In event sheet, I see that I can create objects with the System > Create Object, but the thing is this, I got myself a list of objects' names and want to create them.

The thing is I can't with System > Create Object because it requires me to browse for the object I want. Well, I got myself a list of string of objects' name here for efficiency so is it possible to create an object by its name?

anybody?

Let's say I create a function in my event sheet, and in this function, it is invoked in every tick, and the function might require 100, 200 or 300 millisec, to complete. Whether we need 100, 200 or 300 is all random.

Now, here is the question:

Is the function in C2 "thread-safe" or synchronized of some sort?

Suppose:

At timetick A, the function is invoked and need 300 millisec to complete.

At timetick B, which occurs after timetick A, let's say about 10 millisec, the function is invoked and need 100 millisec to complete.

Will this same function on timetick B will blocked until execution of timetick A is complete, or both timetick A and B can occur simultaneously?

In this video youtube.com/watch at 1:34, you see the closing circle and opening circle for the transition? How to do that in C2?

I am doing stuff in C2 just fine, and then I ran across this:

So what expression is required in order to use the name of the layer here? I know I can use numbers 0 1 2 or whatever, but I prefer the name of the layer.

I will try point you around the best I can, but without some tiny bit of knowledge in how games work exactly, this could get difficult.

How to make doors and correspondent switches / levers? I would have also some hidden switches, maybe a puzzle where a switch opens one door but closes two at the same time. By door I mean an obstruction into which the avatar bumps into horizontally.

There are many many things going on in this paragraph.

Firstly, for the ow to make doors and correspondent switches / levers? I would have also some hidden switches, maybe a puzzle where a switch opens one door but closes two at the same time. you will need to use event and array to get the job done. The array will keep the states of the door. You can use value like 0 or 1 to imply whether it's open or close in the array, and you can put the logic of these doors in the event.

Secondly, when your avatar bumps into an obstruction that you called "door" there, you can check for a sprite collision in your event sheet. There is a similar thing called "overlap", but let's not talk about it right now.

How to create readable signs? Like in Lost Vikings: you approach a terminal / sign, press the "use" button and a text pops up.

In C2, you can create Text object in your layout. In your event sheet, in EVERY TICK, you can check FOR EACH of these Text object whether the player object is near to these Text Object or not. If the player is in certain distance, make the Text Object visible, else, make it invisible.

Collecting keys, optional treasures, I want to keep the player interested.

Once again, in your event sheet, have your player Object check for collision against your shiny items objects. If collision is detected for a treasure, you could use a global variable for, for instance, keeping score.

To create a global variable, right click on an empty area of your event sheet, and you should see global variable listed as one of the right click option menu.

A global variable can be named anything, and could be used to store a number, text, etc. In this case, you can go for number. If the player collided with a golden coin, you can add some values to the value of the "score" global variable. Something along these lines.

Building a set of levels instead of one long scrolling screen, with an exit and points of no return.

For this, you can create more layouts. When you have your C2 project opened, on C2's usually right panel, the one with "Projects" text label on it, do you see something like a folder with the word "Layouts" next to it? Right click on it, and you should see "add layout" as one of the right click option.

Saving.

To save a game, C2's newer version has these cool built-in save feature. Please read scirra.com/tutorials/526/how-to-make-savegames

I don't think you may be able to understand all of these in one go, but here are some general guidelines and after this, it shall be technical details. Post more in the forums one subject per one forum topic to get better further technical assistant. Everything you have requested so far could be done in C2 and it's not so difficult, once you get the hang of how C2 work. You can do this, my friend.

You should use pathfinding unless your game requires some special or more specific logic that you prefer to get down and dirty with many events.

How many enemies are going to chase the player? Pathfinding could be CPU intensive. Even many commercial First Person Shooter with more complex AI got about 10-20 bad guys chasing you at maximum. In some scenes where it's like the whole village is chasing after you, the designer simply "respawn" the dead enemies somewhere nearby. This design is more CPU friendly, and things won't be too hectic for the player.

I used to use music from newgrounds occasionally; I love the facts that these artists show their work and many people can review them.

Now, what about other websites that have musicians exhibiting their work? I'm talking about the DeviantArt and Pixiv of musicians.

I would like to have some discussion with the community regarding the future of our beloved gaming and game making.

In the past, before the advent of quick speed Internet, my friends and I have to go around, bringing, trading some cartridges or CD games around. Those days, we loved it.

Today, we have tablets, smartphones, Internet practically everywhere, and more. Gaming, as we know, also changed considerably. We used to hold our joysticks and those are really "joy" sticks. These days, things have changed, starting from Nintendo's Wiimote several years ago and Apple's touch screen iPhone.

Because of the change of hardware, gaming and making also change accordingly. Touch screen, motion sensor, accelerometer, GPS, etc.

We see games today make smart use of these newer technologies. For instance, We have games that make use of your location, and you have to go around the places in the real world to activate certain game events.

But what about the future? What is beyond the touch screen and these gimmicks? Will games that require joystick be a niche eventually?

Right now, I see the golden age of some genre have already passed and perhaps we won't see them again, especially those official MMORPG games that already have their server unplugged. Fortunately, some classics have been revived and brought back to newer devices. Still, something is wrong. I've seen some bad ports of some platform games that originally use joystick and now we se touch screen. Touch screen lacks physical feedback and is not as responsive as the joystick. Thus, making the controls horrible. Still, kids from new generation sometimes prove that this is not a problem and they have fine-tuned their muscles with touch screen.

However, there are also other games that practically remain the same such as visual novel or games that demand lesser reaction and respond time. Because of the nature of these games, any input device might be possible.

A lot of things changed. And the future will also be different from today. What kind of hardware or software will we have in the future? After touch device, motion sensor and all have reached their saturated point, we should see something different. It might be a similar derivative, but what would be the next big thing? After all, we dreamed of an almost paper thin device in many sci-fi movies many decades ago. We also dreamed of putting ourselves into the game, and play as our physical selves. Well, we do have some hide and seek game

That is for the audience's perspective, the gaming part, but what about us, the maker? Where will we be after this? From the early days, we dig in down and dirty with assembly codes, writing our own drivers, juicing every bit of hardware is our daily routine.

Today, WYSIWYG, drag and drop, etc. Making games become easier and simpler. Writing programs could be intimidating, but if you can grasp the concept of programming, you will have a very fine degree of control over your project. But as software becomes more and more complex, we have more terms to handle, such as lasagna code. The days of spaghetti code are long gone. With C2, I'm impressed with behavior and event handling. A simple game could be made in a blink of an eye, but for a more complex behavior, we might need to get down and dirty in scripting, for the best result and workflow.

Working fast and achieving result as close as possible is mandatory in today's competitive market. That's why we use game engine. The engines these days are similar in WYSIWYG and behavior features. Some of the more useful features would be the key frame manipulation, presented in Flash and 3D modeling software, which allow you to control precise movement of objects. Providing better workflow to fasten work and increase efficiency in working is always a cutting edge in this competitive market. For me, a good software provides both high level and low level management for the best manipulation on the project. We've seen preteen kids releasing iOS apps out in the market and what not. These things become very accessible nowaday. Everyone can create apps without requiring extensive knowledge anymore. The future for game development should be more or less similar to what we are doing but we will have even more complex behaviors that can be easily drag and drop just like what we are doing now. I do expect we can just drop in an AI right into an object to make it a robot object that has complex codes running behind. Still, this might be very task specific and we might be able to do only general movement for the AI. If we can drop in a platform AI into an object and have it automatically jumping around, trying to survive from, for instance, a scrolling up stage with rising lava and randomly falling obstacles, then I would be pleased. While it is not so difficult to implement such thing with event in C2, this means, this, too, could simply become another behavior. In the future, I expect that we will code less, and do more, as most of these things that we are doing in events or scripts are basically more or less similar to thousand of games out there already. So why reinvent these small wheels? But at the same time, we also have these virtual realities thing that got their places in mobile devices.

So these are what I have in my mind. Mind share yours regarding our future?

Right now, C2 is very close to C1. The only thing you might notice in C1 is that it creates native application, so you can achieve native machine performance. However, with WebGL and the fact that computing power grow exponential every year and the fact that eventually personal computer and mobile phones will merge... Well, right now, we have tablets but soon, we will have something even smaller and more powerful, C2 will be better in the long run. You see now, that HTML5 is pretty much the bomb right now, and you see it almost anywhere but not everywhere yet.

Also, C1 is no longer supported and think about how long will it take to finish your game. In the long run, by that time, C2 will probably grow into something that will obsolete C1 completely given all the reasons above. You will surely have better usability and feasibility on C2.

I see. That's a new insight. Thank you very much. :D

I am currently creating a dialogue system with C2, and the thing is this: text object works wonder, but there are something that I want to discuss.

The thing is this, I have a character that talks for about a paragraph or two, and I don't wanna fit the whole thing into one huge text object. I prefer a part of the conversation displayed at once. The character shouldn't speak the whole thing, but rather, a few sentences, with respect to the situation.

It's like I want:

"Good morning, Commander."

"Today, you have an appointment with Alex 9 AM"

"Please proceed to the meeting room immediately"

and NOT

"Good morning, Commander. Today, you have an appointment with Alex 9 AM. Please proceed to the meeting room immediately."

You see? The feeling is a bit different.

So I am thinking of two things:

1. using arrays as instance variables within text objects. I see that number, text and boolean are possible but not array. Of course, I could go with many text variables for each text object instead, but if all text objects may use or may not use all variables. This becomes problematic design-wise and is not practical. The workaround would be too bizarre.

2. create another Array object and somehow "bind" it with the text object and display it accordingly. I wouldn't mind it if we are writing some scripts here, but drag and drop events in event sheet is kinda slow, for this really. I wish I could write all the event sheet in some form of codes and not just drag and drop somehow...

I have also looked around the forums regarding dialogues, but I see that workflow-wise, I don't think I see a feasible way for creating a C2 game that is heavy on the dialogue like RPG yet...

So anybody has a word on this?