Didn't realize there was more than one way to center a sprite on a point based off another sprite. You'll have to explain this to me some time.

The collision detector is merely a black circle at the character sprite's foot that represents its shadow. So instead of having the whole sprite collide with the obsticles, I only have to deal with the little circle that is slightly larger than the character's feet stopping it from moving.

There's no real need to show anyone my program file, because there isn't anything to look at. =D

I just need to figure out how to do what I want to do properly.

Well I'm having about the same problems creating things with Construct as I was with MMF2. But I have found some things in Construct that will allow me to throw in some interesting features for gameplay already.

One problem I have is, I have each player character and their shadow. The shadow is the actual moving thing for collision reasons (So if I have a character walk up to a fence, they aren't stopping at the fence at the tip of their heads) and the character sprite follows along and acts out the animations. Err, problem is, when I move around diagonally and make sharp keyboard turns to another direction, the character is often stuck, say, looking left while actually moving up or down. I'm not sure what the best way to correct this would be without eliminating diagonal movements all together.

Another problem is something I'm sure any more experienced coder could figure out. That is, when I hit a key to activate an attack I want to temporarily halt character movements while the attack sequence takes place. In both MMF2 and Construct I've tried to simply say "While animation is playing, stop movement", but in both instances it fails to do what I think it should be doing. I even go so far as to say "Stop movement AND set movement speed to zero AND ignore player controls..." and even that doesn't do anything for me. On the flip side, though, when I enter in "When animation is over, return speed to XX", it actually makes the character move in the direction its facing nonstop, which leads me to believe I've discovered the beginning of some sort of AI-controlled movement for computer controlled party members and monsters to move around with.

But I'm still just an amateur, so what all could I know? =o

If that's the style of graphics you're looking for, I may be able to help. =P

But seriously, let me know if I can assist and I'll do what I can.

Good enough for me. Let's have at it then.

Like many others, I saw some folks stirring up things about Construct, so I took a look. I have it downloaded and installed on my computer and have taken a quick look around to see what its like, and it indeed has its similarities to MMF, however it is only similar to Clickteam's products as Paintshop Pro is like Photoshop is like Corel Painter is like.... And of course I expected to see people raving about how much they think Construct is better than Clickteam's products. You can see stuff like that on just about any other game design website, even on Clickteam-based sites.

In any case, I was wondering if anyone who's used Construct quite a bit and is more used to its features by now can provide me with a list of features this program has that can help me more in designing the things I'd like to take a swing at instead of with MMF2. I looked up a few posts using the Search feature here and saw a few things, so I'll build off what I saw (from ).

I am rather curious as to how the program coding works with Construct. Despite having taken several programming language courses, they just haven't been my strongest points. =/

I've been hearing a lot about pixel shaders in recent versions of all game design programs. Being an artsy person myself I feel the need to do some research on what they are and how they can benefit me.

Again, if anyone can explain to me some features of Construct that make it stand above MMF2, please feel free to inform me. I've had an itch to make a game that is very much like SNES's Secret of Mana with a three man party with interchangeable characters much like Dot Hack games. If its possible that in Construct its easier to make AI pathfinding so characters move around obsticles to keep up with the lead character, that would be great. Or maybe its easy enough in MMF and I just haven't figured it out yet. I used to be rather proficient with MMF, but its been a few years with some lifestyle changes, so I really just ghost around communities. But the urge and desire is still there, just like an old crush.

Things that I'm not really interested in hearing about are...

• Price: I don't care that its free, or that something else costs tens of millions of dollars. I grew up with Clickteam products since I was 13 (now 25) and had the luxory of listening to different users who were of similar age complain about how they couldn't afford $100 or find a way to convince their parents to buy it for them, and that they'd rather stick with their free pirated copy of TGF. I'll probably continue buying Clickteam's products anyway simply to support their cause.

• Interface: Every new program you use has its own design and methods of function, and if we truely desire the power of said program we force ourselves to learn them. Although I do think the event screen in Construct is cleaner than any of Clickteam's products in general, it doesn't bother me that in MMF the Actions menu was to the right of the Tools menu, and you like it better in Construct because its to the left.

• Selling my Product: I've always had the power to distribute and/or sell in the past. I do agree that the people who designed the program who helped me design my self-proclaimed masterpiece should get some recognition, even if they do ask that I include some sort of hard-to-find banner in my game. Though, I do think that if I made something that was truely a masterpiece it would seem rather silly to send my stuff out in mass production with file properties saying "This guy didn't make this, we did. Now buy our stuff and make us money!" unless I paid another couple hundred dollars.

If anyone would like to lend a hand in helping me settle my mind on which tool to use, feel free to post or send a private message. You'll receive my thanks.

Also, if anyone would like some cheapo sprite assistance, let me know as well.