I think I've come to find that Construct cannot do a water reflection like I had done before (mirror the screen upside down) unless there is a trick I'm missing.

I've skimmed over the entire manual and nothing in there scares me other than the whole HTML5 thing. As someone who learned HTML a long time ago and then watched half the code become obsolete and browser makers taking their own liberties with what the will and won't support, I just don't trust it.

A question or two about what I didn't find in the manual...

Using node-webkit, I would plan on creating a full-screen game up to 1920x1080. The game should scale down for smaller screens (not just crop). Possible? Is this automatic or do I need to have a set of low-res graphics for small screens? (1024x768). Can the user access graphics options to disable v-sync for instance?

... I'm not even interested in mobile device support BTW.

I didn't find the word skew in the manual. Can I take sprites and distort the heck out of them (pseudo rotation, waving, etc)

Is there a way to mirror the screen to do a false water reflection?

Didn't get into the AI very much. Here's an example of what I done in GM. Dude walks back and forth, turning around when near a solid, unclimbable object. Scans around randomly with his flashlight and head as if looking. Comes into line of sight of player. Checks to see if player is "concealed." If player is visible, kills flashlight, pulls a weapon and chases firing until player dead or becomes concealed. If player is lost, fires flare, alerts air support to the area, scans agressively. Repeat. Was simple enough in GM doubt that's very complicated compared to the AI in a lot of games.

Thanks for the replies!

Unity is going for slow for me because A) I can't seem to get my brain full around C#. Even when I get it to do what I wanted, the very next piece stumps me again. It's me and C#, not Unity's fault, but regardless it's sucking the life out of me when I WAS doing something that I was very much enjoying with GM. B) Tilebased level design is not supported in Unity as is, without addons, I don't feel like investing time into learning a 3-rd party add-on when I'm barely accomplishing anything with the main program.

The GM staff says they will announce something on consoles when they have something to announce. That seems to be what they have been saying for years and as recently as this week when I emailed them and asked myself. As to what's potentially coming, there are plainly contradicting messages coming from the GM staff. So who knows. My luck as soon as I get a few months into another program they'll announce something.

This is why I'm looking at Construct. Glad to hear you CAN make a standalone PC game. From examples I've seen it can make a game like mine very well. The lack of a programming language scares me a little as I was building a "fairly" complicated AI and cover system as well as scripting a lot of little detailed animations and random movements in particles, falling leaves, etc. So I'm hoping to not be too limited.

So I'll probably start messing around with Construct this weekend!

Performance-wise, I'm curious how HTML5 games work. Do they draw from the GUI? I was barely holding 60 FPS in GM, will I be able to do it in Construct? Aren't there severe limitations on image size for backgrounds, etc? I was sometimes working with 4000px by 900px backgrounds. Is that going to fly?

I'm a noob 2D game developer considering Construct...

I've spent a few months learning Game Maker and I love it, but it has zero console support and that's just dumb. So as my game project gets more serious I realize I don't want to limit my audience nor design the game twice. Unity 2D support is introduced, so I move on.

I spent a month learning Unity. I hate it. Even with the 2D tools it sucks for a tilebased game. C# is kicking my butt. Progress is ridiculously slow. I miss actually making my game. I go back and play what I built in GM. I was doing so good and having so much fun and Unity has sucked that out of me.

I consider going back to GM. Still no console support. Zero. That's so dumb. WiiU can play HTML5 games. GM can export HTML5 games. Yet GM cannot export WiiU games. That's so dumb.

Ok, Construct looks cool. No Xbox or PS but it exports to WiiU. I can live with only one console. Hell I'd be thrilled to get a game on one console. People say GM can do more but I'm making a fairly simple 2D tilebased game (though a little graphics heavy).

Construct cannot export a windows executable. You have to play your game in a web browser. What????????????

For real? No executables? The windows and mac icons are just for show?