Bob Thulfram: all major browsers hardware accelerate their canvas, but only Firefox and Chrome support WebGL right now.

Good to know. Since IE, Safari, and Opera are still around, is there a way to check the browser and turn off WebGL, or does that happen automatically?

IE10 isn't bad - it's got a good javascript engine and at least the canvas is hardware accelerated. Most games will probably run fine in it, it's only seriously intense stuff or heavy particle effects that drag desktop renderers down.

Hardware acceleration of Canvas is good. Who else hardware accelerates Canvas? Firefox? Chrome? Opera? Safari? Songbird? (Just kidding about Songbird.)

I've got it partially done--through lesson 1, and started lesson 2. I didn't follow it exactly, in part because Construct and Construct 2 are so different, but in part because I wanted somethings a little different, such as making a tile sprite object with different frames instead of using tile background objects. This approach means I just have to lay out the grid once, and then just swap frames to switch between dirt, grass, water, etc. for different levels. I was working on how to manage the layering of the trees and rocks when I got sidetracked. I'll see what is needed to finish it up and let you know.

Edit: Question. Do you think this would have to be done for the free version, with its limited layers, or can I go for the paid version?

scidave, I hope you don't mind. If you want to take over once I get it running, I'll give you a list of what I did differently. Or if you'd rather do it yourself, let me know!

Pretty picture for encouragement...

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57899112/mikeysadventure.PNG" border="0" />

Edit #2: I got the z-order sorting working except for where the tall door and tall wall adjoin, and Mikey can overlap both objects. Cheat solution is to just block that little spot. Real solution is to look at neighboring terrain objects and move them forward or back, too. Hmmm. That doesn't seem right. They should be moving with Mikey overlaps them, too. A collision mask problem?

Edit #3: It was an origin problem. The wall and the door had different origins. I shouldn't have messed with them!

I'm very, very excited to see you doing this. Maybe once you are done with Lesson 1, you'd let us test it out. I am so eager to see this.

My own answer would be to go for the paid version. My guess is that most of the people who would care about an adventure/RPG would be on the paying customer side of the fence.

Again, this is super cool!!!

THANKS!

I'm still worried about performance if the game runs only off IE 10, with no webGl.

Reports indicate that IE10 is better than IE9, but still no WebGL.

Whether WebGL makes a difference probably depends on the amount and style of graphics ... or maybe not. I think you can turn off the WebGL. It would be interesting to see how much difference it makes if you turn off WebGL for Chrome or Firefox.

I seem to remember that IE10 won't allow plugins, so maybe there won't be one. Seems like something that Chrome should provide. <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Oh you mean something like that?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23551572/C2/gridMovement.capx

E-X-A-C-T-L-Y!!!

Perfect, thank you, hooray!

I don't know if this is the "correct" way to do it, as I'm still very new at this too, but I made this little example for you of how you might achieve what you're trying to do:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/66278067/example1.capx

I just made a few "invisible" boxes, and created conditions so that when it arrives at one, it goes to the next. If you search "pathfinding" or "waypoints" you might find some more useful advice.

Hope that helps a bit :)

Edit: Sorry, given exactly what you wrote, you'd need to replace the first event to be a click to go to the first invisible box. From there, my example should get what you want :)

This is an extremely cool and helpful little demo that told me a lot. You can just work with points and not worry about a grid. Yum!

Has anyone ported this fabulous tutorial from CC to C2? This is exactly what I need to get going on my maze game.

Here is the info about this game in the Construct Classic forum:

http://www.scirra.com/forum/tutorial-mikeys-adventure_topic38104.html

And a link to the previous forum posts:

http://69.24.73.172/scirra/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4421

<img src="http://i26.tinypic.com/6p57jq.jpg" border="0">

Did you see the link how to make a Windows 8 Metro app? It covers launching the app with a test certificate from Visual Studio.

Yes, I did and it was very helpful.

If I create a Construct App and export it to a VS project and build the project and do all the stuff with certificates and manifests, can I then run the app and see how it works as a Metro app?

Anyway, I was really shocked and awed to see this when I logged in today! HTML5 really will take over the world!

I think it is fabulous that Construct will be helping us to create apps in Windows 8. In case anyone missed it, this was just announced a day or two ago as part of r81 of Construct 2.

http://www.scirra.com/construct2/releases/r81

I just installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview last week without any problems (except for a big download). I decided to do a dual boot with a current copy of Windows 7, but I backed up everything first.

Here's what I did:

1. Download the .iso file.

2. Get the USB download tool Lifehacker How to Install Win 8 Article.

3. Use the tool to make a bootable USB Win 8 drive.

4. Shrink one of the partitions using Win 7 Disk Management tool.

5. Install and follow the instructions.

The store is there and you can install apps from it, but you can't pay and you can't sell either. You must have a machine that will have a 1024x768 screen minimum. You can install it on a netbook (1024x600) but Metro won't work.

Does anyone know if you can run Metro apps created by Construct 2 without putting them in the store? I would think you could test it by using Visual Studio (a separate download) to build an app.

This is seriously cool. Whether you love or hate Metro, it is a way to sell your HTML5 apps. I think you have to pay Microsoft a minimum fee of $100 but even if Metro is a flop, it is a market. Add this to the Chrome Web Store, Facebook, and probably other things in the wings, and Construct is a winner.

Way cool, guys!!!

Bob Thulfram

What do you mean by overshoot a corner when moving? You overlap a wall? If you do I'd like to see a screenshot 'cause in my mind that's pretty unlikely.

Also what do you mean by "360 degree vector with angles" ?

Sorry for not being clear. What I'm trying to say is that when I press an arrow key, I want the red square to move 32 pixels and then stop, wait, and then see if the same arrow key is still being pressed. I want to do this so I move square by square, and make it easy to change direction while keeping on the grid. I've noticed that if I hold down the key too long, the red square can overshoot the right or left turn I wanted to make. Maybe it is just a subtle timing issue.

I'll think about it a bit more and play with the code. I want to emphasize that this is really helpful code and should be the first part of a tutorial on how to make maze games (I haven't found one yet).

What also fascinates me is that a sprite isn't constricted to move in one of 8 directions. But I guess the grid restricts me to one of four directions, right.

Again, thanks, Yann, and I'm very grateful you took the time to share a code sample that illuminates the unique way that Construct works.

I would imagine that you could. It would probably have to be done with some kind of expression. I had to make a bunch of crazy one's for my game and I am no programmer, so don't get overwhelmed with expressions. C2 makes them pretty easy to do. I would guess it would be something like this:

when you press left arrow = player.X(+32)

               right arrow = player.X(-32)

               up arrow = player.Y(-32)

               down arrow = player.Y(+32)

player would be the name of the sprite you want to move. That sprite would probably need a behavior so it would go threw other solids. Solid might work or a 8way movement with the default controls set to NO.

Also you mentioned getting stuck. You won't get stuck on walls(solid) if they are position exactly next to each other with the collision set to bounding box on them. In other would don't leave little jaggy edges on your walls.

By stuck, I meant that the movement is pixel by pixel and if I press the keys a little bit too much or two little, I overshoot a corner and have to back up to turn down a tunnel. I prefer quantum moves like Zelda, not ultra-granular moves like L.A. Noire, where I run over curbs and people way too easily. It's hard to drive a car with a game controller. <img src="smileys/smiley19.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

you can start with that

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23551572/C2/gridMovement.capx

This is very helpful, but also puzzling. It looks like movement is a 360 degree vector with angles. Also it looks like the movement is not in fixed jumps, and sometimes I overshoot a corner when moving.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Most of my game programming was on 8-bit machines with rows and columns! This is rocket science!

Anyway, thanks for this sample and I'll keep digging a bit more. If this was music software, I'd think this was a tracker! <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle">