Bob Thulfram's Forum Posts

  • Thank you for your response Ashley,

    I don't know what else to do. My game is only 335k and runs like crap on my kindle and my gf's laptop(dual core, 4gb Ram, Vista). I don't see a reason why this should be.

    Firefox runs my game a little quicker than Chrome does on the laptop but it still hangs and runs at half speed. I've applied all of the tips from the performance blog/post without any perceivable difference. I'm about to pull all of my hair out a set fire to my living room.

    Is this Kindle or Kindle Fire? I have a Fire and everything seems to run slow on it.

    Oh, and doesn't Vista have problems with drivers?

  • I put my first game in the Chrome Web Store a few weeks ago, but today I noticed that if I buy the game and put it on my Chrome "shelf" of games I've bought, it shows a Construct 2 icon.

    Oops! As much as I love the construct icon, I'd rather have one of my own. Where do I put the icon? Is there a place in the Construct 2 set of files? I didn't see any icon request when I uploaded the game to Chrome (but I did put two other pieces of art in at that time).

    My game is here: Tilt-A-Twirl

    I'm thinking of adding a free version very soon that just has a few levels (and am adding more levels), so I want to make sure I do it right. Is this a 32x32 icon or what?

    PS: Does anyone else think that the Scirra icon at the top of the Scirra web site looks like a person? To me it looks like the guy is wearing a helmet, has two eyes, and an open mouth. Is this a self-portrait? <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle">

  • Seems like MIDI is working over here via MIDI.js

    Check out Color Piano.

    This is awesome and make me feel all warm and fuzzy. I'm definitely going to be using this. It also wouldn't be hard to write a plugin for Construct 2.

    I'm really starting to believe that anything can be done with HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. And if you want more, just find a library like midi.js.

    Thanks, Ben!

  • Yup, agreed. I'm going to watch this because I've been working with MIDI for a long time. It was one of the first ways to put music on the web, but I don't think people are using much now. But it does have the possibility of being a light, fast musical technology again.

  • Here's a recent discussion: W3C Audio WG Teleconference

    They are discussing it, but no agreement has been reached and I don't expect them to decide soon. This is the first time there has been discussion at the W3C. Sounds like the answer is wait and see.

    The issue, of course, is what audio library would be used to make the standard MIDI sounds. Maybe the web is fast enough for .m4a and .ogg.

    Short answer: move along, nothing to see here. <img src="smileys/smiley18.gif" border="0" align="middle">

  • I've been poking around on the W3C Audio Working group and it looks like they are not only supporting the advanced Web Audio API (where you can filter and mangle your audio) but have just gotten around to including MIDI.

    Is there any chance in heck that Construct 2 will ever support MIDI? I really love MIDI and there are a zillion programs to support it. Or is it one of those things that will be left behind in the mad stampede to the promised land of HTML5? <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

    I do see some support growing for the Web Audio API and I would love to work with it. But MIDI is a surprise. I was disappointed that MIDI was not supported by IE for HTML5 audio when Windows Media Player still supported MIDI. But if the W3C is going to support it, that may make a difference.

  • Very cool! Congrats!

    It would be cool if we had a section of this site for external reviews as we start to get them.

  • I don't think you can draw lines with construct, like in these games, but you can do it with slightly larger objects, say, 8 pixels in width.

    Now let's say you have a window that is 640px wide with these "wall" objects on the top and bottom scrolling left, that's 160 objects, which I guess are no problem for HTML5

    Sounds like I can go with oddly-shaped sprites and have fun.

    I wonder if the SVG plugin could draw some lines for me?

    I do love Construct 2!

  • I think he is more interested in the terrain generation... I think there are a few topics/examples on that somewhere...

    Terrain generation. Exactly. Not blocks, but jagged lines that are generated each move!

  • Interesting bit about the Sinclair, I learned BASIC programming on a Sinclair. I remember quite a few early cave shooters too, they've been around for a while. They tend to remind me of Sopwith, one of my favorite classics.

    The cave shooter you first linked to could be easily done with variously shaped polygon Sprites. The second though, that'd require a bit of creative shaping of the Sprites, but fundamentally it'd be the same, just variously shaped, though textured, polygons.

    I wrote several games on the Sinclair, even a few that used machine-language routines typed into comment lines. Amazing what could be done in 1K!

    Polygons! Yes, I'll investigate!

  • I could run this game and the sound was just fine with the latest Chrome and Opera browsers. It even works in Safari. All in Windows 7.

    But, it does NOT work with Firefox. Everything works fine except the sound. I'm running Firefox 13.0 and this is not good!

    I don't get it. My latest game works just fine. Tilt-A-Twirl

    Wait! Are you using .mp3 or .m4a or .aac files only? You have to have .ogg as an alternative to play music on dear old Firefox.

    You should always have .m4a and .ogg on offer. .mp3 is bad, .ogg is good, and .m4a is pretty good (as long as you don't think of it as .aac).

    Isn't audio fun!

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  • I've gotten interested in creating a "cave flyer/shooter" type game. For those of you who haven't heard of these, the idea is that you fly through a cave. The cave is generated ahead of you as you fly through (and removed as you fly off the screen). You only fly forward and if you hit an edge, you die! I've written similar kinds of things on an old Sinclair (back when neither I nor it was old). By drawing blocks ahead but making sure the top and bottom cave walls got larger and smaller but never too small.

    So my question is, has anyone done this with Construct 2? How do I draw lines in front of me and erase as I go off the screen? Capx appreciated.

    Here's one in JavaScript that emulates one of the old ones. Thrust

    I realize that a cave flyer isn't necessary linear, but what I verbally described was one I remember playing on the Atari 800. There's a new game on the Apple app store called Cave Shooter that describes what I'm wanting to do. Cave Shooter

  • Is this all just Firefox? Is anyone have problems with Chrome, Safari, or Opera? I run a lot of "old" netbooks and I haven't noticed any problems. Firefox is definitely going their own way, but if they are not cooperating with drivers, people will stop using them.

    Actually, I seem to remember that they are declining and Chrome is increasing and no one has noticed that IE has left the building. <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

  • This may help

    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jaimer/archive/2012/04/19/wanted-great-windows-8-metro-style-apps.aspx

    Well, that certainly answered my question. Since I was planning to export my game using Scirra's Construct 2 HTML5 engine, I don't know if my app can meet the user interface guidelines. It's an HTML5 app, and Scirra has made an exporter for Windows 8. But I don't think it will even come close to very strict guidelines that your link linked to.

    I understand that you want the early apps in the app store to be outstanding and you've learned your lesson from the Windows 7 Phone apps, but I feel the standards are way too high.

    Ashley, does the Construct 2 export for Windows 8 follow these guidelines?

    UX Guidelines for Metro Style Apps

    These are HTML5 games, not applications! If one looks in the Apple app store, a very large percentage of the store are games! I can understand UI guidelines for apps, but not games. Run it, play it, have fun.

    In case you're curious, here's an early version of the game I'd like to put in the app store. It works in Windows 8 just fine. Visual Studio can compile it. It doesn't contain anything offensive. Tilt-A-Twirl I've already put it in Chrome app store and it is going in the Mozilla store next week.

  • When the heck can we put a game in the Windows 8 app market? The final beta is supposed to be in June. Construct can export games to Windows 8 now and the exported games work in Windows 8 Consumer Preview with Visual Studio. I wanna be first in line!

    The Mozilla marketplace will be open very soon and the Chrome Web Store is already open for business. Let a thousand App stores bloom.