feel better about all the plugins and stuff I thought I'd finish!

Just like to give my thanks deadeye for these tutorials.

When I started with Construct these helped me so much and hopefully they'll help many more.

Sorry to hear of all your troubles, deadeye, it's a shame it couldn't all work out for you. Even so, thanks a bunch for all the work you did! Even with all the warnings that they're outdated, I learned a lot from the old tutorials a few months back and I'm really grateful for all of it. Sooo, thanks.

Pity you can't continue, your tutorials are fun to learn and that's a big plus.

Thanks for all yoru hard work Deadeye. These tutorials are what really got me up and going in Construct.

Thank you deadeye I have downloaded 1-5 and I all so got your older ones 1-9 just in case their a hidden gold nugget of wisdom in it that can save me down the road.

I still use the lessons learned in your tutorials to this day; they're probably THE tutorial to use to begin learning about the intricacies of Construct. They were and ARE a great help.

I'll check out these sometime soon, when I'm not working on my own projects and trying to actually finish something.

Hay I've began working on this check the link.

Platform School Forum <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Anyone have plans to update the platform school tutorial links on SourceForge.net? Lessons 3-9 give the dreaded 404 file not found message.

Broken links equate to broken dreams, er, I mean broken games! <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Not to offend, but all the dead links do not reflect well on this great game making program or the wonderful, hardworking people who comprise it.

Help! I think Scirra needs to hire the dead link police, STAT!!

And yes, I did download the lessons provided by DeadEye, but I still think the links need to work so potential Construct purchasers aren't dissuaded by things that are broke or don't work as one would expect they should.

Thanks...

As you can read in this tutorial:

ome tutorials will be linked to the old Scirra's forum and the links might appear as dead. A simple trick will save the day though.

Click a link and in its url replace "http://www.scirra.com/phpbb3/" with "http://69.24.73.172/scirra/forum/" and for all the forum link, you'll be taken to Scirra's old forum.

There you will be able to download the attached files.

Also the platform shcool lessons are for Construct-Classic (which is still an open source software, no buying, maintained by the community itself).

For actual platform examples for C2, you have a few capx in your install of C2 in the folder "examples" which cover some of the basics of making a platformer.

Well hello, Kyatric;

Hope you are well. I'd like to respond to your post by sharing my thoughts.

I'll begin with the most obvious and that is from a consumers point of view. As a buyer or user of a product, this particular product, I have a certain level of expectation when it comes to learning tools and them being easily accessible.

My point is, why would anyone want their users/customers to have to look for a working link or require them to use a workaround in order to get to the working link? Why not fix the broken links so your customers can learn and make games since that is why they procured the product in the first place? Whether your customers bought it or not is a mute point, as keeping your customers happy and content is what matters here, so they continue to use and support your product!

Secondly, C2 users still must rely heavily on CC tutorials since there are not as many C2 tutorials as CC tutorials yet.

Thirdly, the CC platform tutorials are much more in depth whereas the C2's are more limited in scope, which means the user is required to spend additional time searching for solutions and less time making their games. Which again brings us back to the site and needing to weed through all the broken links and scour the forum in search of answers.

I'm just a new user, trying to learn and offer suggestions based on my experiences with using Construct. Just sharing my experiences for future reference.

Thanks for responding. As always, it is appreciated!