Ashley's Forum Posts

  • This isn't supported in Construct 0.x, but will be a C2 feature.

  • I think the Windows OS prevents you creating a window larger than the screen. Why would you need that, anyway? You could never see all of it, so you can just fake it by scrolling.

  • <img src="http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/7038/coderp.png">

    ******

    that supposed to be me coding Construct?

    Probably not far off...

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  • We haven't assigned the articles an official license - but feel free to copy and translate them. It's helpful, there's no reason for anybody to stop you doing that.

  • It wouldn't be a moot point if another team - who kept anonymous this time - started doing it tomorrow

  • I was under the impression their tool translated a .gmk file in to a .ios file which a freely available iOS runner could then consume. I thought that meant essentially translating a document in to a new format, which an iOS runner can then execute.

    I guess I'm not clear on the process, though. Is it up to the end user to get the iOS runner? Where does it come from? The decompiler guys said they didn't redistribute it. Is it the end user who downloads some other iOS game then swaps the .ios game data for another? Or is there just a raw iOS runner freely available?

    Whether or not you're allowed to publish the resulting game is beside the point. You're allowed to download uTorrent, but you're not allowed to use it to download copyrighted movies. So I suppose you could translate your game in to Apple-format, but not be allowed to publish it - that does not imply the translator is illegal, because the disallowed action is the publishing step, not the translation step.

    Further, if it's the end-user of the translator who downloads the iOS runtime and swaps out the game, that's the responsibility of the end-user. It's just like uTorrent - providing a tool that can be used for illegal purposes does not make the tool itself illegal, only that particular way of using it.

    I guess there's also a very big grey area around whether the idea of exchanging a data segment in an executable file counts as decompiling, but again, the translator tool does not have to be the thing that does that.

    Maybe I spoke too soon and should have learnt more about it before posting my thoughts, but given there's been a decompiler for the ordinary Game Maker for years, it does seem YoYo could have done something long ago to mitigate this, and they seem to have turned to legal threats rather quickly.

  • I'm afraid I also have to disagree with FredFredrickson: I think you missed the point of my original post. I basically agree with redpicman, it appears there's been no copyright infringement, the law is not on YoYo Games' side (as much as they or their fans may want it to be), and so their legal threats are empty.

    However, the authors have now decided to drop the project, although they still insist it's legal:

    http://gamemakerblog.com/2011/01/06/ios ... t-dropped/

    which does make me wonder, couldn't they have predicted irritation from YoYo Games? It should be obvious they'd get riled up over it so I'd have expected them to have decided beforehand to continue to the end regardless else not bother at all. Maybe the legal threats would simply mean hassle that they can't be bothered with (empty legal threats succeeding in their goal again, which would be a shame).

    Still, this doesn't appear to be totally resolved to me - these guys have given up but it's still wide open for another anonymous group to start developing and publishing a new one, legally. YoYo really should take steps to prevent this from their software ASAP.

    Well, there's my "what everyone should do" rant

  • There's no documentation I'm afraid - and it's a big binary file - but you can make deductions about what is written through the source code functions where data is saved. Apart from that, there's no overall guide, it's done programmatically. Construct 2 will use an XML format, so it will be much easier and more self-describing so tooling should be more straightforward.

  • Hey everyone,

    I like to follow news in other game-creator communities, and I noticed an interesting story going on in the Game Maker world. Some third party developers have created (as I understand it) a tool which translates a .gmk file (their save file, equivalent to a Construct .cap) in to a .ios file, which their iOS runtime can run on Apple devices. This irritates them because they wanted to sell their iOS exporter, and the tool effectively does it for free.

    You can read about it, and the official response here:

    http://gamemakerblog.com/2011/01/04/gam ... ment-92428

    The official response by Sandy Duncan basically says copyright prevents you copying any Game Maker software and that decompilation of YoYo Games software is also illegal. Legal threats are made.

    Given my experience and repeatedly confirmed knowledge that businesses tend to issue fabricated legal threats against projects that inconvenience their plans in order to shut them down, I'm naturally coming from a skeptical angle. I'm not a lawyer so what follows is simply my (probably flawed) understanding of the situation given my limited understanding of copyright law. But as far as I can see, the decompiler guys aren't doing anything wrong.

    For starters, they aren't redistributing any YoYo Games software: their tool translates a .gmk file in to a .ios file. They are not distributing the iOS runner or any part of Game Maker, just an independently written tool (as I understand it), therefore there is no copyright infringement, assuming the source code to the tool is original code. It appears the end-user can download the iOS runner for free, so the decompiler guys don't actually need to redistribute it, so at no point have they given anyone any YoYo Games software. So: no copyright infringement.

    Further, they're not actually decompiling anything, so calling them the "decompiler guys" is a bit of a misnomer. They're translating a user's .gmk file in to a .ios file. This does mean reverse-engineering the .gmk file format, but that does not count as decompiling. The decompilation legal clauses Sandy Duncan posted refer to decompiling a software binary - executable code, like the main Game Maker .exe file or the actual runner itself. The "decompiler" doesn't do this, it merely appears to be re-formatting a .gmk file in to a format consumable by the iOS runner. The .gmk file is not copyright to YoYo Games either. If I write a story in Microsoft Word and save it to .docx, that file is copyrighted to me because it's my work, not Microsoft's. Otherwise, Microsoft would own any works produced in Office! The user owns their .gmk file - it's effectively a document - therefore they are free to do what they like with it, e.g. pass it through the "iOS translator" tool. The format of a .gmk file may be a trade secret, but that does not prevent reverse-engineering. If I recall correctly, several years ago OpenOffice were reverse-engineering the then-closed closed Word .doc format, and they were allowed to do so, because unless you have patents, there's nothing stopping you - not copyright, because the file is copyright to the author, i.e. you. I don't believe YoYo Games have any patents for the .gmk file format, and it would be questionable if they did anyway, because that's getting in to anticompetitive territory (Microsoft were forced in to opening the .docx format after attempting this with the .doc format).

    In short, YoYo Games have messed up. Their exporter system is badly designed, because it makes this possible. They should have anticipated this in the design stage and mitigated it - it's a tricky problem and probably can't be completely overcome, but they could have done better. To compensate for their mistake they are making up claims about copyright infringement, because generally that works in scaring the small guys in to shutting themselves down.

    They should be re-engineering a better exporter, but it's probably cheaper to make legal threats.

    A useful analogue might be a free .doc to .pdf converter tool. Microsoft can sell a "Save as .pdf" add-on feature, but the free tool is considered a legal competitor to such a feature. Microsoft can't shut them down, only compete by making their exporter better (e.g. integrating with 'save-as' for better experience, or converting the file more accurately or with more features enabled).

    Disclaimer: as I said I'm not a lawyer and I may have an inaccurate view of the situation, so I may be completely and utterly wrong, but I felt the need to wade in because I don't like to see what I perceive to be legal mumbo jumbo used to try and shut down someone working on a legal software project! It happens too often in the world. YoYo Games, if you don't like it, respond by making better software instead!

  • Yeah, not sure why the setup doesn't work, maybe re-download and try again?

    C++ is a large, complex and sometimes needlessly difficult due to backwards compatibility issues (it's a few decades old now, obviously technology has completely changed in that time). If you pick it as your first language to learn you're going to get a baptism of fire, but then other languages will be nice and straightforward in comparison!

    You can't learn C++, or any programming language, or anything, in 21 days. You need practice and experience to be a good programmer. I don't think I could have described myself as a "good" programmer before this year (2010), and I was coding as a hobby for several years before that! Give it time, but it's cool and fun, so good luck

    Construct 0.x has to use Visual C++ because the plugin-to-IDE interface is designed with compiler specific features (i.e. badly designed). So I'm afraid you probably won't succeed in getting other compilers to work with the SDK. This is something that's going to be improved upon in C2.

  • Merry Christmas everyone, or happy holidays if you're non-Christmasly inclined

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  • No, it is not a completed feature, I'm afraid.