RaymondHooks's Forum Posts

  • I have found the Construct community to be friendly unless met with hostility, in which case they respond accordingly. Either way - this conversation is off topic and should either end or continue in private messages with the appropriate parties.

    I wish that was totally accurate, but it's definitely not. Unfortunately, there has been plenty of evidence to the contrary as I've witnessed a number of situations where people were attacked, condescended to and more, just for asking a simple question, politely making suggestions, or showing some work they've done, etc., and I've complained about that a number of times before. I do agree however that this is off-topic.

  • Since we pay the royalty in advance, from past experience we have noticed that many authors take the advance and disappear. Its pointless trying to pursue the matter with them so we leave it at that.

    Well, then that's a not a good business practice. In a situation where you're dealing mostly in the cyber world and never actually meeting the authors, It would make more sense to pay based on milestones (i.e. complete and submit X amount of work, then get paid X amount, etc).

    Yes Raymond, you are right here. I do agree that we need various viewpoints and other pros who can help the authors. If you notice MrMiller's post, he too mentions the same concerns and we are taking these views seriously. We plan to have experienced reviewers for this book who will work side by side with the author.

    Time will tell how seriously the advice has been taken.

    I'm looking forward to what MrMiller has to say about his interaction with you guys. It's my understanding from some conversations he and I have had by PM and some links he's shown me, he's been a consultant and contributor for a number of big name gaming industry projects over the years, much bigger than Packt (no offense intended). Based on that, it would seem like a no-brainer to get him involved somehow.

  • It probably would've been a good idea for them to mention that they're paying a royalty in their first post.

    Anyway, in my opinion they're going to need more than one writer or at least another "battle-tested" Construct user for this. Firstly because of time constraints, but the other reason is that most of the time the most knowledgeable people in any field or software category tend to not be able to write tutorials that beginners will be most able to understand, and since it's not likely that the publishing company uses Construct heavily they'd need another critical eye who does use Construct to tell them if the head author is making sense in a reasonable way.

    Considering that the stuff being done with Construct by everyone who uses it is in an increasingly stable but still highly developmental phase, it's highly unlikely that one person will know all the best practices and alternative methods that a beginner would need to have clearly explained in order to use the program.

    It'll be interesting to see what direction they take.

  • ^^^ That's not relevant to the core of his question, and I'm going to give him a lot more credit and say that he would know as anyone who's used a computer for a day or two would know that as an image increases in size it decreases in quality, besides that's not what his question appears to be wondering about anyway. I take it that since he said "dpi/resolution", he was establishing that he was using images of high quality.

    I've noticed the same thing he's described. I can take an image into another program and zoom it (up to a certain point) and the quality remains high as it should for a large high-res image, but in Construct the same image is noticeably lower in quality and is fuzzy and pixelated when I use a zoom event and zoom it up to the exact same point. Most users of this program probably don't use many--if any--images that are large in pixel size and high in memory and detail so the quality loss would be less noticeable to those users (or simply more tolerable depending on the type of game) in that case.

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  • People are often rude here for no good reason anyway, so what's new? If a person posts a suggestion it gets fought down, or they're told it can already be done and they're just too stupid to be able to do it on their own. Then they're told you don't know anything about programming and that's why you don't know how to do it, etc, etc.

    Irbis is right on a lot of things. He could be nicer himself, but it doesn't change that he is right on a number of things. Not everyone can program a game in every format, and there is nothing to feel bad about there. He may be a great C programmer or other type, or he may be great in a different discipline but this doesn't always translate to Construct.

    Event-based programming is a different animal, and even though it's been around for years, it's still fairly experimental. So techniques and approaches are not really textbook the way they are for language-based programming, hence all the tech demos and new techniques coming out here and with other similar programs. This is one excuse for these types of development tools not having a lot of documentation, although I still think the basics can be covered better.

    I program in C#. I came back and forth to Construct 2 or 3 times before I finally got it, and even now I'd still say there are a number of things I'm foggy on, but I can make a good full game with it if I wanted. It certainly needs some new objects, some plug-ins need to be worked on and officially added as well, and there are certain things that don't work well that will have to be worked out before 1.0 to ensure 1.0 isn't a bust. That said, it's a great program but it's not for everyone, just like any other development tool, so I don't think a person is the devil for declaring that.

  • Sure, you can walk into just about any home in the country and find one of any number of different consoles. Maybe even two. Rarely will you find all three current-gen consoles, though.

    Anyway, let's leave Wii out, since you can't make and sell a game without a publisher, or at least a license and a dev kit, all of which are well out of reach for most indies. And PS2 may still be quite popular, but... well, you can't sell games on there either so it's a rather moot point. Likewise with the PS3... there is no XNA or XBLIG equivalent. You need to get a license and devkit in order to develop there as well. At least, as far as I know. I don't know much about the PS3, but I couldn't find anything out there like that. Sooo... that leaves the 360.

    And yes, if you total up all the Wiis, PS2s and 3s, and 360s in American households, the number probably outshines the number of smart phones out there. But we're not totaling up all those consoles because the only viable dev platform for indies out of the lot is the 360, you can sure as hell bet that game sales on the iPhone are a hell of a lot more common than game sales on XBLIG.

    I brought up those consoles because you questioned the broadness of the console market vs. cellphones. Sure, if you base the viability strictly on how many cellphones have been sold vs consoles it would seem that cell's win, but the important factor in the equation is figuring out how many people with cellphones are actually playing games on them and how much they're spending when they do. I haven't heard any eye-popping sales numbers from that sector for single games or heard of any super blockbusters that rival major console game numbers. I would think if so many more people were playing games on them there would have to have been one huge blockbuster game. Last I heard, Tetris was the highest selling ever on cell's, but all that is is a casual remake of a game that was already huge.

    And the point is rather moot but I was under the impression that there are 3rd party programs like Torque and such that can publish on XBLIG too...?

    Yes, but you still have to know C# to make anything presentable.

    Also I don't mean to be rude but being able to publish to Zune and Windows Phone is... well, it's kind of like saying you can publish your game on a unicorn's butt because really who the hell owns a Zune or a Windows phone? So in that regard "Being able to make games for 4 platforms" is really just two platforms, and since Windows is one of those platforms in Construct already then that leaves 360 as your second and I've already put too fine a point on why I don't think that's really a priority.

    Zune has sold about 3.5 million units, not big but it's something. Windows Phone isn't out yet so of course no one owns it yet, but that will change quickly. But that's all beside the point. The point about this is that you can create a game in xna that can be translated--with the proper know-how--across 4 platforms. Take the Express Game Maker for example; it lets you make an xna compatible game and either deploy it directly and start the process of selling the game on XBL, or you can export the code and mod the code to translate to any of the other MS platforms. The price of admission is lower than going the Apple route. I mean, to be certain, getting your game on the iphone is going to cost you a lot more than the $99 Creators club fee from MS, and if you wind up needing some Apple hardware, then you're really in for it.

  • But C# is not a deadend. With xna you can put out games for 360, Zune, Windows, and Windows Phone.

    True, but I wasn't talking about C# or XNA, but XBLIG specifically.

    Hmmm, tough to separate them since you can't get on XBLIG without using xna/C#. My point was that using xna doesn't limit you to just XBLIG, since you can make games for Zune, Windows, and Windows Phone aside from 360. Being able to make games for 4 platforms trumps being able to make a game for just one in terms of market reach.

    Everyone has a computer, so exporting to various OS runtimes should take precedence.

    But some of these OS's are unpopular to the point of making it a complete waste of time. Making an export to be able to run our games on Linux would be a waste of development time. However, making the Construct development software compatible with Linux would be a better idea... thing is, doing that and not making the games run wouldn't make sense.If the amount of time necessary to do that would be the same or greater than making exports so our games can run on game platforms that are far more popular (and make no mistake about it, at 0.83% of the personal consumer market Linux is not popular by any stretch of the imagination), then this wouldn't be a good idea. I know the hope is that Linux programmers would jump in and make a bunch of plug-ins but I still see that as nothing more than mere speculation from Linux enthusiasts.

    Doing either for Mac wouldn't be the worst idea, I'd do that before Linux, but the same question comes up again; how popular is this platform for gaming and game-making compared to the MS platforms? I think we all know the answer to that one, PC/MS platforms win that by a landslide. The market is enormous for PC/MS products. Just from a business standpoint, it would make perfect sense to address the sectors that you already know have the most users waiting for your product, start there, and then move down the list. But if money doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter if you go after tiny sectors like Linux and the rest that are all smaller than PC/MS.

    And there are a lot more smart-phone owners out there than there are 360 owners

    But gamer spending on console games far exceeds spending on cellphone games. It's not even close from a revenue standpoint, and you also have to consider that not every smartphone owner plays games. So you have to extract the number of people with cellphones who don't play games on it and I'd imagine that number is probably larger than believed. But with the consoles, you know they play games on them because that's what the consoles were built for.

    Also, for every 360 owner that does buy an XBLIG game, there are even more who don't. People generally get a 360 in order to play triple-A titles. Phones, on the other hand, are a different animal entirely. People are more accepting of smaller, simpler games on their phone. Plus the portable nature means more opportunity to buy and play games. People are much more likely to drop $3 on Generic Stick Figure Zombie Arena Shooter on their phone when they can play it on their lunch breaks or on the toilet or whatever, but not so much when you can only play it on your couch on a system that you could be playing Halo: Reach or Red Dead Redemption on instead.

    That's why I brought up the fact that xna's versatility allows you to create games for Mobile platforms as well (Zune, Windows Phone). That goes beyond XBLIG.

    But as far as top priority goes, I still think Mac/Linux support is where it's at. The most common complaint I see from the indie community is "well this game looks neat but it's Windows only so I can't play it *frowny face*." More OS support would be a big draw for indie devs.

    Mostly for Mac. Linux support isn't going to draw enough Linux gamers to make a difference because, well, the Linux market is a speck at 0.83% of personal computer users as quoted by a Linux source (and they were probably being generous with that number, too, lol), and the number of people playing games on Linux is obviously even smaller than that. And again, this rush of lInux devs jumping on Construct is wishful thinking and speculation.

    I really don't think that's true. If you have a source on this I'd be happy to get schooled though . And anyway, as time goes on smart phones will become even more prevalent, and console owners still won't be able to carry their consoles around and play them.

    You're far more likely to walk into a home and find a Wii, 360, PS3 or PS2 (PS2 especially) before you find an Android or an Iphone, and even if you did find one of the phones it's highly unlikely that person is using it as their primary gaming device which makes sense since gaming consoles and PC's are still the best option for serious gaming. There is a reason why single console games still sell in the millions of copies and phone games generally don't do anything close to that number even while being priced as low as 50x less than the average console game.

  • First and foremost I think other OS's are the most important. Browser games would be a really nice perk but they're not commercially viable (well, Flash is if you get sponsored or find some kind of kick-ass ad revenue sharing). Plus, there are already sites like Game Jolt where you can launch your games through a web player and such.

    If I had a second choice though I'd go with one of the smart-phone options, either iPhone or Android. PC/Mac and smart-phone sales are where people are going to (potentially) be making money. But that would also mean adding multi-touch and accelerometer functionality to C2.

    As for consoles... I dunno, I see XBLIG as kind of a dead end, honestly. Sure, a few people have made some money here and there, but indie console publishing doesn't have anywhere near the potential of smart phones or PC's.

    But C# is not a deadend. With xna you can put out games for 360, Zune, Windows, and Windows Phone. The key to making money is making a game that gives the market what they want, and you can fail on the Apple store or Android or anywhere else if you make a bad game that doesn't work with the market. The games that made it on XBLIG gave people what they wanted, even simple stuff like the Rumble Massage program.

  • that's my point, instead of first focusing on new runtimes the devs should focus on making the software itself crossplatform, so that linux users can join, they could also help in porting it to other platforms. Making software crossplatform has a positive impact on the public, why GameSalad is not that popular?? because it's Mac only.[quote:1us26xvr]

    While I understand that including Linux compatibility may open up some more development, the idea that there will be a big rush of Linux users jumping into it is purely speculation. Plus, if the devs want to make more money, the runtimes will get them there.

    Indeed, Gamesalad is not that popular because it's Mac only, but not simply because it isn't cross-platform... it's just the platform it's on doesn't have as many users as PC. If it were PC only it would probably be much bigger and not being cross-platform would be irrelevant.

    > That's the biggest factor, maybe making people pay for the Xbox export will be nice, and charging some fee for making a commercial game from Construct.

    >

    I'm all for charging to purchase the export, but they should leave commercial game fees alone. I've always looked at that sort of stuff as bush league and greed. It just flies in the face of the indie spirit and what it means to help people get to the next level. Besides, any indie that brings a game to market is already going to have to endure enough fees from the digital or physical distributor and every other palm that needs to be greased.

  • I think there is a bit of confusion here. I'm pretty sure the poll is meant to be a question--as it states--about which platforms you'd like to be able to export your games to. The stuff about running Construct on other platforms besides Windows is a different topic.

    I concur with Silver's thoughts. If you're trying to build a resume and make it into the commercial sector, you have no shot making games specifically for Linux. You have a small shot with Mac platforms. You have the most realistic shot with games that are exports to any of the Windows/Microsoft platforms. I don't see anything wrong with Indie's wanting to make a living from what they love to do. Thing is, the further you get away from Windows/MS platforms, the less chance you have at doing that.

  • Linux at the bottom

    Sounds like all of you want your games to run on the platforms from where you can get money.

    I'm not saying that Export to Consoles shouldn't be there, but it should be given lower priority than linux and internet platforms, since there are a lot of people out there who are running linux.

    But whatever you say, since Construct will be OpenGl based then running Construct and it's exported game on Linux will not be such a problem.

    ^^^ No way.

    Linux's personal consumer userbase (not business/IT, just personal sector which is all that's relevant here) is small... VERY, VERRRRRRRY small, because the support isn't there. It may be a more stable OS, but the support is all with Windows. I heard a number like 0.83% of personal computer users use Linux. Then you have to reduce that number even more significantly since only a tiny fraction of those people actually make games... then consider that plenty of games won't run on Linux to begin with, you'll have to reduce it even further... so in the end you're left with an incredibly tiny number.

    To people who use Linux this may be hard to swallow, but you have to think mainstream here and realize that the market is simply not there as the mainstream is using everything else except Linux. The average user has never even heard of it and has never seen it. All they know is windows. I'd put Linux at the 100 spot and it would still be a legitimate placing... the market for it for gaming and game-making is nothing.

    Like it's been stated, anything Construct does with MAC and Linux is going to be nothing more than a humanitarian effort, with Linux being the least wanted of the two. If you're making a professional product, why waste time on things that the majority of your users won't care about? Wouldn't make sense, and precious development time can be spent on things you know your userbase is actually going to want and actually going to use. Export to Linux? LOL... where is the market? Granted, because you'd have very little competition you'd get some pub in the Linux circle, but will you make any money? Highly doubtful.

    I agree that internet-based is going to have the biggest draw, but if making some money is the goal your best bet is still on Consoles right now. Like I said earlier, people are making money on XBLIG. Basically any game that gets uploaded there makes at least something. By comparison, most games put on the internet never make a penny... ever.

  • Are console makers these days pretty open about having indie games submitted? Last I heard, for example, the XBox Live Arcade were increasing the strictness of the standards required of submitted games. I don't have any consoles so I'm not really up to date on what the latest is though. I'm just worried since console makers don't have a clear path to profit from indie games on their consoles, and they risk the reputation of the platform if there are loads of "junk games", they might not be so keen on having a lot of indie game submissions from a package like Construct.

    The internet is a much more open platform not at the mercy of any particular vendor - that's why I think it might be a better choice.

    Nah. Microsoft wants more content for XBLIG (XBOX Live Indie Game) BADLY, believe me, and they continue to do as much as they can to encourage it. Indie's are indeed making money there, and the higher sellers have made quite a bit.

    The highest selling game on XBLIG is something an experienced event programmer could make in Construct in an afternoon or a few give or take. But, programming in xna is time-consuming and the learning curve is enormous if you're not a language programmer, so there isn't nearly as much content as there could be. That's why Construct should be going this way because it addresses that need for more content and allows indie devs to get on consoles.

    In a hierarchy of 1 to 10 (1 highest, 10 lowest), I'd say it's:

    1. Internet-based (Flash, Java)

    2. xna (though I'd want an xna export first, Flash clearly has the biggest reach).

    3. Phones

    4-9. Anything you can think of.

    10. Mac

    ...

    ... 20. Linux

    Yep, 10 and 20 are that low on purpose

    There is a game maker called the Express Game maker (I think it's been mentioned once already) about to launch next Friday. It allows you to export xna. Thing is, just like MMF, Construct's event system is WAY better than EGM's. Construct's is the most layman, the most practical, it's easy to learn, it flows well. C# is here to stay and it's only going to keep growing as Microsoft continues to create more platforms that make use of it. I really feel like the game creation software that doesn't get on board with it is going to be left in the dust while they're preoccupied with jumping on small markets (Mac) or teeny-weeny-tiny markets (Linux) or platforms that will be obsolete in a few years (various phones), instead of looking at long-term growth in area's that are not only expanding but built to stand the test of time (C#/xna).

  • Freezing is normal if you're previewing fullscreen. Windowed doesn't have that issue and is thus encouraged.

    It happens windowed, too. Mine freezes all the time. Loading and saving freezes and often takes a long time even when loading a set of just 20 230kb's images. My computer is way beyond minimum requirements, is brand new and in tip-top shape and runs every other program I have flawlessly. I've even taken the same images plus backgrounds, put them into xna and ran them and they ran fast, loaded fast and saved fast with no problem.

    I hope this is being looked into, and I hope this issue can be worked out at some point.

  • You can download a manual that i put together here -

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10216310/Costruct%20Manual.rar

    regards

    chrisbrobs

    Nice! You are one bad MF!

  • ...I get the impression from seeing a lot of the games being made with Construct, that they aren't using a whole lot of animation frames per character or synchronizing development between Construct and a different coding environment, so as a result most people using the program aren't needing to export images much, if at all.

    That's probably why it's not in there, but it should be. Like you said, why is there an option to export one frame but not more, since one frame is generally useless? Plus, there is already a batch import option, so...

    I do all my animation work in a different program, but testing sucks like this because I can't just make a change and then test immediately in the game environment this way. So I have to save each frame in the program I'm using, put it into Construct, and then pray I got it all right. If I didn't I have to erase it all in Construct, go back to the program I was using and do more again there because the tools in my image program are different from Construct's, so I have no choice but to start the process over again. It's hair-pulling.