Don't use "set" effect parameter, use "add" effect parameter

I don't know about distortion, but you can use Spriter to create animations easily then create a sprite sheet to import into Construct 2.

1) I don't know of a faster way to do it other than manually, so I hope your question gets a better answer than that!

2) That's still it

At the end of a layout you could stop the music from that layout. So whatever triggers the end of the layout can also stop the music.

As for the "without click or touch" aspect, the clicking or touching is simply an event that prompts an action (in this case, moving). You can change that event to anything you want that will make the objects move.

How are you saving the score in the game screen? If you save it as a global variable, you can use it on multiple layouts and just have the text field on the game over screen display the value of the global variable.

I'm working on a top down melee combat system that I'm having trouble with if you'd like to help on that. You can certainly use it in your portfolio. If you're interested, just reply to this comment so I get a notification and I'll email you more details.

What do you mean? You want players to be able to download sprites that are in your game while the game is running? Like they click on a sprite and download it?

Thanks, I'll try that next time I use Spriter animations.

https://www.scirra.com/manual/108/array

There's an array sort action, so if you have a specific array just for the player's hand of cards, that should be sortable with that.

Are saving it as a capx or as separate files/folders?

Your last example is how I've done it in the past, but hopefully somebody with more experience can answer you better.