Hey guys,

Thought it'd make the most sense to create a thread where I can directly ask questions whenever I'm too stupid to understand how something works

In order to learn Construct, I thought I should target some real-world problems, so I thought it'd be smart trying to re-create the classic Super Mario Bros. And I'm pretty happy with what I've got so far, but there are a couple of things I'd love to figure out. I'll also just upload the .cap (it has the sprites included, if that's against the rules, just tell me and I'll take down the link) so you guys can directly look into the problem:

http://www.thomasmahler.com/files/01.cap

I hope this file works if you guys don't have the actual sprites (does the cap file also pack the resources?)

If not, here's the exe file:

http://www.thomasmahler.com/files/smb.exe

Controls are the defaults, arrow keys to move around, left shift to jump. No Run or whatever yet.

1) Controls: That's my biggest hurdle right now. I think I'm getting to a point where I can recreate the actual controls (man, now that I've analyzed it, they're _way_ more advanced than I thought. Mario builds up momentum while running fast, etc.), but what I don't understand:

Since I want to create a co-op mode that you could play simultaneously, I changed the applications controls. So I've changed the naming to P1 Left, P1 Right, etc. and added P1 Run and P1 Jump.

Now, how do I tell the Platform behavior that Z is jump - and not the left shift?

I also tried to put Luigi in there, but the controls sorta always stick to the defaults - I'm pretty sure I'm missing something 'big' here, I just can't figure it out right now.

2) Maybe I don't understand how to set this up properly, my idea was that I create a solid, tileable 'Blocker' Sprite that I'll just make invisible to block Mario from going to places he shouldn't go. Look at the leftmost area of the level, I created a blocker so that Mario can't leave the level. Now, if I jump to the left, the blocker actually blocks me, but if you keep running, Mario will fall through the blocker. Is that a bug?

EDIT: Has been fixed with the update.

3) There are a couple of animations I'd love to know how to implement: I created a 'If Mario is falling, set animation to 'Jumping'' Expression - but it doesn't seem to work. What does the 'is falling?' attribute stand for? I thought it's the downward movement whenever you were in the air. I want to see the jumping sprite whenever Mario is in the air, just like in the real game.

EDIT: Solved 3) - The expression works, but I had it set as a subEvent of the jumping event, that's why it didn't work.

Also, how do I recreate the 'momentum steps'? Say, you're running and you suddenly do a full stop - in the NES game, mario still takes a couple more steps from the built-up momentum. How do I recreate this?

Also, if you're running and you suddenly switch directions, there should be a new sprite animation where Mario already looks into the changed direction while the momentum still moves him into the previous direction for a couple of milliseconds - is there an attr to set this in the platformer behavior?

I just would like to point out that the more i`m learning about construct possibilities the more i think how excelent this software is! ( just add xne export after v1.0 pls )

QFA. Construct is pretty freaking awesome.

Hope future releases are more stable though and definitely hope we'll be able to compile for different platforms. That could very well have a big impact on the handheld / casual games industry.

Oops, I definitely missed that one

7) It'd be cool if we could also toggle objects. Say, i have a couple of lights in my scene (or some blocks for that matter) and want to see how the game looks / feels like without them. Instead of deleting em, I wanna be able to temporarily hide / toggle them, just like the Events.

6) Being able to turn off the interpolation.

Say I'm doing Pixel Art and I want to add a HUD with a pixelated font - how do I turn off the Anti Aliasing Effect that Construct automatically adds on top of the text? I can't find anything and it looks really weird to have pixelated characters, environments, everything, but the text is round and smooth.

Same thing with the scaling of sprites. I definitely wanna be able to scale my sprites and keep them pixelated.

5) Ordering: In the Platform Controls, under Add / Edit Controls, it'd be nice being able to set the order of the controls. If I Have P1 and P2 Controls and wanna add another P1 control later on, I want to be able to put that control to the other P1 Controls - and not under the PS2 Controls.

Same thing with the project bar. I've got my game and the event sheets in there, but I can't re-order the sheets, which makes the whole thing a little jumbled.

Btw, ordering events also seems to be a little buggy right now. If I take multiple events and do a copy and paste or a cut and paste, Construct will simply crash.

(I'll keep the original post updated)

Okay, I think the smartest thing would be to just create a thread where I'll just keep going posting feature requests and suggestions. So let's start:

1) Mute Events.

Very simple thing. What happens if this event isn't in there? Instead of deleting and undo'ing, it'd be cool if we could just 'mute' events, so they'd not be processed at runtime, but they'd still be in the event sheet.

That way, if I want to test out controls, I don't have to kill events or change their attributes all the time.

2) Controller Support.

This is basically the cornerstone of it all. Support for the X360 Controller and all it's functions would be great.

3) AVIs with Alpha Channel.

For great looking games. We could have avis with alpha channels in the foreground and in the background. Being able to render out videos with alpha channels and using them in the scenes would be really powerful.

4) Multi-Platform support.

Construct is DirectX, yeah, but ultimately, this'd be just frigging awesome. Being able to create a 2d game that you could then compile for multiple platforms would be the best thing ever.

5) In the Platform Controls, under Add / Edit Controls, it'd be nice being able to set the order of the controls. If I Have P1 and P2 Controls and wanna add another P1 control later on, I want to be able to put that control to the other P1 Controls - and not under the PS2 Controls.

I'd also love to have joypad support in there - and if it's just for playtesting. It's easier to just put a controller into peoples hands and watch them play the game instead of reaching them a keyboard, having to explain the keys first, etc.

Anyone else experiencing quite a few crashes? I had like 15 crashes today - and that happend while doing simple stuff like changing from the animation events to the main events, etc.

Wow, I just tried out Construct and I'm freaking impressed by how well that thing works. I'm working with a couple of people on a mod called Floodgate (http://www.flood-gate.com) and I think I'll create a proof-of-concept 2d demo using Construct.

And since this is the 'post a screenshot" thread, here's a screenie of a work in progress character I designed for the mod: http://www.flood-gate.com/images/medic_05.jpg

It'd be fun to create the whole thing as a 2d side scroller and just render out the animations as sprites. Pretty awesome, can't wait to create something cool using Construct