Also, fun fact: a lot of game studios working on console exclusive games don't even bother to manage frameskip / delta time.

If the game drops under the targeted framerate, then everything slows down (visuals, music, sfx, etc...). You'd be surprised, many studios don't give a damn at this issue and just optimize the game to be sure it will never drop under the framerate it's based on.

Consoles have a lot of flaws compared to PC, but they really are a paradise on this side if the game is not set for PC release later.

Very nice thread, thanks a lot.

After 2 years, here are the only 4 features I miss compared to GameMaker or other engines. These are the only ones which make the C2 workflow slower, or less efficient than the GM one for specific tasks:

> Maximum size for exported textures. (<< the most important to me)

In GM, you can specify a maximum size for the sprite sheets.

It saved me a lot of time for the first version of Penelope when I was using GM.

Telling the software "convert all my 2048x2048 and 1024x1024 textures to 512x512 max and then scale them properly on rendering" is a superb feature for multiple platform exports.

Desktop version? Keep all in high quality for people playing in 4K

Web Demo or Mobile version? Yes, shrink down my HD backgrounds, the game as to be light to load faster or to run on low tech phones.

Having bad perfs on this system? Let's shrink everything to 256x256 max and see if this comes from the ressources.

Super useful. In the next months we'll see people playing in 720p AND people playing in more than 4K on the same kind of devices depending of how rich they are. Being able to make tests to find the best compromise seems very important to me.

> Automated spritefonts in C2.

The spritefont+ plug-in is very great.

But picking a font in GM and just say "yes, use this font" and let the software do its magic on the characters spaces etc... is so much faster.

> Paths

I'm using multiple Sine behaviors on the same object to achieve something ok-ish, or a waypoint system if I need something complicated, but most of the time, a simple Path system would be way, way more efficient and faster. The path editor in GM is pretty basic, but saves a lot of time for UI, cutscenes, flying enemies, visual effects like lullabies etc... With a tween param, It would also prevent the "let's use the lerp function even if I don't understand it that well" popular mistake.

> Oriented particles and particles preview without waiting for your full project to launch. I guess it would only be useful to graphic artists, but the particle system is close to great, but not there yet. At the end of the day, waiting one or two minutes for each small edit and the lack of oriented particles force most of us to use standard objects for visual effects, which I guess was not intended.

Thanks for reading!

Even the people that Ashley posted on his front page to showcase Construct 2's "capability" have said themselves they will not be using Construct 2 in the future for any more projects and that they are losing money because Construct 2 is incomplete.

(...)

I find it very ironic that on the Construct 3 page, there's one of the three developers that swore off Construct 2.

Hi, I'm the guy on the C3 website : )

Just to be clear on this subject, cause it's not that simple in my head.

- Yes, I won't use C2 anymore for future big projects. Mainly because of the lack of (real) console exporters (< many devs really need this to make money now)

• BUT I will continue to use C2 (and C3) to make PC only projects, smaller games, or prototyping. I've never been so in love with an engine from a workflow point of view.

I know how to use GM (Penelope started as a GM project for 4 months), and I'm having fun with Playmaker and UE4 blueprints from time to time.

It's great, but I miss C2 pretty quickly every time.

- No I don't feel like C2 is a scam or something. I came here 2 years ago to ask "can I make this game for PC using C2?" and now my game is out and runs great using NW 10.5.

Job done, as far as I'm concerned! Hell, the game even now has a boxed version! ( https://twitter.com/AurelRegard/status/ ... 8071988225 )

Yes, as many I had issues to fix with this, but devs using Unity for consoles sometimes waited more than a YEAR to be able to export their games in a proper way. I know there is no magic tool to export games for multiple platforms.

Making it to run on Linux and Mac is tricky, but again friends using Unity, GM or their own engine have similar issues, so I'm not complaining this much.

[Every X days - Trigger Once while true] > - At the end of the day, I know I wish for something which can't happen (a +50 people team with a shitload of money to back them for native + console exporters). So now, I take C2 for what it is: a fantastic piece of software which allows to craft complex games at the speed of light on PC and Mac. And sometimes Linux. And small games / prototypes for browsers and mobiles.

I have no regret, and I still LOVE C2.

This is why I'm happy to be on the C3 website (note: I don't have any partnership with Scirra of any kind). I'm sure the UI and the logic will be as brilliant, maybe better than today. And I'll use it for sure for (yes, only a small part of) my next projects. I also deeply respect how Ashley takes time to answer here to mostly every thread where he's targeted.

Since a few months, I have to answer 100/150 messages a day by email/twitter/steam forums. This is exhausting and life-sucking, I can't imagine how hard it is for him to do this for this long, and I understand he just can't profile every game on earth / fix all bugs with only 24 hours in a day. Aaaand, then back to [Every X days - Trigger Once while true] > cause at the same time I feel so frustrated to see such a great tool only based on html5 and only on a one man army.

I use a simple white streched 32x32 square sprite with the fade behaviour on it.

I create the sprite when a fade is needed (+ "move on top"), and it's destroyed just after that, so I don't need any shader or additional layer / blending.

Maybe this could work for you?

anata beautiful, thanks a lot for sharing. I think I'll use it for a menu of mine. Thanks again! : )

You'll definitely have a few users launching the game twice because of the few seconds to fire it > having the Steam error "the game is already running" > looking in the task manager > not seeing anything related to the game > trying to relaunch it again and mess with everything > post in the Steam forums about your game not working.

Not an important issue, but yeah, it would be nice to be able to call our games with their real names in the future.

Ashley I'd like to make a few more tests using greenworks + nw.js 12. Is it safe to just grab the new Greenworks ZIP and copy/paste on the top of the old one, or would it be safer to wait for you to package it as a C2 addon? Thx!

When you're exporting your game with NW, it create files. One of them is package.json (on MAC > in "ressources" if I remember well).

You can open it using a basic notepad, and change stuff in it. In this case, add a line to the parameters so your game accept all the graphic cards, and not only the ones accepted by the vanilla node webkit. Some graphic cards are perfectly fine to play C2 games, but are blacklisted for some reason. Even very powerful ones.

You may find some useful things in a previous post I made about exporting for Mac and Linux:

Did you try to add --ignore-gpu-blacklist to your package.json?

NW is insanely picky when it comes to Mac GPU models.

Jayjay (not a real solution, but if you're still having problems with skipped collisions like I had: I replaced every single one in Penelope with "is overlapping object - trigger once", it does the trick pretty well even at low framerates)

Shirogames (who are making Haxe and very successful games) already released Evoland ( 2D / 3D trailer:

) on Pc+ Mac + Linux + Mobile + Consoles.

Bonus: they stick with it for their next games, which is a very good sign to me considering they're not trying to make money with their engine or language.

Even if I still stand on the "C2 shouldn't get a native exporter, it would just kill the small company behind it" side, that's more than a good proof to consider Haxe as a reliable and true multiplatforms language : )

EDIT: digitalsoapbox , your game looks very good! Congrats!

Hey, Greenworks seems to be updated to 4.1! : )

greenheartgames Super nice to see this plug-in being kept up to date, you rock guys! Thank you!

https://github.com/greenheartgames/greenworks/releases

szymek

I can't answer if NW.js really fixed the jank issues. I still have to use Node Webkit 10.5 to get Steam achievements support, and a working Mac and Linux version of Penelope. Also, from my tests using Penelope, perfs are still better with 10.5 than the last NW.js, so I have no reason to update. (nearly all janks disappeared compared to nw 11, but I get a serious one each time a level start. I don't have it on 10.5)

It's waayyyy better for sure that's the crap it's been for months, but every single update feels like russian roulette to me regarding what it breaks for a multiplatform game.

So, my opinion hasn't changed: C2 is the best, smart, brilliant engine I ever tried. I will stick with it for every small project of mine in the future.

I won't use it anymore for large projects because of the size of the (fantastic) team behind it, and because html5 isn't made for large, multiplatform (steam+mobile+consoles) games yet.