Depends on your situation. If you're really interested in making money off your game, look into competing games in your genre and test them out to see what they do well. Write down anything you think could be done better, or added to the play experience. Then start experimenting and researching with C2 to determine how you can apply logic to the C2 functionality in order to achieve what you want to accomplish. Finally, start planning your own game with these features in mind, and only when you're at least half-way through development, consider how you're going to start marketing and earning money when the release comes.

Hi, everyone!

I've started up solo development under a studio name of Jadelight Studio, and am currently working on a game called Libertas Aedifex. It's heavily influenced by games such as Elite, Freelancer and Wing Commander. Current progress is going well, with enemy AI, path-finding, combat and planetary landing already implemented, however there's still a lot of groundwork being developed before work can move onto other star systems.

Features:

• Top-down camera view, and your ship is controlled via holding left-click
• WASD movement for combat maneuvers
• 30+ explorable systems (and some hidden fringe systems you might be able to uncover if you're fortunate)
• 20 flyable ship types, ranging from fighters to gunboats, battleships and carriers (can launch small fighters for large skirmishes!)
• 24 laser types (7 base types, 24 including upgraded versions, including two prototype weapons
• 5 homing missile types, including one prototype (missiles are suited to anti-fighter engagement)
• 6 rocket launcher types (rockets are suited to medium ship engagement; these don't track targets but pack more punch than missiles and are just as fast)
• 4 torpedo launcher types, including one prototype (mountable to carrier-class ships and above, and suitable against very large ships. They'll also require a level of protection as the enemy can shoot them)
• 60 tradable goods to bring out your inner trader, and 15 contraband tradable goods for your inner smuggler
• 12 visitable planets and , each with commissioned artwork backdrops
• Balancing human needs - you need to buy food, water (*cough* or alcohol *cough*), have an official 'job' and pay taxes
• Buy an apartment, which acts as planet- or station-side storage for your items and credits
• Perma-death, so make sure you buy an apartment!
• Storyline- and side-missions
• Factions and friendly, neutral and hostile AI (which will try to dodge your shots), some with specific roles
• ... and you can... maybe... blow up a sun to wipe out a system when you eventually get enough firepower. But I won't be responsible for what happens, .
• Potential for more when development passes 50%!

Currently being developed:

• More commodities (need to think of 60 trade goods, ha ha)
• Currency system
• Planetary GUI system
• Planetary trade GUI (80% complete)

Screenshots (no planet-side imagery yet, as I'm waiting for late-October when the artist commission kicks in):

• One-on-one combat
• Exploring Space 1
• Exploring Space 2

Overall status: 11% complete

FAQ:

How are you approaching development of the game?

I'm working on it in stages. I have a rather large development checklist and when I start to feel like something different, I'll pick another part of the checklist to work on.

How long have you been developing this for so far?

Since I returned to the Construct 2 forums, so... 12 days I think it's been. Hard to tell, I spend at least 12 hours a day working on various related efforts.

Will it be browser-based, or what platforms is it being developed for?

Currently I'm focussing only on Windows, but because it's being exported using Node-Webkit, there are possibilities for Mac and Linux releases. I think there are some issues with those exporting options if I recall correctly, so I'm not going to confirm that there will absolutely be versions for those platforms.

Will there be a demo?

Yes! When the main groundwork for planetary infrastructure and functionality, more NPC and AI functionality, player inventory and stash mechanic are fully implemented, it'll be closer to a demo release. I'm not going to give a specific date yet, though, .

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Comments, suggestions and support are happily welcomed!

In addition to my prior congratulations, does anyone know if this is beating the Construct milestone? I never used Construct before Construct 2 and was curious if this version has exceeded the previous software.

LoneWolfe007 No worries, I enjoy helping, . But I think I see your issue.

You need to move the Enemy -> Find path to (Node.X, Node.Y) Event to after the Node -> Set position to (random(8,630) , random(8,270) ) in the same condition, and then remove your Enemy -> On Pathfinding arrived. This last Event is the issue, I believe. Additionally, you'll need another Enemy -> Move along path Event once the path is found, else they won't follow it (I think?).

Great tip inquiesco, it is always better to save CPU. By checking every tick you could very well check a few thousand times before the velocity of the character changed. But...you can't just go by input (key/touch). What if the character was moving along and ran into something in the environment (mud/NPC) that affected speed? I would expand on your inout and do it this way:

1) check for input (any)

2) yes? Slow down? Set player instance state to SLOWING

3) no continue check other inputs

...

9) if player instance state != to current state then process

10) is player SLOWING? Yes play animation and Slow

Just my 2 cents.

Actually you could just use the Siginal / Wait for signal also

Thanks —, and you're correct, there could be blocks impeding speed, . In that case I'd make a condition where on key release or on collision with an object and player speed is less than their max speed to play a slower animation like this:

Keyboard -> On key released

• or -

player -> On collision with slow_object

---- player -> 8Direction speed < player.8Direction.MaxSpeed

-------- Rest of events

Yeah, spend time with the Free edition to learn the code, and when you're confident and want to make a game you can sell, upgrade to the licensed version, . You also get more default sounds and graphics when you upgrade to help speed up development, though using your own unique assets is always a better move if you intend to sell.

Since it seems like you're asking if you can do this in the licensed version, in short, yes, you can make all that in a game using Construct 2, .

Yeah, the website issues are fixed now, so you can go back to using the online manual, .

LoneWolfe007 A possible alternative solution would be to give the sprite waypoint the LineOfSight behaviour, and then when the NPC gets in range, to use Find Path to another random sprite waypoint. That way, it'd still be travelling along the path and would adjust course without reaching an 'end' and stopping, so you wouldn't have to use On Pathfinding Arrived. This is untested as I'm not at this point in my game yet, but it's how I was planning to do it.

Congratulations to Ashley, Tom and the rest of the Scirra team,

szymek A Scirra-featured page would be quite cool. It could tie into the competitions run on the forums too for further community engagement as well!

Tom Seems great thus far, cheers for all your (and the rest of the Scirra's) effort, .

Also, if you're wanting it to change on deceleration that occurs after movement, all you need to check is it any of your movement keys are released using a Keyboard check, and if so, then play the deceleration animation for the object you want to animate.