dripple's Forum Posts

  • GW basic

    The good old times

  • Well, to be honest. The claims from Construct 2, Stencyl or others are not really true when they say "no coding required"

    Whenever you arrange some commands into an order and / or put in conditions to make sure that a computer executes this commands in your desired and foreseen order, it's programming. No matter if you type in the commands or select them from a list. If the tools give you building blocks to archive something with just "one instruction", so it's convenient but still programming.

    If you need more flexibility with the things you want to do, then yo might want to go deeper and learn the instruction set the building blocks you used before to gain the flexibility you're looking for (JavaScript for Construct 2 Games, for example). If you need more flexibility, more speed, whatever, then you have to learn the instruction set this tool is build (C++/C, for example). If this is not fast enough for what you're looking for, you have then to learn the instrcutions C++ is written in: Assembly Language (Okay, nobody really wants to do that. Or plain machine code. But that's how we learned it. But hey, we had only 700 bytes memory!)

    So: yes, you have to master programming. But this is not a technical question. It's more the ability to prepare the right amount of instructions to archive a certain goal with the given toolset.

    Just my 2 cents (writing applications and games since 1982)

  • This one drives me crazy. It must be something stupid simple, but I can't get my head around it.

    I have a function shuffle with three params. Params(1) and Params(2) are the boundaries for a random number. Simple:

    set randomPiece to round( random(shuffle.Param(1), shuffle.Param(2) ) )[/code:2ng7jv49]
This works. 

The following should work too, but they don't: 
[code:2ng7jv49]set randomPiece to int( random(shuffle.Param(1), shuffle.Param(2) ) )
set randomPiece to floor( random(shuffle.Param(1), shuffle.Param(2) ) )
[/code:2ng7jv49]
The game simply doesn't start (black screen) and I get sometimes a browser error "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'current_even ' of undefined" and I event can't close the browser window.

The function has a inner condition and calls itself in case the new random number is the same than the given shuffle.Params(0) param:
[img="http://www.heikokanzler.de/stuff/foren/c2/shuffle2.png"]

[b]Why is int() and floor() not working for me?[/b]

Edit: if I deactivate the inner condition (event 8) int() and floor() work

  • Thanks, — That's what I was aware about. I thought there might been different ways to assign sheets to a layout. But at the end, this looks like I was looking for.

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  • 2) You could just set "Generic level" as the event sheet property for a layout. Otherwise you always need to include it. Any sheets which are not included are not run (as per #1)

    Hmm... I don't get it (beginner problem ),

    • Every Layout may have / has it's own associated event sheet
    • Every event sheet can include other event sheets (the "global events" in

      — example)

    Is this correct?

    Making Gobal Events the default sheet for a layout wouldn't then simpy prevent the events for this layout (Scene 1, scene 2...) from loading? Is there another way to organize code? (I have the same "problem" to organize the code for the progressive part of my game, the game and it's levels itself and a number of independent in-games)

  • if i spend months of work in a project and dont run well why should i stick with c2 even for prototypes?i will unistall it and wait for c3 but this time with more caution. to tell you the truth my last hope is spark engine..lets see what will happen.

    Well, I am one of the guys who waits for C3. I am a Mac user and Stencyl was a natural choice, but then they dropped HTML5 support during the beta (it was announced as a key technology for version 3) and got stuck with just another tool ( you can read a little bit more about this here)

    When I did my first games on J2ME ("mobile Java") about 15 years ago, I was disappointed about performance and abilities (max. 32 KB for the war-file for the whole game on Nokia devices, on some devices 10 to 15 FPS have been reported as "designed"). It took me a while to get my games to speed and performance that I expected. Then i sat down and said: "Hey, that's the wrong expectation. The will never perform like xyz. Think about it, think about your game design". So I changed my games, the mechanics, adapted them to the smaller devices and was happy with the results

  • So, fingers crossed that webaudio support evolves. I still think that note based music (tracker, midi) is the best way to support sound in games. But hey, I am an old bloke.

  • lol thanks started reading begginner guides

    I liked them. If you're moving from Stencyl, you might miss the scene editor and (self written) Actor- and Screen-Bahviors, so you have to change your way of developing the code. But the expressions for example, are awesome in C2.

  • If you are interesting in the situation in East Asia, you are welcome to have a chat with me.

    I would like, maybe we find some time one day for a conversation.

  • My friend is a freelancer who uses c2 + a lot of my plugins. He did not know how to write any text code, so c2 is the only choice.

    Why not? There's nothing against it. I know a lot game devs who use Stencyl and Construct 2. I meet them almost every day. And some of them make their daily income from this games. But they also know that certain game types are not possible or to hard to implement (in terms of reliabilty and stability) and they refuse to join a certain project.

  • spy84 Don't feel offended, that wasn't my intention. AND I never said, it's for prototyping only! I said - and I qoute myself here -

    Tools like Stencyl and C2 are aimed for ppl who don't want to get into software development but want to design a game.

    and I also stated that this tools are great for prototyping as well. This was also said by Mike and I agreed with him to this point. If I wasn't clear in my statement, my apologize!

    You CAN do clever and sophisticated things with C2, Stencyl (Okay, a game with 115 scenes slowed the editor down like hell) or GameMaker (there's a guy who writes emulators of ZX Spectrum or C64 in GameMaker so the games from this machines can be load into the GameMaker made emulator, that's awesome).

    All I want to say is: don't expect the (hardware-) support, speed and flexibility of a native development environment from such all-in-one tools who specialize into delivering HTML5, for example. That's it. They all have it's strengths and weaknesses.

    The whole thread runs in circles now.

    It's saturday, I have some spare time and want to start my first (bigger) production C2 now - a port of a game I did with Stencyl. Time to grab a coffee, get my notes and sketches and start something new. I'll be back with tons of questions, be warned!

    btw: I like the store. I already bought some assets from here.

  • michael i dont understand why and from where the opinion that c2 is for prototyping and learning tool has established..so with c2 we make a prototype and then what? we go in another engine and build/polish a proper game?

    I agree with michael here. Tools like Stencyl and C2 are aimed for ppl who don't want to get into software development but want to design a game. This is a very important target group!

    This tools hide the complexity of coding, but this comes with a price: flexibility and overhead. If you are an experienced developer, you even wouldn't look into Stencyl or C2: you would fire up your Java-IDE or Xcode and develop it native, simple as that. I personally use Stencyl and C2 (hopefully) for quick prototypes or simple puzzle games. To try things out, to make things happen quickly.

    Sure, you can do sophisticated things with this tools, but they are simply a whole bunch of layered frameworks to make it easy for you. And believe me, sometimes the limitation over coding is frustating, but as I said: everything has it's price.

    or stencyl with the epic game (is coming soon) "the ghost song" ? its in the same philosophy all these programs.

    Ghost Song is just another platformer who makes heavy use of particle / sprites and some shaders. It's a good example for an artist who dives into developing - a simple game, that looks awesome. This gets more attraction then a clever game mechanic and game play with horrid grafix.

    And if you follow the thread and read the title again, you have seen that Pete almost gave up with Stencyl as the engine could not cope with his expectations: he couldn't manage a decend frame rate on 768x480. Native Windows export, btw. Compiling OpenFL into a native application is a complete different story than wrapping a HTML5 game! I think this can't get stressed enough! Btw. I was very frustrated with Stencyl's physics implementation when I did Castle Keeper: I don't need physics, but no sprite collision without physics. How stupid?

    I recently moved from Stencyl to C2 (hard thing, if you are a Mac user) because Stencyl has a nice engine, the Haxe-Idea is not bad, but we suffer on Stencyl with the same problems than other tools: OpenFL in Stencyl is always three versions behind, NO support for network / multiplayer, a very slow Java based IDE, the Sketch "drawing code" looks nice, but it's not productive (NO keyboard support) and it gets very very slow if your events get bigger (more code). And if you are a paying customer and read the boards, then you see the same discussions we're facing here: no support, to buggy (the sound support is horrid!), even simple things like drawing text on the screen is a complete mess (now fixed with sprite fonts since v3.1).

    To make long story short: every toolset has it's own purpose. You can stretch the limits somehow. But if you know the limits, you can create awesome results within this boundaries.

  • Hi & welcome to the forums & C2.

    Thanks, Matt. I am still looking around

    1. For reusing code, the only way I know of is to copy-paste events/objects, & also use the 'replace object' command to quickly apply a set of events to a different object (or family of objects).

    Okay, this is then where I have to change my workflow. Not a big deal.

    2. Custom behaviors are made using the javascript sdk, but there's so much good stuff already available you'll probably never need to. Just do a search for add-ons made by R0j0hound & rex_rainbow (among others) & you'll see

    I already found the stuff from rex and it was very helpfull with some of my experiments. I am not bad with JavaScript and can help myself if needed, but thats what I want to avoid. Otherwise I could simply start the games from scratch, doing them native.

  • Well, I spend a couple of weeks now in this forums (reading) and - surprise - even with reading thru all the blame here - I decided to support C2 and to buy a license, even If I don't need it for the moment - the free version works fine for me as a beginner (well, I even had to buy a new Parallels license for my Mac just because of C2)

    And if I would need 3D, I would buy Unity. And if I would have to do mega big production with 400 levels I might go native and not using C3 - or Stencyl or GameMaker - which have been clearly designed for casual games, platformers and such. If you really need proper physics and high FPS and shaders and console-support, you should really think about the tool you have chosen.

    Just my 2 cents.

  • [...] And if Scirra needs to charge more to be able to hire people to minimally determine if their product actually has bugs they should absolutely do so. Selling buggy software and then making it the job of the user to identify the bugs and create elaborate reports or tech demos is in no way acceptable. Better methods are already employed by any number of companies. [...]

    Don't get me wrong, Juryiel. I agree with you. I just wanted to point that everything has its price. (In either way)

    On the other hand, Unity is not a good example here (from my point of view). The only thing C2 and Unity have in comon, is that one can use the tools for making games. It's like Wordpad vs. Word. Both do the job.

    Unity has a way bigger ecosystem and the productions behind are huge! That makes it also profitable for smaller companies to develop addons and such. And believe me: Unity Technologies started small as well (2003?, 3 guys in Denmark who have failed with their game first)

    At the end, Scirra decided to hire a new developer as they understood they growth. To bad that Playtech has aquired YoYo Games and not Scirra. Maybe Ashley should look for some external funding to gain the momentum of this success - and that's what we're talking about: success. More and more poeple use Construct 2, do bigger productions or more complex titles. Now Scirra has to deal with it