Beta versions are not as thoroughly tested as stable

Beta versions are not as thoroughly tested as stable

Beta branch

Construct 3 r134

Instant Games updates; new Playable Ads exporter; bug fixes

14 January, 2019 ()

Email Me New Releases

Don't miss out on the latest and greatest new features in Construct 3

Create an Account

Notes

In this release we've made a number of improvements for Facebook Instant Games. Firstly Instant Games now requires an additional file (fbapp-config.json) so the standard Web (HTML5) export cannot be uploaded directly any more. To fix this, there's now a separate new Instant Games export option which also generates this file for you, so the export can be directly uploaded again. We've also added support for a number of requested extra Instant Games features, such as changing context and custom updates. While most new features will only be supported in the new C3 runtime, in this case we did also go back and add the new Instant Games features to the C2 runtime as well.

Note that from this release onwards, you must use the Instant Games export option for the Instant Games plugin to work. Additionally note that there is a breaking change in the Instant Games Show ad action: it now lets you pick which ad type to show, but existing projects will default to Interstitial. To show a Rewarded video ad you must change the Show ad action to specify that type instead.

In addition to that there's a new and currently experimental Facebook Playable Ads export option. This is designed to export projects compatibile with the Playable Ad format, which imposes a range of tight restrictions. The primary restriction is that the export must be a single file, with everything inlined in to index.html. This is a tough restriction to comply with, so not all features may work in this mode (notably no network requests are allowed, so anything involving loading a remote URL will not be allowed). The file size limit is also very low (currently 2 MB) - it's not clear if this is taking in to account compression or not, but it probably means it's only suitable for small, simple games, so it's unlikely you'll be exercising the full range of Construct's features anyway. There's also a new On CTA click action in the Facebook plugin which you'll need to use for Playable Ads (which calls the required FbPlayableAd.onCTAClick() function). Note this exporter is only available for projects using the new C3 runtime. Hopefully despite all these tight restrictions it will still be a useful way to build Playable Ads! If you use it, let us know how it works out - we're interested to hear any feedback.

Finally as ever there's a range of other additions and bug fixes, particularly around the Animations Editor and JSON plugin. See the changelog for full details!

Like this Release?

Let us know with a thumbs up!

4
Launch r134

New Features

10 favourites
New 'Facebook Playable Ads' export option (C3 runtime projects only)

New Additions

5 favourites
New 'Facebook Instant Games' export option, which generates the now-mandatory fbapp-config.json file
6 favourites
Instant Games: 'Change context' action (based on chooseAsync) and 'On context changed' trigger
5 favourites
Instant Games: 'Custom update' (based on updateAsync with CUSTOM action), 'Switch game' and 'Subscribe to bot' actions
4 favourites
Instant Games: 'Show ad' action can now specify the ad type to show
5 favourites
Facebook plugin: add 'On CTA click' action, for use in Playable Ads
6 favourites
JSON Plugin: Push value/Pop value actions for adding/removing values at the start/end of an array
5 favourites
JSON Plugin: Front/Back expressions for retrieving values from the start/end of an array

Changes

3 favourites
C3 runtime: adjusted "not supported" message for clarity
4 favourites
Data editor: row/column size customisation now saved to project

Bug Fixes

9 favourites
Exporting projects with "Minify script" enabled not working in r133
3 favourites
C3 runtime: web fonts with spaces in the name could fail to load after export
5 favourites
C3 runtime: Google Play plugin prevented runtime starting if failed to load
7 favourites
Tween Behaviour: take in to account instance's own time scale
4 favourites
Animations Editor: collision polygons could restore incorrectly after undoing a batch of changes
1 favourites
Animations Editor: lines with thickness greater than 1 not draw around the edges
3 favourites
Animations Editor: avoid drawing lines of length 0
4 favourites
Animations Editor: image points misplaced after cropping with 1px padding
5 favourites
Cloud Save: folder entries cache could become corrupted if a network request failed

Performance Improvements

6 favourites
JSON Plugin: cache lookups to optimise modifying multiple children of the same parent

Share Construct 3 Release r134 Now

  • 14 Comments

  • Order by
Want to leave a comment? Login or Register an account!
  • So far so good of FB playable Ad exports. :)

    Just an FYI : uncompressed index.html file size limit is 2MB

    From my experience with playable ads - images and how sprite sheets are laid out, is typically the biggest challenge. Especially for FB. Perhaps more control with sprite sheets prior to export would aid in optimization? - or a view of how assets will be packed before export.

      • [-] [+]
      • 2
      • Ashley's avatar
      • Ashley
      • Construct Team Founder
      • 2 points
      • *
      • (1 child)

      You can already view spritesheets in the editor (Project -> Tools -> View spritesheets), and adjust how they're generated using the max spritesheet size setting.

      TBH some of the Playable Ads restrictions are pretty bizarre! e.g. I'm not sure why everything has to be in one file, when that makes it bloated and less efficient - if you want efficient transmission, HTTP/2 can send everything down one connection... and why would the size limit be uncompressed? Do they not compress the file before sending it...? If they cared about efficiency they should say "use HTTP/2 and use compression"...

      • Ahh thanks! I forgot about that :)

        Dude... I know it! I scratch my head all the time with FB and an their inlined approach. FB is by far the worst that I have encountered in terms of optimization BUT, from an advertising standpoint, it's the most effective. Thanks again for this!

  • A big wow on the one file ads.

    C3 is maturing quite nicely.

    Congratulations guys, you're doing an awesome job.

  • I love you guys <3

  • Great stuff! Will try it out this weekend!

  • I was merging files in Base64 manually after each C3 export to create compatible Facebook Playable ads... sooo Thank you very much for the new behaviors!!!!

  • Thank you very much for the IG plugin updates!

  • Thank you for the playable ads update, we actually use a custom gulp exporter for that but having an integrated solution is better :)

  • Thank You!

  • Awesome update, thank you!

  • FB playables!!! THANK YOU!!!

  • Load more comments (1 replies)