Sooooo pushing 500 poly checks/tick would be pretty bad, then?

Is there any way to exclude certain objects from these checks? I have a quite a number of background objects that mostly just sit around doing nothing, but I guess they're all chewing up a little piece of performance by simply overlapping.

Yes, you're correct in your understanding.

You've got one other option, and that's to do it manually using the Sprite -> Load image from URL action. The idea here is that you use dummy or low-res images as the sprite images, and then, as necessary, load their high-res versions (probably pre-load it in the preceding layout). These high-res versions can be stored in the project folder and retrieved with a relative URL.

Here's an example of it in action, and here's the capx. It's set to change at 1 second just to make it noticeable on high-speed connections. It'll sit in the browser's cache once it's downloaded.

The only real caveat is that you don't have much control over this system, other than creating a very laborious, or very smart, chain of On image URL loaded conditions to ensure the player can't continue until everything is loaded.

Regarding your second point: my current project makes extensive use of 8-directional shooting using the four arrow keys (and/or numpad) in every conceivable configuration and I haven't noticed an issue yet.

I believe you could get the angle with an expression like angle(0,0,Gamepad.Axis(0,0),Gamepad.Axis(0,1)), but unfortunately I can't test it as no browser recognises my Logitech controller.

EDIT: I did some digging and found a neat utility called x360ce that tricks Windows into thinking any USB gamepad is an Xbox one. After setting it up, I tested it and the above expression does indeed work.

I'm decent enough with Photoshop but I've become quite fond of Inkscape after reading this brilliant blog: 2D Game Art for Programmers.

For pixel art, I'd recommend Graphics Gale and/or Pickle. GG is excellent for designing animated characters, and I've found Pickle to be particularly useful for generating terrain and tilesets.

Also, it's probably a bit much for your needs, but I wouldn't overlook the idea of designing in 3D and rendering to 2D. As a 3D animator, that's the easiest solution for me, but that's just because I suck when it comes to thinking and working in 2D :P

Select the object with the behaviour and, in the properties panel on the left, change "Default controls" to No.

It is mentioned in the manual entry, by the way. All control-based behaviours (car, platform, etc.) have this feature.

if ppl want to download pirate i cant do anything, but if people want to buy and support us, i want to encourge them to buy it

That right there is the crux of the matter. Pirates will pirate your game anyway - treat it as a great marketing tool and accept that they'd never be sales in the first place.

Embrace your legitimate customers and give them the best experience possible. If that experience includes pointless DRM like mandatory logins, online requirements or even serial keys, you're just inconveniencing them for absolutely no gain.

Put your game out there - charge for it - and believe in its quality. If it's good, it'll do well. You can't beat the original selling point.

The individual files that you link to will be public, but it won't operate as a web server, which is what is needed for this.

I see that Dropbox doesn't automatically create the Public folder these days. Not sure what their thinking is, but click here to create one in your profile. Then you drag the entire exported html folder into the Public folder, share the index.html link and you should be good to go.

My pleasure :)

That isn't loading. If you want to share your exported project, then you need to take the entire folder created by export html and place it in your Public folder in Dropbox, then share the link to index.html.

Joannesalfa, that's why I suggested he use max(0,PlayerAttacks.Damage-Enemies.Armour). That will never remove less than zero hitpoints.

MustacheGolem, you need to set the family itself to have those instance variables - that's the beauty of families. That way, anything within the family gets its own instance of that variable. So, your enemies family itself could have hitpoints and armour, for example, but when you put each enemy on the layout, you can specify individual hitpoints and armour values for each.

Create an event Bullet On created -> Set bullet angle 270, or add that action to the event in which the bullet is created.

You can't change the collision poly at runtime, but depending on your situation there might be a more efficient way to do this.

Are all 60+ items quite distinct in their shape and desired collision polygons? If not, you're much better off using a single collision detection object that's duplicated for each item.