Tobye's Forum Posts

  • Ashley - in regards to the tutorials, I think the plain 'examples' section is right-on. For one, full tutorials are a bit daunting to make. I made a very simple one on experience systems and it still took hours. So my thought is something more like Kyatric's 'how do I' FAQ. A large, clean list of certain things you might want to do under labels specific to plugin and/or mechanic. Then, to make it very obvious. A well known go-to.

    Then just have the capx there, you can add descriptions and instructions into comments inside the projects. A lot of the threads pertaining to certain mechanics end in obscurity after reading through a whole lot of text. I reckon this would just make things so much cleaner, and more people would be willing to make examples and also just go around checking out cool mechanics without having to stick their nose in a book.

    Also for things like the SVN, functions, screen resolutions and similar repeat questions that seem to get asked by everyone (or questions that don't get asked enough!), they should have a pride-of-place in this section that is very succinct. That is then linked to more detailed tutorials. This just makes every user aware of the fundamentals, helps unclog the 'how do I...?' forum a little and - what I think is rather important - helps develop some standards. By increasing the standards of beginners, the sooner they can become skilled and start contributing and the cycle marches on.

    And while I'm talking, any chance of having the ability to have several different colours for comments? So I can make red ones to comment bugs, green ones to highlight completion etc.?

    That's my thoughts anyway! :)

  • lennaert - Yeah sure, it's all about getting together and learning :)

    Here is the full tutorial, but all you need to do is go here and download the latest version.

    After it's installed, make a new folder somewhere. Right click it, and you will see "SVN checkout". And I will PM you the password etc. now, and that's it :) Let me know how you get on!

  • lennaert - Yep! You enter as a group and the theme is released just before the competition starts. Then you all get together on skype or whatever and try to design a game around the theme. Decide your roles and goals and get into it!

    It's obviously very intensive as you only have 3 days to complete your entry, so if you are interested we should at least try to set up our workflow ahead of time. If you (or anyone else) wants I can walk you through the SVN client setup that will take a minute and we can make sure it's all functioning and set some ground rules.

    The team owns the game (it will not belong to Ludum Dare or anything) and you can keep working on it afterwards if you wish, but mainly I just want to do it for fun and experience (I have enough projects ongoing at the moment).

    So an example: theme is night-time, GO!

    Spend 3-4 hours outlining design

    Allocate roles

    Get to work

    Don't sleep

    Keep working

    Don't sleep

    Drink caffeine

    Finish entry

    Sleep for a week.

    Or at least that's how it was last time. Last time we made something with a great core, but too bug ridden and not put together nicely. So it's important to control your scope and make sure you have good workflow if you want to get it shiny.

  • After talking about it in another thread, I am actually really eager to get some Scirra users together for the upcoming Ludumdare! So I'm just going to tag a bunch of guys and see if they're interested:

    Yann

    LittleStain

    jayderyu

    DrewMelton

    DatapawWolf

    lennaert

    DrewMelton

    blackhornet

    keepee

    Arima

    This is not to say I only want to work with these guys, I don't know them at all really, just they are the notable names that keep popping up. I'm happy to work with anyone who has moderate or better knowledge of C2 or art/sound skills.

    LD is a low-time investment chance to get some collaborative experience and would be a great way to end the year, with a bunch of C2 users putting on a show. I'm useless with art, but work with an artist who may be willing to join too. I am however very good with events and particularly RPG elements (experience, text, combat, etc.).

    I also have an SVN set up, so you don't need to worry about that. If you're interested reply here or send me a message!

  • lennaert - Yeah I see your points and they are valid, but considering small team size of Scirra they are better off making additional programs more accepted when they are easy to use (heh, funny how we talk about how lots of people on Scirra don't collaborate much when it's actually kinda the same as the Scirra team themselves ^^). And client is just download > new folder > create checkout.

    And I am also really liking the group system, just for 'not having to remember' reasons.

    DatapawWolf - Yeah dissect away! To answer:

    I think the whole idea of C2 is to not have to be 'serious enough', and infact it is on the verge of revolutionising the way games are built. This is a lofty thing to say, and is a whole other thread to go into, and who knows what Scirra think, but it's clear at the very least their market is people who want to make things happen without being time invested. I for one very much want multiplayer and have no idea how to go about it even though I'm very comfortable with C2.

    And yeah Unity is more complex then a multiplayer, but not by so much. I have jumped on unity and done some tutorials and got stuff working, but I can't say the same for C2 multiplayer. What I should say is if you are willing to get into multiplayer, you are more than likely willing to keep going and learn unity (especially after reading so many threads about experienced C2 users doing exactly that). And unity does have (or will soon have) 2D.

    And lastly huge so will attract and maintain more community (albeit of lower to mid-range users) than modules. I don't think modules are really going to attract new users, as you don't even know why they're good until you start using C2. Also if they develop modules then release multiplayer, there is a greater risk of huge, time consuming breaks occurring (well I would speculate that at least).

    And still no-one for LD? C'mooooon! ;D

  • tulamide - It's nothing new to anyone ;) It would be fantastic. But I said my piece and really have nothing new to add.

    Except! The new Ludumdare is coming up, anyone want to try making something? DrewMelton - I could do with some sound and art, 3 days to trial some teamwork ;) lennaert - can try out an SVN! C'mon community, let's be a community :P

  • lennaert - Yeah I see what you mean, but I'm saying that it's not magic at all and the difficulty level is vastly less than you imagine. Really, it just takes a minute. The lack of selling this is a fault of Scirra. Even though they wrote a good tutorial on it, it does look so big and daunting.

    I do see how it being a lack of 'from Scirra' is a bad thing, it did turn me off for ages. But that is a cultural thing too, if every search for collaboration was full of 'so simple!' and it was on the front page when you visited Scirra, people wouldn't shy away from it. Again, as with a lot of Scirra's issues, this could be bettered with improved website organisation.

    Also someone wrote here about being able to mess around with the UI (sorry couldn't find it again) - this is actually my dream ^^ I have such extensive engines and transporting them between projects is easy, but I want to make it easier for my team to use by making pop-ups, increasing the height of variable entry fields, etc.. But, I can see that's not a priority.

  • DatapawWolf - And I rebuke! ;) So far multiplayer requires coding to some degree. The fact that 'not everyone can do it' is against the mission statement of Scirra and excludes the bulk of their users. If you don't mind dealing with websockets you won't mind using Unity, so why use Construct? There is no argument that modularity would be awesome, but as long as a massive feature like multiplayer is still absent from events, it needs to take second place.

    I could go on about it for hours, but honestly I see it as plain as that, need over want.

    lennaert - why not just use an SVN?

  • Paradox - Haha, alright that's where I'm going wrong then :P Luckily I also did the IDE method while waiting for appbackr, so I got my game in on time. Just no extra cash in my pocket.

  • jayderyu - Yeah definitely convenience is a huge deal, every single click you can reduce is a big deal when it comes to getting people to learn tools. But it's just not something that's missing from C2 and is not difficult to use. The main problem is no-one taking advantage of it, which stems a lot from it seeming like a lot of work. I worked with Excal a few times earlier on doing the 'copy your work over' approach and it was hell. It was just never made obvious how easy an SVN is to set-up, and when you look for collab solutions on the forums, you mainly find 'CANNOT DO! NOT FOR TEAMS! PREPARE FOR HELL!', instead of a whole bunch of 'oh just do this'.

    So, I think instead of adding features it's far more efficient for Scirra to shove what's available in people's faces. I mean come on, look at the insane amount of effort people go to to try to get their games working on mobile, and then those same people think an SVN is too hard.

    Excal - I think the 'help me make my game' is a legitimate way to go, but only if you have enough experience. As you said, when you team up you feel you're all dragging in different directions, which is not a good way to go! So from the start it should be understood who is the designer, and that person should set out the systems for the rest to work off. Sure, the others should give their ideas and try to put as much of themselves into the game as possible, but the lead really needs to be able to say 'sorry, but that's not the direction of the game.'. This is the best thing for the game and those trying to learn.

    Also different specialities are a must - I love making experience systems and in-depth damage systems, but as soon as it needs to be represented on screen productivity grinds to a halt. Whereas there are many people who only want to lay down images on screen and have them work. Of course it helps if everyone understands how and why other things are done, but specialisation streamlines production in a big way.

    I do think it would rock the house if there was a 'module capx' section of sorts. I've learnt so much from people posting answers to their own questions when they find them, but you need to ask some specific questions in searches to come across these gems. I made this system for example, that lets you easily manipulate arrays and would love to get some feedback on it, but I don't really know where to post it and don't see many getting use from it after a day or two when it sinks in the forums. I've already expanded it to have many more applications (like pushing on axis even when duplicates, acquiring indexes of Y, etc.), and it only requires you to have functions and a family, nothing more. And the thing is, even though it's great for me, I have no idea if something similar is out there or where to find it if it is. For all I know I've just wasted a heap of time on an inferior version of something someone made months ago.

    And actually I believe modularity, as totally fantastic as it would be, is easily second to multiplayer. Everyone wants to make multiplayer games, and currently they can't. Not many people want to collaborate, but they can. So modularity is clearly a second place here, although a massively important second place.

    But whatever the case or viewpoint on all of the above, this is definitely a conversation that needs to appear more often with C2 :)

  • Paradox - Appbackr offered me some cash too, but then stopped replying to me. Did you have any troubles with contacting them?

  • jayderyu - for the SVN, it just seems trickier than it is. I stumbled around for a while even with the tutorial, but that was mainly due to having to forward my ports. So yeah, if you don't know how to do that it can be a pain, but once you do know it only takes a few minutes to set up and works great. And only 1 team member needs a server, the clients take less than a minute to set up.

    So here complexity isn't the problem, more clarity. The tutorial should be tightened up, add some links to port-forwarding tutorials or something and really get it out there how easy it is to use.

  • I've come to realise C2 is actually quite easy to collaborate on via SVN and with good planning you can make most things modulated. Although it does take good planning that is usually quite advanced.

    But I do think lack of collaboration is the worst part of C2 - most people I talk to here about it say "Nah, C2 is just for a designer and an artist.", which is really not good. By making it so easy to develop on C2 people think "I don't need anyone else now!" instead of "Wow, imagine what a team could do now!". Especially with Spriter (and hopefully soon Sprite Lamp), you can make some stunning games at a ridiculous speed.

    So with that said, I am a huge believe that C2 can be a massive market player if the users start coming together on projects and raise the scope above mobile. A team of 5 people on C2 could do what a 15 man team could via code, and there are no serious bugs in (non-mobile) C2 anymore.

    So if there's anyone out there with a little experience who wants to try for something impressive, send me a message. I've got a very large RPG engine brewing away that 3 of us start on next year, and I would love another experienced programmer or two! Particularly if you are any good at menus, or maybe you have a neat little piece that could suit as a mini game. It currently has full text systems that require no events, a really flexible combat engine (allows for card game style effects like tracking number of pumps, base vs modified stats, etc. etc.), controller support of all forms and lots of other pieces.

  • lucid - Thanks! I just didn't know I had to do that each new version. Also though I am having trouble with the packs as they say 'download expired'. They worked when I first got it, but that was just before the new additions. Anyway, sending you an email now with details.

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  • lucid - The links for b6 take me to the free version, even though I bought the pro version. How do I upgrade it? And also I never got the extra animations (with the man on the ladder etc.).