Karentzos's Forum Posts

  • This is an issue (that was not there a couple of days ago) and I still can't figure out what is causing this. I figured out that a level from my game was messed up and after 2 days of investigation I found the specific line where the issue occurs.

    I am creating some 9 objects that belong on a certain family. Then I want to adjust some properties of those objects. The issue is that while the creation of the objects occurs, when I try to use "for each" the debuggers skips the line.

    I have placed a browser alert to count the objects while they get created and after the creation ends. In the creation process the alert goes normal:

    1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

    On the next line the alert shows "0" !!!!

    What is even more crazy, is the fact that the objects still exist. I can see them on my game, I can see them on the debugger, but Construct cant access them...

    Here is the screenshots from the code and when I use debugging

    How is this even possible? This layout was working just fine. Its a part of a whole game and I had to open this layout for about a month now. A few days ago I have realized that it doesnt work anymore!

    Any ideas, or suggestion?

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  • I am developing my Facebook Instant game for the last months and I got extremely confused with some aspects regarding Instant game plugin and terminology.

    My game will consist of short matches, where each match is 3 rounds. I have already created a backend to store additional data regarding matches that will occur on the game.

    On my game I want to have a leader board, displaying: player photo, player name, player score.

    Now my issue:

    One important information for my backend (to keep match results, rounds etc) is Facebook id. I know i can get this unique value from "Connected players" but why is this not available on leader board?

    1) Do I have to load both "leader board" and "connected players" to have both data?

    2) What is the exact difference between players listed on "leader board" and "connected players"?

    It is already extremely difficult to proceed with the development as I have to test almost every aspect of the main menu (leader board generation, GUI stuff, buttons, scores, matches, communication with backed) but uploading every time to Facebook to do a real test.

    3) As I can tell, current Facebook Instant Games plugin implements 6.3. From version 6.2 there is an option to fetch score data for connected players. Where is that on Construct's plugin?

    "(New) Connected Player Score Entries Introduces the new Leaderboard.getConnectedPlayerEntriesAsync() API, which fetches the score entries of the current player's connected players from the leaderboard."

  • AllaR this is a very nice solution. I tried to implement with line slope equation (calculating the next point of x using y and vice versa according to start point and end point positions). The result was a mesh, as y or x get extreme values according to the slope of the line.

    You solution is much better. I will also put some "clamp" to put some boundaries of drag paths.

  • I wasn't very clear on my description. I want to achieve this on diagonal lines. I can use the two point line-slope formula but the difficult part is if you have multiple points A -> B -> C and you want the sprite to follow the path created from these 3 parts. I cant even image how harder it must get when you want to implement this with bezier curvers.

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  • I am trying to implement a specific type of control where the user can drag an object but that object will move only over a certain path.

    At first it would be great if at least I could implement it using only linear path (just simple line between two points). I want the drag operation to take X,Y of drag and apply the movement to the relevant path. Think of it as a slider.

    I tried to use timeline (with steps) taking advantage of X,Y position but it doesnt work for me (also it seems to be a non-pretty and clunky solution).

    Any ideas?

  • After experimenting with Facebook Instant Game plugin I trying to figure out how to implement turn-based matches for my game. I can access leaderboard (that only stores player scores), I can access player data (for current player only) but how I can access other players data? In order to create turn-matches I need to have access to other player's data to store the current state of other players (the round, their score etc). Do I need to store/access this data to a different back-end or I can achieve this with Facebook only?

  • I have already seen the official documentation. What I want to know is, if this helps in any way when testing with Construct 3. Even if I build a local host, will I be able to just run test from Construct easily, or it will take the same time and effort in order to run the test?

  • I am currently developing an Instant Game. The problem is that while trying to do tests for the Facebook Instant Game platform, I have already exported and uploaded the project 160+ times. It is impossible to keep with that pace, as I want to test leaderboard, bot subscriptions, multiple rounds for each game, final scores etc...

    I have read somewhere that we can setup Facebook local host. But I really cant figure out how I can use this in order to run my tests using Facebook local host.

    Is it possible to run the tests without having to upload each time the whole project on Facebook Developer platform, by using local host?

    Any directions on how I can achieve this, or how I can reduce the whole time of this process?

  • There are already several options for building GUI, including using sprites/9-patches/etc on a GUI layer, using HTML in an i-frame object, or using the new JavaScript feature.

    We have to understand that GUI limitations is not an extra feature that is missing from Construct. 1/2 of all games are heavy GUI-based (even the casual games nowadays have strong GUI mechanics). We have never asked for sophisticated and specific inventory systems or GUI systems.

    From what we are asking, if we had 1% we would already be glad. A layout panel/object like "Valeryppoff" but more stable would be a SUPERB addition to this engine. Just a layout mechanism for placing different elements... nothing else. You can even check "Valeryppoff" plug-in source code to get some ideas on how you could implement it and improve it.

    As for i-frame, HTML and Java-script lets see what we have here:

    1) i-frame is for displaying HTML sources, inside your window. It was never created to solve problems like GUI or even for different components even on web-pages.

    2) HTML and construct events system could only communicate through Java-script with a messy way (half things implemented on Java-script code lines, some HTML files loaded, CSS files to customize HTML files and even systems staring at them like a monkey hit from drugs.

    3) Java-script is a huge issue for Construct. We haven't seen anyone creating anything special for the time being with Java-script. The lack of in-depth documentation + the lack of real beginner tutorials results in a huge feature that is yet to be discovered. Even the guys who used to create plug-ins for construct (and effects) created nothing for. We have see 10-15 plugins and that's all for the add-on community.

    I am very happy to see that you are releasing updates regularly but you have to stay focused on which mindset you wish to follow. I am pretty sure that "Construct" could be used for creating better GUI games and apps. Opening the way for rapid-app development would widen your market spectrum. Even the name doesn't suggest and game development (its construct, which is so generic that could mean anything regarding development).

  • This sounds like you tried to create a UI and got frustrated at your own bugs so now you want a UI template? You can probably find some premade files somewhere. I tend to avoid using html elements and use sprites, much easier to handle. Also you can't blame Construct 3 for your own bizarre approach to making an inventory UI. I made an inventory with a background image, a sprite for the slot to display an item, and an array.

    I don't think that having GUI object types is a Bizarre approach. There is no programming language, scripting language or game engine that doesn't have a panel/grid/layout object type. I am not asking for easy solutions, I am asking for something that is very standard. Having a layout/panel or something similar in order to create dynamic placements is not gimmick, its a standard. This would also give the opportunity to create some mobile apps. I am pretty sure that there are many developers that would like to use the power of construct to create some simple apps. After all, this engine exports in HTML and Javascript which is the "standard" for web apps and web games. Don't forget the hundreds of frameworks that exist out there that use Javascript to create UI. This is not an alien concept especially for an engine that exports and supports HTML and Javascript.

  • I have already posted a topic regarding the need for better gui plugins in Construct 3, but I think that this topic needs more attention in other threads, as its has a more broad spectrum.

    Whats I was trying to do (resulting in a huge disappointment), is a dynamic leaderboard. I am currently developing a Facebook Instant game and I need a clean (non hard-coded) way to create a dynamic grid. I used Valeryppoff layouter but it has several bugs and missed many things. Is there any plug-in (or maybe something from Construct 2 that could be converted) that would help me? A grid system with dynamic rows,columns (with auto size sprites) would help. Built-in object types are very limited both in functionality and appearance.

  • After working with Construct 3, I realized that there is a huge gap regarding GUI creation. Although there are several plugins/object types like spites, tilemaps, sprite fonts etc, but this engine really lacks any power regarding the creation of a gui. This is a 2D engine and we all know the huge important role of a GUI when it comes in games, especially 2D games.

    My first attempt was to create a small inventory menu. I wanted it to be dynamic (number of slots) and I wanted to have some sprites for each slot in order to create some effects. I got really disappointed. I ended up using spites, grids, buttons, pins, lists, sliders, timeline animations, tweens, canvas and the result was an awful looking inventory menu that was buggy, slow and unresponsive.

    My second attempt was supposed to be much easier. I tried to create a (dynamic size) leaderboard like those we see in Facebook Instant games. Each row would have rank, profile picture, name and score. I Used Valeryppoff layouter plugin (which has many bugs) in order to create some dynamic rows and columns. The result was of course the same. Many bugs, wrong sizes when it comes to labels, buttons, picture and border sizes.

    If there is something that is really needed here, is an official stable plug in like the Valeryppoff layouter. With a good plugin like this, that helps the developer create dynamic grids, it would be possible to implement many ideas (even without really good buttons and other gui-based objects).

    I have checked on Construct 3 ideas and suggestions and I see no-one really posted any feature like this. I was shocked...! I mean.. really? We use an engine that is supposed to create 2d games and no one cares about gui system? Even the basic stuff that this engine provides (like buttons, slider, list, text input) as almost useless and ugly. Some guys are talking about CSS and HTML implementation, but this has nothing to do with Construct 3. If I wanted to create an HTML with CSS for a menu, I would do it. This has to do with the power of Construct. Development team needs to listen to their user base.

    Java-script addition is a very powerful one.... ok... no is anyone here really using it? You need to start a java-script course (and learn many things that are completely irrelevant with the engine) and then try to figure out how to use Java-script for this engine (as the API is a mess). Maybe in the future Java-script will help Construct 3 but for the time being, there is no useful tutorials, no scripts from other users (maybe some functions that would help other users) from "advanced users" who claim that Java-script addition is superb. I have seen no progress in plugin development. If you check add-ons page for Construct 3, it seems like a depricated page that no-one really uses.

    This engine need to implement features that users really use. There are many 2d games that are completely based just on gui elements.

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  • I am in the same position too. It would be great to see some tutorials about creating Construct 3 plug-ins for beginners. I think that now is the time for Scirra team to invest as much as they can on educating users on how to create their own plug ins. This would make a lot of users extend construct features. With more features, comes more power and with more power and flexibility, come more sales. All the companies that created programming languages, game engines, graphic engines etc, grew really fast when they turned towards that direction.