silbedbg's Forum Posts

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  • sorry, I do not know.

  • a quick hack:

    you could create an visbilbe objekt "wall" and a very thin and invisible object "floor". You would have to put the thin object "floor" ontop of your walls. Than in events you define, that when

    - the ball hits the "floor" it jumps

    - the ball hits just the the wall nothing happens.

  • Hi everybody

    I have an object with an instance variable, which I can not use to read out an array.at(instancevariable), since it is a locked as string (instead of number). It is no big deal, but since I run into this problem again and again. I wanted to ask if there is an elegant solution to either

    a) change the used (and locked) instance variable from string to number or

    b) use an expression to change it to a number (unfortunately number(), and parse...() are not available in the expression dialog).

    Tagged:

  • rikkichinna

    I also see much potential for learning with Construct in general. What I like most about construct is that students can learn and be successful at very different levels

    a) students with less scripting/math skills can work with the event system

    b) and better students can move to scripting in actions.

    c) real coding in scripts

    At the end of the course everybody in class has a good chance to show off a decent game (while simultaneously the students who learned JS with construct had profited most from the course for life). So during the course everybody sees a way how to make their game according to their skill level, everybody keeps engaged to learn more and nobody has to be ashamed. (Additionally Laura from Scirra produces these excellent videos and blog, which show that girls/woman/everybody can become good a computer science even if it is sometimes a bit painful)

    However, as a public schools teacher one has to try to lift most students to level c (because society does not want pupils to be good game developers but people who can code anything) and I think teachers would need more information how to achieve this - or at least I would need a bit more guidance.

  • I think you are perfectly right about the "best way to move from blocks to scripting would be to use scripts in actions. [...] Using these you could then expand out to variables, loops and so on."

    However, I also think that the smaller comparison you did made

    - have a "tick" callback (equivalent to "Every tick")

    - nested for loops iterating all the instances (equivalent to the internal picking of conditions)

    are necessary to integrate the knowledge students gained in the beginning of class into the new concept of JS.

    Finally you might not have intended it, but you gave - with the on collision event - a good example why teachers need a fairly complete list of comparison between events and JS. Assume that a student wants to script an "on collision" event by him/herself and asks the teacher if he thinks this would be a good idea. The teacher would have to decide quite fast if the student is up to this challenge or if he/she should just use the "on collision" event as it is. A clear list of concepts the student would need to know, would be necessary to the teacher.

    Again you are right about that a good way "to explain what the "On collision" event does (rather like outlining a specification), how to replicate that in JavaScript, and then just finish with "and that's what the "On collision" block does internally". This is the kind of list, which would be very helpful for teachers.

  • remark: I initially wrote this from the perspective of a teacher however, it might be interesting for all users who want to learn scripting in construct 3.

    As a science teacher (who might have to teach computer science one day) I was very happy to hear that I am now able to use JavaScript (more readily) in construct. However I am very confused, how I could teach with construct computer science.

    right know my naively approach would be something like this (assuming students learned scratch before):

    - week 1-10) Learn Programming Principles with the event system - The event system is a great tool and the best reason to use construct in classroom. It is enough for many of my struggling students, who should get at least a basic understanding how computer science problems are solved... and also it helps even the most struggling students to create a decent game at the end of the course.

    - week 11-20) learn JavaScript somewhere else (for example codecombat...) - that is from a teaching perspective a tough part (but manageable)

    - week 20-25) come back to construct and learn to use basic knowledge in JS in actions (alert("something") for debugging, read variables...)

    - week 26-30) scripts to create more complex games (probably just the most advanced students)

    - week 30-40) students project

    Am I getting this basically right? Is this how it is meant to be? Did you discuss other ideas?

    If so: I have some suggestions to ease learning in week 25.

    Firstly you could start more slowly and create a ghost shooter tutorial with events and JS actions

    Secondly I think it is a great idea to use the same space shooter example to learn JS with which you have started. And I like the idea to give the explanation in comments like professional developer do. What I am missing is a direct comparison between these two space shooter tutorials

    - For students it would be very helpful to understand what the event system originally did for them (in JS terms) --> A tutorial, which directly compares event system with JS would be very helpful.

    - students need to know, what they can do now with JS, what they could not do with the event system. It would immensely help, when this new feature they could program with JS would be super fancy.

    - give teachers a reference in which you explain how the event system compares to JS (and I think this has to be written from one of the construct creators, since no one else ever thought about how to simplify JS with an event system).

    As mentioned above I think this would also help regular users, who want to learn scripting in construct. Obviously, there is always more that one could do to help struggling students. But I think these are the most critical points. What do you think?

  • Thank you very much for clearing this up.

  • Hi everybody

    I would like to create a quiz game in which students can type and send their answers with their mobile phone (similar to Kahoot). Originaly I wanted this to work in a WLAN network not connected to the internet. However there might be reasons to do it online anyway. In this case I would like to know what kind of data a (quiz)game created with construct 3 sends (to whome)? Is this documented somewhere? Final question: the answers would not be encrypted - right?

    many thanks

    PS: I hope this is not to blunt to ask. It is not meant to be offensive.

    PPS: A native speaker could probably ask more politely (sorry about that).

  • Hi oosyrag

    Thank you for your reply. It helped me a lot.

    In the short run I can use wlan chat software during lessons (and I have to switch between the quiz game and the chat room) and in the long run I can learn to setup a signaling server.

  • Hello everybody

    I have a question about the multiplayer plugin:

    I would like to create an app, which my students have to download at home. When they come to class I would like them to connect with their smartphones to a WLAN-router, which has no access to the internet (for legal reasons). Is it possible that my students connect to a chatroom (just for the class - just in the WLAN network) and send messages to each other? .

    From what I see: the chatromm template requires an internet connection to the signalling server. Is their another way, when students just are in the same network? Does anybody had a similar problem?

    thanks and best wishes

    Tagged:

  • Hi everybody

    At a local event for hobbiest-artist in Essen (Germany) me and 4 other artist had the idea to organize a regular local event for hobbiest-game-developer. I looked for a german community/forum, but could not found any. So do you have any advise, where I could reach some german hobbiest game developers.

    --- same text in German ----

    Hallo alle

    Auf dem letzten großen Zeichnertreffen in Essen hatten einige Hobby-Künstler (die sich auch mit Spieleentwicklung beschäftigen) die Idee ein regelmäßiges Treffen für Hobby-Spieleentwickler zu veranstalten. Leider habe ich keine deutschen Community für Construct gefunden. Hat jemand eine Idee, wo man das vielleicht bekannt machen könnte?

  • 12 posts