First I'd like to point out that I don't understand some people (and I mean no offence): It's beta and it's not fully representing the final product. And while I'd also love to play with the full version's feature set, I completely understand that Scirra wants to iron the bugs out in a much smaller testing case. It seems that some users are concerned about that this is the final form of the free version. Keep in mind that this might not be the case. Now to the feedback:
About the website (I read through all available content):
- I like the new layout and design.
- The sub-menus have a strange feeling with so much empty space between the options (I'm talking about hovering over them and seeing their white background). It gives a "work in progress" feeling for me.
- The server is down quite frequently. I guess that's understandable now, but still.
- On this page: https://www.construct.net/hu/make-games/new-features the "Create object by name" and "Enhanced acceleration precision" categories open and close the same time when I click on one. It feels like a simple ID error in the code.
- On this page: https://www.construct.net/hu/make-games/new-features-1 the sentence "You can also see lists of" ends suddenly, missing it's final words.
- On this page (and several others): https://www.construct.net/hu/make-games/showcase at the bottom it sais: "..then buy it to unlock all the powerful features". I think it would be better as: "..or buy it to unlock all the powerful features". The current sentence feels like it's forcing users to buy the product.
About the C3 editor (I didn't have much time to play around with it yet, so this is indeed a first impression):
- The editor opened up just fine for me and it feels really responsive. I'm yet to test in on my slower notebook.
- I use the editor as Ashley suggested: Sending it to the desktop in Chrome with window mode enabled. It indeed feels like a standalone application, the browser don't bother me at all now.
- I really like some of the nice touches of the editor: The notification in the bottom-left corner and the "time spent in the editor" counter in the About window.
- The new starting page is great. It's much useful now.
- I love that we can set the GPU preference in the settings. Super useful for notebooks with a dedicated GPU.
- When I try to use a feature that is not available in the free version, the alert box is not centered on the screen. It's not a big issue, but it does seem strange after seeing every window pop up at the center.
- I'm a bit concerned about the 40 events limit. I have a few students who just made a product with about 67 events. They wouldn't be able to do it in C3 according to this limitation. I get it that users should buy the product, but I'm also not feeling quite right about the 40 event limits. What simple (but complete) game can be made with that? Scirra should also think about the projects made with the free edition using the forced splash screen as a viable marketing source for the engine.
- As I stated at the beginning of my post, I understand the limited features now. But someone mentioned on the forums that 1 week might not be enough for fixing all the bugs that may come up with the full feature set. My suggestion is to open up more and more features as the beta progresses.
I have a small project in my mind specifically for testing C3. I'll post more as soon as I had some time to work on it. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">