michael's Forum Posts

  • I am all for feeding developers.

    DevComponents develop DotNetBar - a whole bunch of tools for use in building applications using VS - excellent tool VERY competitively priced.

    Their competitors are in the $1000's price range, but DNB is in the $100's.

    It's a yearly subscription that costs $264 for single licence when you first buy (299 with source code), and then somewhere around $100 off to renew your subscription. The great thing with their pricing model is that even if you don't renew for many years you still get the discount when you decide to renew.

    Like Scirra, they are constantly releasing updates and bug fixes (usually every Friday), they have a very active forum, and they always fix bugs as soon as possible.

    Scirra could use a similar model and I would be more than happy to support it. Maybe have a similar system that they have now, free version, and personal and business licence priced accordingly.

    But always stay competitively price - GM and the like are definitely over priced.

    Just think of Adobe - do you like them, only want a relatively few well funded customers, or would you rather have the whole creative community using your tools.

  • MrHannahBee

    Are you using the latest version of Construct 2?

    Ashley fixed the UTF-8 encoding problem a few versions ago.

  • Hi all,

    Not sure if this thread is being updated or not, but anyhow my first game Mentality Break is out and about.

    It is a breakout clone type game with a bit of a difference. Also has some weather simulation stuff which runs best on PC...

  • Hello all, started using C2 in December 2012 - absolutely love it - and well here is my first game!

    Mentality Break is a Windows 8 App.

    After reading Ashley's excellent blog Remember not to waste your memory, there are a number of things I would do differently. In fact after reading that I revised all the graphics, and got the memory usage down to about 24MB from 75MB! There is still room for improvement there, but by the time I had read that blog I had 40 levels to revamp! However that said I am reasonably happy with the end result. To be sure this has all been a learning curve for me but a fun one at that!

    The first five levels are unlocked, so check it out and see what you guys and gals think, and praise me or shoot me (please only pixel bullets) as you see fit.

  • Try running it from the start screen instead. Running from Visual Studio in 'debug' mode reduces performance, and it's faster once you publish.

    Just to confirm Ashley's response.

    That is what you have to do. It will not run properly from VS. You need to run your game from VS, then close it. Now you can run it from the Start menu- without the stuttering.

    Same is true if you run your game using the simulator. With that you need to run it using the simulator. Close the app from VS but keep the simulator running. Then close VS itself. The simulator will still be running. Now you can use the simulator to access everything on the start menu including your game. (the simulator still runs a bit daggy even after that but noticeably better)

    Note: to close the simulator you have to do the same as you would to shut down your PC.

  • With me it takes probably 4-5 seconds (but that is by counting my self so not entirely accurate)

    But still pretty quick.

    Win8

    Intel Core2 Duo 3.00Ghz

  • Most likely a Steam problem.

    I have been using C2 on Win8 since Dec 2012 and it works just fine aside from the known crashes which seam to be occurring on multiple platforms.

    And I believe Ashley develops C2 on Win8 also.

  • Sounds like yoyo have you on a string... <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

  • Damn Criminals!

    When I first learned about C2 (Dec 2012), I was completely new to game making. I downloaded the free version, did the first tutorial, recognised C2's fantastic value, and huge potential, and immediately bought a personal licence.

    People who get involved in piracy are given all sorts of names, but the only true description is - CRIMINAL! (or of course any low down name you can think of that describes there antics, and doesn't sound nice or nerdy).

    What gets my back up is that they think we honest folk are stupid enough to fall for it.

    And worse, as stated previously in this thread, how did they get hold of email addresses for this kind of crime spree.

    Anyhow thanks for the heads up Ashley.

  • Sorted, not a bug just a learning curve.

    For the benefit of others that may find this useful:

    To test your app you need to create a package for local distribution.

    Then install the package using PowerShell.

    Heres how:

    In VS:

          select Project\Store\Create App Package (Express: Store\Create App Package)

          In the Create Your Packages dialog choose the No option

          Select next and choose an output folder and create the package.

          In the output folder right-click the file Add-AppDevPackage

          This will install the app on your machine

          You will find your app tile on the Start screen

    You can run WACK from outside VS, select your app in the list, and test it...

    Note this can only be done on a machine that has a developer licence.

    This also appears to be the correct way to deploy your apps on your local\dev machine as opposed to deploying it from within VS itself.

    Hope this helps others.....

  • Hi again,

    No capx the game runs OK.

    Not sure if this is bug or....

    This is a follow on to Closed bug Win8 App - WACK Fails.

    With the UTF-8 encoding now fixed in latest release of C2, the WACK passes from within VS - Thanks for the quick fix Ashley.

    But when you test the app using WACK outside of VS it fails the performance section. This is what the report states:

    Performance test

    FAILED

    Bytecode generation

    ?

    Error Found: The bytecode generation test detected the following errors: ?This package was deployed for development or authoring mode. Uninstall the package and re-install it normally.

    ?

    Impact if not fixed: As a performance optimization to accelerate JavaScript execution time, JavaScript files ending in the ".js" extension generate bytecode when the app is deployed. This optimization significantly improves start-up and ongoing execution times for JavaScript.

    ?

    How to fix: You may need consider one or more of these steps to fix the issue:

    • Ensure that event logging is enabled
    • All JavaScript files are syntactically valid; otherwise exclude the respective files from the package
    • Please note that you should uninstall all previous versions of the app before deploying

    Otherwise exclude the respective files from the package.

    As far as I know, while there are a few ways to deploy an app they all lead to the same resulting installation.

    I would rather not wait for a week only to find that the app fails certification on MS side.

    Weird that it passes WACK from within VS but not when running WACK outside of it - as far as I can tell it is the same process.

    Is there something I am missing?

    Should I submit the app to the store for certification?

  • Ashley, on a side note:

    When testing the game for purchase all works as expected, however when exported with test mode set to no, the app reports that it is purchased.

    Am I right to conclude that is because it is running on my dev machine and have a developer licence?

  • Ashley, I have to agree!

    Thanks for the quick reply.

    I will eagerly await the next build, and see if the WACK passes.

  • Hi all,

    Sorry no capx the game runs fine.

    But the export fails the WACK process:

    I have been trying to submit a game to the windows store but it fails the WACK validation process.

    The report says that jquery-2.0.0.0.min.js is not properly UTF-8 encoded....

    The report says to re-save the affected file as UTF-8 encoded (signed)

    When you do that it Passes the WACK from within VS.

    But when you test the app using WACK outside of VS it fails the performance section. This is what the report states:

    Performance test

    FAILED

    Bytecode generation

    ?

    Error Found: The bytecode generation test detected the following errors: ?This package was deployed for development or authoring mode. Uninstall the package and re-install it normally.

    ?

    Impact if not fixed: As a performance optimization to accelerate JavaScript execution time, JavaScript files ending in the ".js" extension generate bytecode when the app is deployed. This optimization significantly improves start-up and ongoing execution times for JavaScript.

    ?

    How to fix: You may need consider one or more of these steps to fix the issue:

    • Ensure that event logging is enabled
    • All JavaScript files are syntactically valid; otherwise exclude the respective files from the package
    • Please note that you should uninstall all previous versions of the app before deploying

    Otherwise exclude the respective files from the package.

    Any ideas....

  • Try Construct 3

    Develop games in your browser. Powerful, performant & highly capable.

    Try Now Construct 3 users don't see these ads

  • Well the topic title says it all.

    A text box that supports mark-up would be nice to have, could be useful for information pages in your game, like credits etc.