Greetings. My name is Matt. I'm an artist who has recently taken a lot of interest in game development.

I've been using another such program, Stencyl, for the past 8 months, learning it, getting pretty good at it. I'm generally not very good with programming concepts and math and so on, but through persistence I've been able to accomplish a lot.

I have some concerns, though, and I was curious about how C2 compared.

I'd like to show you a demo for a game I've been working on in Stencyl, and then state my concerns and pose some questions about C2. This is a metroid-style game, where you explore a large world.

It's highly unfinished, and note I've added artificial roadblocks to keep you guys from getting too far into the map. It's just not ready to all be seen yet.

You'll have to copy/paste this link, it won't let me set up a hyperlink:

http://www.ghostsonggame.com/playghostsong768hx_alt2.html

Z jumps (hold for higher jump), X shoots cannon (hold for charge up), C executes a dash (hold for longer dash). Note you can dash through bullets/enemies to avoid harm.

In addition, you can hit space to switch to alternate fire mode and try different weapons (cycle them with F).

(To find enemies quickest, go down the shaft and take the first left. The game structure is not really in place yet so you start with some powers and can't die.)

Concerns with my game in Stencyl:

• Performance. I do things to accomplish the look and feel I want that also have the result of making the game run worse on some computers. Namely, the use of many "actors" (what stencyl calls individual objects that can be given behavior) to simulate sparks and motes and debris and various other things, and my use of actors as environment dress up pieces. The most intuitive way I've figured out to design environments is to use Stencyl's tileset functionality (simple grid based tiles) to put the structure in, then place many individual objects (chunks of rocks, plants, whatever) to make it look how I want it to look. I can do this while maintaining good performance on some computers, but have found that the game runs poorly on other computers.

I have a great desire to dress up my environments in an intuitive way without thinking mainly (or at all) in terms of grid based tilesets.

I also have a great desire to make my game flashier by using many effects, which, as I've learned, is difficult in Stencyl and generally limited to finding clever ways to simulate real particle effects systems, which can be limiting and drain performance more than it ought to.

So, if you've read what my goals are and what types of things I want to do, and looked at my demo, do you think C2 may be worth learning? And if anyone here is experienced with both programs, how does C2 compare in terms of ease of use?