Now, now, calm down, everyone is entitled to their opinions. There is a little bit too aggression going on in here.

If Aeal wants to develop plugins for his own uses, sure, no problem, that is what Construct is for! If he wants to suggest layout variables as a part of Construct base, well, that is an opinion as well. Even if we disagree, we have to remind ourselves that jousting each other's heads off is hardly productive. He developed his own method, fine and dandy, it is his game.

What features to implement into Construct, however, is the developers' word that is final. Obviously we can see that they see this as an unnecessary feature, since there are many other ways to achieve the effect.

Also, there are objects that don't use up any VRAM and can contain private variables. Namely Text object. You could use them for debugging, too, for example to show a certain PV in runtime; in release we just turn it off.

Or, better yet - you could use those text objects for more than one purpose; show the title of a chapter, like "Chapter 1 - The Awakening" in a neat way during transitions, but they'd also store variables for that layout! No wastage at all.

Just some creative thinking

Reminds me of Charlie from deadeye's tutorials

All I ask is to make NPCs more than game tokens, I want them to invoke an emotion in the player.

An idle animation - a monster scratching its bum or farting or drilling its nose - would invoke a laugh and keep you entertaining as you progress, wondering what idle animations other types of monsters have.

That is just one example.

Potential feature creep.

There is one problem with local variables - what if you want to read a variable of another layout? That is right, you cannot, because it is local. Like you want to check if the door was opened in another layout, but there is no way to see that until you get there.

Construct has several data plugins - Hashtable, Array etc. - you could make a global data object and store layout variables there that you can access from anywhere. They'll also be neatly organized into one bunch that you can easily browse.

I wish there were more types of data objects, though; a stack, a custom data structure (for characters for example) and so on.

1x1 sprite will only take 1 byte of VRAM. In theory.

Publicity. The fanbois are going to learn of Construct and maybe even make a game themselves rather than polishing their idols' boots.

I jest, I jest. Let's avoid the personality cults here, shall we? We're all here to crack our skulls open on bugs.

When the object is facing a certain angle, it uses a different animation. This is highly useful in isometric games, where an object can face all eight direction. Like this:

<img src="http://images.suite101.com/553546_com_reinerstil.png">

That is eight directions, different perspective in each. That is a LOT of spriting to do - eight different animations and that is for one type alone - walking. Add standing, running, affliction, casting, dead animations... Well, you quickly run into dozens of animations. Your artist isn't going to love you after the time.

But if you use purely top down or side perspective, you can simply rotate the sprite or flip/mirror it respectively. You have to justify the need for additional animation angles.

It is irrational to expect to be able to use angles in increments of 1... because for each angle you'd require an animation; that would amount up to 360 animations for all angles. FOR ONE ANIMATION TYPE. Add death, running, sleeping, drunk animations... The artist is dumping you before you even mention the idea to him.

So, what is your justification for this request?

Stumbled upon this:

[quote:gi4kqzoa]MoleBox is a runtime exe packer for Windows applications. It bundles the executable together with the DLL and data files into a single EXE file, without losing the ability to run the application.

MoleBox compresses and encrypts all the application files. With MoleBox you can protect your application's data and media files from viewing and modifications, and your DLLs and ActiveX components from usage by third party programs.

Moleboxing does not affect the original application's functionality in any way nor requires any additional coding. Unpacking and decryption (if required) are performed automatically and insensibly for application. Packed program runs without extracting files to the disk.

http://www.molebox.com/

For the paranoid

Also, be aware that some AV software may pick this up and issue a warning; some trojans and viruses take advantage of this by bundling themselves with the infected exes.

What is the license like? Can creations be used in commercial games?

I'm not sure, it could be 2 weeks or more.

Beware the Star Eater, for it hungers!

... eh, actually took one hour, I lost track of time while finishing up

I find your statement sexist and offending!