Scirra is in the business of making game engine software, they are not in the business of making games. I truly believe that if they were to take 6 months to a year and use that time exclusively to try to make a really good game using their engines, it would completely change their minds on what is really needed in comparison to what is currently being offered.

Definitely agree with that, I've often felt this way!

There's no such thing as console friendly tech, it's either made to run on proprietary software, and hardware or not.

It's like that for each console.

Each requiring licensing to develop for the platform as well as having to pass rigorous quality control just to publish.

However, they all have a browser that supposedly runs on an open standard.

To me console friendly tech means an engine that is capable of running on a console (and at full performance capability of the console). If someone makes a game in Unity for desktop and it gets popular, they can port it to console when they have the funds and/or the interest from Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo.

But that just doesn't happen for Construct 2/3, HTML5 support is barely functional when it is available (with lots of issues in audio, input, framerate, WebGL, etc.) and currently only on about 2 current-gen and one past-gen console (Xbox One, *maybe* PS4, and the Wii U *barely*), so all that work you put into making your game is wasted because you'll be making it all-over-again in another engine.

That's the issue that every big Construct 2 game has faced, and it will definitely continue until the web browser stops being seen as a bonus feature on consoles (let alone as a security issue eg: browser exploits, DRM / anti-piracy woes of an open interpreted format), which is unlikely to happen any time soon/in the next generation or two of consoles anyway.

I'm well aware Unity does, even though Unity's Linux editor is experimental, I was talking about C3 versus the older versions, which is the original topic of discussion.

Except Construct 2 works okay in WINE, and although I know WINE isn't ideal for most Linux users, it's still something: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager. ... &iId=25151

is construct more of a hobbyist and early teaching tool than a full development platform?

Im interested in anyone's thoughts, thank you Andrew for giving me a place to ask

For us as well (devs of Insanity's Blade, and our next game which was prototyped with C2 but ported to Unity and is currently over 250% funded on Kickstarter for desktop + console) the engine has proven to be "great for prototyping / hobbyist / teaching" more so than actually publishing commercial games.

Even on just Steam/Windows PC, we have had a slew of bugs hit our Insanity's Blade customers that were "Node Webkit/NW.js" or "Chromium" or "AMD graphics card" or "Intel graphics card" issues. Mac OSX and Linux export broke for us after the game went over 500MB in size. Then there's the performance concerns (especially when customer GPUs were not supported), which is considered pretty unacceptable in Steam reviews from customers running anything less than a modern-ish 3D gaming PC ("arcade machines in the 80's didn't have a problem rendering sprites and scrolling the screen, why does this?" being a common line of argument). Also +1 for WiiU comments, without WebGL an action game becomes a major no-no.

Of course, none of these were fixable by Scirra, so they would be talked down as "go talk to Google" or put it into "closed bugs" sections, which feels like the wrong way to approach your paying customers (we're not beta testers when we're using a Stable build of C2, and it doesn't say "Early Access" on Steam or the Scirra website). That simply can't happen when it comes to C3 subscriptions!

If Scirra came out and said "Yes, Construct 2/3 is intended to be web-only for computers, small-scale commercial or otherwise hobbyist game dev, with a few other platforms possible for some apps as a bonus", I think a lot of serious developers would still keep using C2 for prototyping and be much happier with the product.

I know it's not as easy as it sounds, but if Scirra made a "ConstructLite" editor for Unity (C2 editor + Unity export) that'd be pretty amazing. But, after spending a year porting to Unity / C# anyway, it's really not that much harder aside from the time costs of switching engine (a one-time cost), as most of the code is copy + paste + edit once you've written it once. Logic is logic and once you learn the syntax of a language you're good to go.

All that said, I love Construct, I have since Construct Classic early betas. I switched to it (and away from Clickteam products) from the very first moment I saw it, and back when I was a hobbyist the bugs were OK, I understood it was freeware open source software made by a group of awesome students. When Construct 2 was in beta (before native export was thrown off the table in discussions) I figured the issues there were fine too for a small two-brothers company.

But as a commercial developer, it's about what makes the best product for *my customers*, and that means looking elsewhere. Even though Construct is still a lot better to me than some other engines used by indies, it doesn't mean they can't improve in the same way Construct will, so keeping an open eye is important.

Construct 3 is a bit upsetting to me personally, but that's because when I wanted better runtime/exports, Scirra gave us a (better? can't really tell yet, but I do realize it's still in beta) editor yet again. That's entirely their call, and I seriously admire that they were able to pull it off in HTML5. The tech will probably be there someday, and maybe I will be using it again at that point.

C3 is the only one to support Linux with the editor

Unity does too.

Also another visual scripting plugin for it: plyGame

I think we are in the right place is we want to make serious, commercial HTML5 games.

Great point, although I see HTML5 in its current state as a limiter word, eg: "Wow that's AWESOME!.... for a Flash game!" era stuff just now with HTML5.

And actually, other engines now offering ASM.js at export (C3 is editor-only so far, but export is different eg: the Unreal Engine 3 demo in HTML5 was amazing back when it was a Firefox experiment), means that even that reason to stay around Construct will fade away if C3 doesn't catch up.

Easiest way I've seen yet to do ASM.js though? Export C/C++ first then convert to JS

GM:S has console export by default

CT:F has console export through Chowdren

Unity and Unreal Engine 4 are the next level up from an entry-level user admittedly, but they are the alternatives I am more talking about than the other two above (which also do have more commercial titles coming out with them every year than C2 does).

My main argument here however is that Construct 2 and Construct 3 users looking to make serious, commercial, action games, are (probably) in the wrong place, and that's okay because Scirra still has its awesome way of making games for fun / web browsers

Lancifer

Well, a lot of the competition also has real console export alongside native export to desktop, a few of them also have much larger and older communities meaning more resources / purchasable assets and skilled talent if you need to hire team members.

It's also helpful to see past examples of commercial success in the genre(s) your game will be, with each tool too, as it builds confidence in any crowdfunding or other investors in your project.

For serious commercial game dev, it's probably easier and faster to list reasons why Construct 2 and 3's editors are currently the best for 2D, than to list all the other reasons that justify using the other tools available.

For the average freeware hobbiest though, or someone looking to learn the basics of game dev? C2 and C3 are just fine.

Yeah, I agree with R0J0hound, a lot of the advice that might have existed for Construct Classic would have been at a time when Non-Power-Of-Two was not as widely supported, let alone the larger sizes.

However, doesn't mean it's a bad practice to break sprites down where you can! Re-usable graphics are handy to have

— actually we ended up moving to Unity the HTML5 video prototype was the last work in C2 officially, and since then all footage (with new lighting and demo on Steam) is the Unity build!

Cryptwalker thanks (Edit: Still can't confirm this yet sorry, more information when we are closer to release!)

Cryptwalker not in a playable form sorry (between Chrome and C2 updates it seems to have broken quite a bit), but you could compare gameplay against this video recorded of the HTML5 prototype in 2015:

Glad you're enjoying the Pre-Alpha Build though! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

Cryptwalker Raycasting was used because it was easier to do the jump-through / drop-through platforms that way (actually has higher collision accuracy than C2 does we discovered in one of the levels we ported over!)