If I were to try to make my own text writing engine (just to have my own controls and stuff) WITHIN Construct, how much more process heavy would that be compared to using SpriteFont?

And can you get the length of just one line of text in Construct somehow?

The newest version gives me the same issue I had before where I try to get text (from an Array) and display it in the game and SpriteFont refuses to display the whole text... Just cuts off.

It's because everything is "global" in Construct. I think the thing to do is just have a Start of Layout where you set everything the way you want it for now. Maybe you used MMF before, which doesn't remember things as often. The Event Sheets act independently of the layouts, I'm pretty sure.

A nice feature would be "reset values" for sprites, at least, so you could group together a bunch of sprites in a family and then "Start of Layout --> Reset Values" and it would set all the values to their initial ones.

I think we should just wait for 1.0 before we ask for such major additions.

> Raknet looks good and is free for non-commercial use, which means I could make a plugin using it and distribute it for free. However anyone wanting to sell their online game needs a license, which is only about £50 ($100) per application. This is okay I guess, a commercial game would probably make that back if they just have a handful of sales. But it's still a bit of a barrier to small time indie devs. What do you reckon?

>

I understand this is one hell of a gravedig, however, it has come to my attention that Raknet is now FREE for independent commercial use providing gross revenue does not exceed $250,000 (at which point you have to pay RakNet $5000 for a normal Commercial license it seems).

So, the barrier for small time indie devs is now gone. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">

Anyone here fluent enough with Visual C++ to turn this sucker into a plugin? Or do I have to start learning it myself (which would be like attempt 12 or so)?

EDIT: Link. http://www.jenkinssoftware.com/purchase.html

I think that sounds pretty terrible ($5000) if you actually do make something that makes money and still would prefer a free alternative... What if you managed to make something that some day reaches $250,000 and you've already invested some of that? Because of the slow and steady climb you're suddenly slapped with a $5000 price. The premise of that is much worse than paying $50 once at the start, I think.

Is there a way in Construct to do stuff like uploading scores to databases yet? If I'd need this plugin for that, it would be even more annoying with such a fee looming! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">

I have no idea how it is "hell" to make levels for some people. It works perfectly fine, save for one thing, and that's that you select a placed object by its entire bounding box rather than just clicking on opaque parts. That I'd love an alternative to!

I would like a more efficient condition where I check the amount of a specific Sprite there is in the layout. Right now I use the "Compare" expression from System to create this condition, because it's the only way. I use this to determine if some event groups should turn off if there are zero of a certain sprite in the layout.

Problem is, whenever I compare that and the answer is "zero", the debugger feels the need to tell me that, and it gets frustrating starting up a debugging session only to have to click a bunch of OK-buttons to get started.

Maybe there is already a work-around? I tried setting a variable to the amounts of a sprite but it still happens.

The new runtime plugin file looks like it puts a cap on the length of the SpriteFont string. But then the plugins folder file was called SuperSprite and maybe then SpriteFont in the plugins folder didn't match the one in runtime correctly.

Hm, I got it working because I had strangely placed a conflicting Action in one place.

My engine I basically always have it to "Show Text" and then have it appear letter by letter by use of Left() and a variable. Would you deem this inefficient? I seem to recall thinking Write not having the ability to write faster, say, two letters at a time.

And also, I did remove my crashes by not destroying any SpriteFonts in my menu code, so I worry once I do introduce this engine into a layout with the menu, hell will come to visit!

EDIT: WHy is the new plugin file called SuperSprite?

I can't answer the first part as I have done both before going back to my dialogue engine.

As for the last question, I set by range.

I avoided crashing by never destroying any SpriteFonts, but I will sort of rely on being able to do that once I start having dialogue bubbles, as I said...

Hopefully you can get stuff going, you're a very hard worker! Do you have any clue as to why my engine that could have several of the same SpriteFont all show text before, but now they seem to only show in one? I know you did something like prevent it from redrawing every tick.

I can set a text object to the same array source and it doesn't look strange, as it can with SpriteFont.