The day we see Construct billboards the size of apartment blocks plastered all over GDC, is the day we see our money get flushed down the drain.

Very true! I am personally happy with Scirra company politics and development and management style. It is stable and you pay directly to development, to them. It is obvious that such an engine cannot be created for free, or with only one time payment for lifetime license. C3 is not mainstream engine or most popular engine at the world (they are too small for it, thanks god for it :) ) so they would not have a bunch of new and new people buying a one-time license to make it sustainable. It will leads into dead-end sooner or later, so subscription model is therefore inevitable for a good constantly evolving engine. I want that good thing, so I have no problem to pay for it.

Hello there, I have to say that topic resonates with me a lot! Sorry in advance for my bad English and too many thoughts (long text). :D

It's really nice that there is nothing negative and everyone is trying to bring something interesting that could help the engine, that's one of the things I appreciate about Construct as a whole, the community, so it would definitely be nice to put more emphasis on it, see the mentions about the unofficial discord, it's really helpful and you feel good there, which for complete newcomers is essential information that none of them know.

Then I would focus on the first impression, which is essential for new potential customers, yes as already said it looks like a product for "children", whether by the presentation on the web or even a little for me unnecessary detour to add "3D" features because I myself do not consider it enough capable to create anything full-fledged and therefore I stick to 2D only and personally I have no problem with it to make only 2D games and Construct should not be ashamed of being only a "2.5D" engine because it is damn good at it.

Overall at the first glance it looks like an engine only for some simple games and not for serious projects like "here I'll play around and then I'll learn a proper engine", that's very sad, because we all know how powerful and great it is.

Now let me make a small side-step to my "life" with Construct. I started back in the days of Construct Classic and I really like using Construct to this day (C3), overall it suited me very well and I like how efficient it is, what I think about I am able to process very quickly and express my ideas, I think that is really unique for Construct. For that I thank the whole team very much for how far they have come since the beginning and I hope they will continue to do so, because I want to use ideally till my death. :D

So then it makes me even more sad when someone asks me "in what engine you did it?" and I say Construct 3 and nobody knows it, or like now a bunch of news and articles about the Unity controversy and what the alternatives are and nobody talks about C3, which is a big shame. People just don't know how good and efficient it is, and unfortunately even a first look at the web doesn't give them much of a feeling of a serious high performance engine, which C3 undoubtedly is.

Regarding the presentation, as it was already said here, that "we are better than X or Y" and "that we are 2x faster etc"... doesn't seem to impress people much, emotions through the stories/successes of the games have a greater impact. Yes, the blog series about developers (by Laura) was mentioned here, which is nice, but it will not reach new potential customers. I will read it as a long-time user because I know about it.

For example, I personally have worked my way up from small experiments and really bad "things" and XX unfinished projects to a hobby solo dev full-fledged release of the game on Steam as you can take a look here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1970010/Light_Bringer

Now I don't want to praise/promo my game, the point is that I proved it to myself and got to a higher level. I became GAMEDEV and it has been very exciting journey with Construct and for me it is something like personal achievement. You know I became more serious developer who will release his own full-fledged game that looks not lame :) I attended few game conferences with it and many other interesting things. Yes, I wasn't successful with sales, because I had a bad promo, but it is another story and my problem. The engine served me more than well and thanks to that I've made it to this point and I'm still moving on, and for that, many thanks to whole Scirra!!

Sorry for endless post... :)

I got idea ;) another little trick :D

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U0ozRw9kp_ttxY-qww6mkbNOD-fI1vwe/view?usp=sharing

Try my latest version and look at result. I reduce opacity of that light of moon over and under horizon and add additive "light" to back layer (same as moon) so result is when moon is under ground destination out light is not visible and when moon is at the sky this light has 100% opacity so moon is visible trough shadow and has red glow at back, not affecting other front layers, so it seems almost like whole light is really behind. So red glow is at back, light in shadow is at main layer but together it looks good. I cannot achieve that clouds will cover moon light but I think it is best result from all my tests. :D

PS: Maybe I can try to play with it more and when moon will be in collision with cloud moon light reduce opacity a little bit etc :D but I try to transfer this approach to my game and I will see.

So here is my better progress with more layers and objects, you can try to make something with this version. It is more clear from it what I want to achieve.

I fake parallax 0% of moon layer to set layer 100% and add + ViewportLeft to X coordination of moon so result is the same and I can add light to moon (into light layer with parallax 100%)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LRbEvZuMlX6mc2pKPvkqQGUENdVAg4qa/view?usp=sharing

I need to make these lights independent any tips anyone? :)) Now all lights are at front and affects all layers under it and of course it is incorrect, for example light from moon should be only at back and not affect main layer etc but how to make it??

As it mentioned here from Ashley

construct.net/en/tutorials/multiple-colored-shadow-casting-lights-1107

"you can only apply this kind of lighting to a single background layer. Other layers on top cannot have this lighting applied, since by the time they are rendered the background already has the light map applied. It's sort of "baked in" to the image by then, and you can only multiply with the final result, which isn't very useful"

It seems like an answer that it is not possible so I will try different approach with black layer and Destination out light sources maybe add little color to light by additive effect and try to fake somehow that parallax movement in other layers. It will not be perfect and same situation like at that game Kingdom but maybe it will be enough. At image below you can see the light that affect all layers under it I would like to have bottom layer not affected etc.

I will let you know here when I will make it up something working.

I am starting from this state with that Destination out ;)

Try to start it in web browser and at this link:

https://www.construct.net/en/make-games/releases/beta/r229

you can start latest beta version and in it open my test project

Thanks for your answers and effort I know it is complicate and hard to explain but again I will try to specify it better. :))

As you wrote (from back to front) + my extension:

1/ Moon, sky (affected by light from layer 2)

2/ moon LIGHT (this light layer 2 will affect only layer 1)

3/ Clouds (not affected by any light)

4/ Rocks (not affected by any light)

5/ Trees, stones, decor assets etc (near to main layer for example with parallax 90% should be affected by light from layer 7)

6/ Main layer with player, interactive objects, light objects (lamp, torch etc... should be affected by light from layer 7)

7/ main LIGHT (another light layer and there is a problem how to do it and make it independent to moon LIGHT layer 2... should affect both 5 and 6 layers)

8/ front layer (not affected by any light) for example parallax 120% like closer to camera so light from layer 7 should not affect it

I hope it will be more clear at this model situation, thanks in advance for any tips. :)

Okey I read more tutorials and according to advance example: Shadows blending multiple lights and older tutorial about it, is here:

construct.net/en/tutorials/multiple-colored-shadow-casting-lights-1107

It works great, I am using only lights (no shadows) so I can add lights to only one layer with additive blend mode and then main graphic layer put above it and set effect Multiply and it works as you can see in my example modified test project :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NNRQU-v34KcqT1jgwgdcsC_luzbD8sE-/view?usp=sharing

but there is still problem then I cannot make it works with more layers or I would like to make two independent light layers I mean back layer with sun/moon affect only that back layer with light (because it is far away) and then there will be front layer/layers with own light sources, is there any trick for it?

I will add pictures from my test project to describe it better

Here you can see working setup but only 1 light layer affecting 1 main layer (100% parallax)

When I move Light layer under next main layer (80% parallax) to have two layers affected by one Light layer, it is not working with that Multiply, so what have to be changed to work correctly?

Then I want another layers under it but not affected by this Light layer (there are far away = low parallax of layer)... and have there another Light layer (light from moon etc) to which affected only these back layers, is it possible?

I know it may sounds little bit more complicated (in particular from my description because English is not my native lang) but I do not know how to achieve similar situation like at game Kingdom, so please advice will be great or can I ask Ashley who is the author of that tutorial.