What’s next?
You’ve read through this whole tutorial!
Congratulations, you have already taken your first steps as a game maker!
You’re already aware of some tools and functionality within Construct. You also have already seen how to implement some game mechanics and use some existing features. You are now ready to fly on your own wings.
Before letting you go though, here are a few last notes to further help you in your progress.
SAVE YOUR WORK !
Tips about saving your projects
Construct 3 offers you three ways to save your project you can read about them in the manual article about saving and sharing your projects.
In addition, you can also enable backup options for your saves. Those will make automatic saves for you in a separate instance of the file (it adds an extension .backup to the filename and saves as a new file).
There can be a risk of overwriting a single file and any deficiencies in your hard-drive might cause your project to not be opened anymore. Nobody likes to lose their data, so be careful and perhaps consider multiple backup locations.
Documentation and getting help
Release cycle
Construct is constantly being developed.
The Construct team releases often in order to put new features out to be tested by the community. Those tests and new features tend to happen in the Beta channel. Most advanced and willing users will use and test those features until they are deemed stable enough for a Stable release.
Manual
As you have seen all along this article, all the elements of Construct are precisely and clearly documented in the online manual.
The manual is updated with each new Stable release.
I cannot stress enough the value and how helpful a resource the manual is.
Keep it open in a browser tab at all times and do go and consult it whenever you are working with a plugin or a behavior.
Inside the editor there are also a lot of links that will take you directly to the appropriate section of the manual.
Tutorials
This article is a tutorial. There are a lot of existing tutorials that cover various aspects of game making, relating to Construct 2 or Construct 3.
Existing tutorials for Construct 2 are still valuable to you as the event system is the same, and mechanics implemented in Construct 2 will be often implemented the same way in Construct 3.
Game making and design notions are the same in both editions of the Construct engine.
Forums
We have forums in place that allow you to chat with Construct’s community, as well as see what games have already been made with Construct 2 and/or Construct 3.
You can even ask for help there. Always be sure to explain the issue you are encountering as clearly as possible. Do provide clear steps to reproduce your issue.
Indicate what events you have used, what you would expect them to do. Indicate clearly what they are doing and how it may differ from what you are expecting.
Provide a copy of your project so that others may investigate and help you out.
Be sure to check the How do I FAQ for Construct 2 that lists a lot of examples of game mechanic implementations provided by our community. Construct 2’s files are named .capx and can be opened in Construct 3. If the capx contains third-party addons, you will need to first add the addon to Construct 3 before opening it.
There is also a How do I FAQ for Construct 3, it is more recent than Construct 2’s so it contains less elements, but they are specific to Construct 3, and still worth looking at.
To get help, first make sure to read our tips for the forums.
You can post in the How do I Forum for the version of Construct you are using.
Please make sure to post your Construct 3 questions in the Construct 3 forums and your Construct 2 questions in the Construct 2 forum.
If you are looking for hired help you can also check our Job offers and team requests forum.
Support
A support service through emails exists if you have a precise technical question.
You can reach us at the address supportdyh@scirra.com.
If you do so, please be sure to provide your project (.capx or .c3p) and clearly explain your issue, what you expect your events to be doing, what you experience it doing, how to reproduce the issue and we will be happy to look into your issue and help you fix it or at least give you pointers as to what may be happening.
So now what ?
Coming back to this article
This article is quite long and contains a lot of information.
It is a lot to take in at once. And this is not how learning how to make game works anyway.
Do take your time. Come back to read it from time to time, to refresh your memory.
There are a lot of links taking you to external documentation as well (manual article, tutorials, …) take the time to visit and read those.
Don't rush, game making is a marathon, not a sprint.
Plus, the more you know, the more you can learn.
This article is also structured so each example and template has its own page, bringing in more and newer concepts and addons. You may just want to come back and have a quick look at the Physics Puzzle template and page. Or you may want to come back to the addons sum-up in a few weeks for a quick reminder.
This article as the documentation previously mentioned is all worth coming back to, from time to time, with a newer and deeper understanding to allow yourself to go further into game making and using Construct.
Practice makes perfect
As with any topic, practice. Gain experience in making games by making games.
You can participate in game jams, online and offline in order to make games, meet new people who are into game making as well, have the satisfying reward of releasing a complete game in a matter of days.
Game jams are time-limited, sometimes "competitive" events in which the participants are invited to team up (or not) to build a game. The goal is for the participant to make a game within the allotted time (it can range from hours to weeks). A theme can be proposed for an added challenge. I mentioned "competition" in between quotes earlier as the real goal is to release a game and the reward is for the participant to release a playable game that was made within the time constraint of the jam.
This is a great learning experience and a huge playground in order to practice your game making ideas and skills.
One of the most famous game jams is the Global Game Jam. It is an offline (people do meet up in set places and team up there), annual game jam that takes place worldwide.
For the last couple of years, a free Game Jam plan was granted by Construct Team in order for anyone wanting to to get unrestricted access to Construct for the duration of the jam.
In 2019, the Construct team made a donation amounting to the number of games submitted to the jam to Special Effect.
A great way to practice and learn game making with the ultimate goal of releasing a game in a very limited amount of time.
Ludum Dare is another famous game jam. This one is online and has two categories. You can work for 48 hours producing all aspects and assets of the game alone, as a single game maker or you can work as a team with distinct roles over 72 hours.
Two jams happen every year.
There are far more game jams you can find about. The website itch.io has a catalogue and allows people and communities to participate in and organize their own game jams.
If you're feeling like making a game in a few days then you'll probably find your jam there.
You can also have a quick look in our forums to this topic that also does list game jams.
Speaking about the forums, there is also a lot of practice to be gained by simply reading through the help requests and trying to provide help and answers to those. You can also read the help already provided and try to understand and reproduce the projects that were provided.
Checking the intermediate and advanced examples and templates
In this article, we only focused on beginner examples and templates.
As you have seen, there are far more examples out here. The more experience you get and the more programming notions you manage to understand, the more complex projects you can check out and build yourself.
As mentioned earlier though, no need to rush, take your time with your progression and you will naturally come to learn the tools packed in those examples and templates.
I wish you luck on your game making adventure.