signaljacker's Forum Posts

    I too will probably eventually jump ship. As much as I love the Construct workflow, I really think it's the best out there - there is simply no justifying the particularly narrow-minded subscription model they're proposing. If it were tweaked a bit in favour of users rights I would reconsider. But as it stands it appears to have a complete disregard for the user. Really not a good look. There are subscription models out there that protect users rights as well as developers, if Scirra aren't going to entertain these I won't entertain trying C3. I think the slow drip of information may be doing more harm than good. Unless they've got something big up their sleeve that will save it at the end, but by then it might be too late. People are already looking at other engines, myself included.

  • Be prepared to put in hundreds of hours of practice. A common misconception is that pixel art is "easy" but it's like any other art discipline. It's a long and sometimes frustrating road, but ultimately satisfying. Even fairly simple 16x16 sprites have a real art to them to make them look remotely good. I've found the following has helped me in my quest to become a better pixel artist. I still have a long way to go.

    1. Collect a whole range of pixel art that you can look at for techniques/inspiration. Services like Pinterest are great for this as you can easily tag and catalogue any cool art you find and then you have a library to draw from.

    2. Try to do a little bit each day, even if you don't feel like it. Join something like #pixeldailies where they set you a task that you have to pixel each day. It's a great way to build up practice and also a library of pixel objects.

    3. Look at a lot of old games from the 8 and 16 bit era, download spritesheets of these and see how the animators set up the key frames, colour schemes etc. You can glean a lot of knowledge this way.

    4. Use pixel art in instances where you normally might not. Got to do a birthday card for someone? Do it in pixel art. Need to make an animation? Pixel art. Want to paint landscapes? Pixel art.

    5. Get feedback. The pixel art community are oddly fanatical, they can get hung up on traditional techniques/limitations etc and it can be frustrating. That said though, if you want to have your work dissected and brutally critiqued you've come to the right place. As hard as it is, it's a good way to get better.

    6. Practice with purpose. Don't just draw heaps of things and hope to get better. Try different techniques otherwise you will hit a plateau and not improve over a certain point.

    7. This one might be a bit weird, but I found that knowing how much time I've spent doing pixel art to be motivating. I do some of my pixel art in aseprite through Steam which counts the time I've been working. I find this oddly motivating seeing that I'm working more on pixel art than playing games. your mileage may vary.

    Hope that helps a bit. It's a long road so just chip away at it slowly. There's no magic bullet to get better over night.

  • > 'd say though that if the subscription model isn't at least tweaked a bit there might be a bit of an exodus.

    >

    I don't think people are going to leave because Scirra introduces an engine designed for hardcore mobile game designers.

    Dodge makes a Viper that is super fast with lots of frills that I could never afford or want but I still buy and love Dodge vehicles.

    As long as Scirra keeps supporting and updating C2 and doesn't throw us out we will still be here and I have tried just about every engine out there and for fast design with good support for beginners and advanced users I don't think any engine beats C2 at this time.

    ADDED: I do think Tom and Ashley should make it clear they will continue support and update C2 and relieve some of the fears people have and that could have been handled better with the rollout of C3. There are still issues with C2 and the website, forum and arcade that should also be addressed and fixed before a big rollout and they are working on those issues. I also think it is long past time for a 3D plugin for C2 and that is what I am waiting for.

    Not everyone is interested in mobile design though. I couldn't care less about it, but then there are those to which it means everything. Everyone wants something different but they can't cater to everyone. Also, from a business perspective it would make sense to kill off support for C2 pretty quickly because if it's an attractive alternative to C3 people won't migrate. I think the main problem is that many of us who used Construct Classic or Construct 2 are now no longer in the target demographic for construct 3. It will certainly suit small studios who endlessly pump out mobile games every quarter very well so it may attract new users who have that mentality. I'll be keeping an eye on it, but will certainly be looking at other options now too.

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    > > Construct is still nothing more than a prototyping tool. I would never consider paying for a fake Multiplatform software and this insane subscription model. Even with cocoon and intel xdk you can compile you games for free. There are a lot of other alternatives to make games (not prototypes) and compile then without have to upload your files. In my opnion, there is absolutely no reason to stop using Construct 2 yet, even for mac users like me (bootcamp). Still worried about Scirras future and its awesome community anyway...

    > >

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    > Yeah the forums great!

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    > We even have users that come here to inform us about other software.

    >

    I'm actually really impressed by scirra's extremely liberal stance on users freedom of speech around here. Most boards would close and delete if there were any early warning signs of mutiny.

    They probably factored in the loss before deciding on such a controversial business model. So any detractors are people who would not have gone for the rental system anyway (probably the majority of the community looking at the posts and opinions), I'm guessing they only need a fraction of the current community to be on subscription for it to be viable. You'll be left with those who don't object to the model, a handful who'll try it out for a bit and a few who'll grumble a bit but put up with it due to customer loyalty etc. I'd say though that if the subscription model isn't at least tweaked a bit there might be a bit of an exodus.

  • Software comes, and software goes. There are no guarantees that software will be supported long term.

    However, a rental model does have the disadvantage that if the company goes under, or decides to discontinue a product, developers run the risk to be stone-walled in the middle of a project.

    Point in case: Adobe announced a couple of weeks ago that Director development and support will be ending sometime in March. Existing rentals ("subscriptions") will be cut off at that time as well.

    Developers on the Adobe Director forum are not happy about this (understatement) - for example, one developer is in the middle of a project, and it will take him longer than March to finish. Others have projects done for clients (museums, for example) that must be maintained and updated after the March date.

    Unfortunately, those developers who rented the software seem to be out of luck. They contacted Adobe, and asked for some lenience. But they will lose access to Director and with it lose access to their projects sometime this year.

    Director first entered the market in 1985(!). The oldest surviving 'multimedia' producer is now dead. There are no guarantees for software survival. But Director users with a perpetual license may continue to use the software to open their older projects - renters ("subscribers") are at a distinct disadvantage in these type of situations.

    This is a very good example of exactly what I'm afraid of. In a case like this it seems like an unnecessary and artificial limitation that just rubs salt into the wounds of loyal customers. Adobe is a big and ruthless multinational corporation that can do whatever it wants, but the price of progress doesn't need to be so high. Director was superseded long ago, and perhaps you could argue that people developing on it were foolish (although as you mentioned many kiosks in places such as museums still use director programs so it's not always an option). You expect this kind of behaviour in big business but I'm kind of disappointed the smaller guys aren't even fighting for something better.

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  • Hard to tell without looking at what you're doing but there's a couple of things to consider. One is that if you're using multiple tilemaps are you referencing them all in the events or only the first one? Maybe you need to put them into a family and reference that family instead so that it will trigger for all the tilemaps. I just tried a quick test with a textbox outputing the value of Tilemap.PositionToTileX(player.X) and Tilemap.PositionToTileX(player.Y) and the coordinates were returned fine, but I was only using one tilemap.

  • > Want I want to know is why won't Tom or Ashley explain the sudden shift in business ethics. Why won't they explain why it's necessary for users not to own what they pay for?

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    There's several reasons:

    - we're hosting the software in the browser, with a cloud service behind it. I'm not aware of any software or service that runs in a browser and is a one-time payment - it's just not economical given the running costs.

    - we also provide other on-going hosted services like the new app building service. I'd also point out you get this service *and* the entire Construct 3 editor for less than the cost of PhoneGap Build alone, so I think this is actually a pretty good deal. We actually already run some on-going services for free with C2, such as the Scirra Arcade (which is chewing up tons of bandwidth these days!) and the multiplayer signalling server.

    - the one-time payment model is risky in the long-term, especially since we don't regularly do the whole "new major version everyone has to pay for again" process. Scirra is currently sustained almost exclusively by new users buying C2 for the first time. If the flow of new users dried up, we risk going out of business - even if we have tens of thousands of active users. There's also the aspect that we're still supporting people who bought C2 five years ago at no extra cost, and this existing audience is getting larger.

    - this is the way the industry is generally going, and some competitors are already doing it. It's harder to compete with tools that have on-going income when you only have one-off income with on-going maintenance costs, especially when there are various on-going services we're running.

    I guess at the end of the day, if you absolutely cannot stand subscriptions, you can either stick with C2 or look for a different tool.

    Thanks Ashley, these points all make sense and I'm glad you're discussing them. I think that most of us, even those who are unhappy about the subscription model do understand why it's happening and realise that it's probably a necessary evil. The particular model you've chosen however does seem a bit draconian with users being locked out permanently when not subscribed. I would have thought that support until the version you've subscribed to would be far friendlier. If C3 is updated as frequently as it should be on a subscription model then that should be incentive enough for users to continue to subscribe, but there is also a safety net there for the users as well. That is my biggest beef with the proposed system, but also the one that I think will drive the most customers away from you. Is there a technical reason why this can't happen or is it purely for business reasons?

  • The past few years have seen a resurgence in retro gaming. Games that were made 30 years ago such as Zelda, Megaman, Metroid etc not only have modern iterations but also a strong audience playing the original games and their variations. Companies such as Nintendo or Capcom would be tinkering with the original source code for these classics, rereleasing them on modern devices etc - so games that were made a while ago are still relevant and their popularity goes through cycles. No doubt it will be the same for the future. It is my understanding that with the C3 subscription model if it ends you will no longer be able to edit your projects. But what happens if Scirra as a company ceases to exist - does C3 rely on paid infrastructure to function? If that disappears surely the ability for anyone to edit the games goes with it. Some indies like Owlboy took 10 years to make. What happens if I commit to the subscription, but Scirra crashes and burns? Am I left with 5 years of my life wasted on a half finished product I can't edit? Please tell me that's not going to happen. Is Scirra thinking about the preservation of digital information for the future, and if so, how can that possibly fit into a subscription model? Please correct me if I'm barking up the wrong tree, but from what I can see so far I'm very worried.

    +1 This is much fairer to users, but also acknowledges that a continued revenue stream is important for the devs. It feels more like we're meeting in the middle and I for one would much rather something like this than what is currently being proposed.

  • The phone/tablet thing is actually one of the few things that has got me excited again about Construct 3. No one will be developing a whole game on one. But for troubleshooting/bugs or testing quick ideas on the go it will be absolutely fantastic. I love the idea of being able to work out problems and squash bugs in my lunchbreak or boring downtime when I'm out somewhere, it will allow for better quality dev time when I'm actually sat at my computer. If you have a phone with a stylus there are some good animation programs out there too so you'll actually be able to do pretty good gamedev on the go. None of Scirra's competitors offer anything like that, so it is actually innovative. Whether it's useful or not to the majority of users is another thing altogether though.

    I think that is the risk they run, the community has been formed over the years since CClassic, if now half the community is leaving (due to this remarkable change), it will not return in the short term because they will already be with another engine and do not want to buy a new one (C3) in the event that the subscription is deleted.

    If I go to another engine and learn it and have paid for it, I probably would not go back to C3 even if Scirra changed the model to single payment.

    I understand that they want to be novelty but I guess this is one of the risks.

    I think it would be much more than half the community that leaves. This vote alone shows that, but I would wager in the wider community it would be more like 70-90% Hobbyist game designers are absolutely the wrong audience for subscriptions and won't bite. Especially with other viable options about like clickteam fusion which aren't too difficult to jump ship to as the Construct paradigm was based off them. But maybe Scirra have done the math and having 10% of the current user base on a sub will be enough to sustain them? At any rate it's an incredibly risky move.

    Fundamentally it's not whether or not the price is reasonable. It is for what it is. But it's encouraging and perpetuating a business model that at the end of the day is harmful (in the long term) to content creation and users. A huge concern with rental models such as the one proposed is that the content you create will no longer be accessible to edit if the host company goes bust. Who knows if Scirra will even be around in 5 or 10 years (I do hope they are), but if they fold and take with them all those cloud services (as I understand it, so correct me if I'm wrong) we may never be able to edit our projects again. People who follow trends and try to make a quick buck by churning out games won't care, but for some of us we're pouring our hearts and souls into these projects, and trying to make not just games but art so it is VERY important on a personal level to be able to revisit this stuff, even if the technology it was built on has long since been superseded. The rental model seems geared toward fast development cycles intended to only follow trends and make a quick buck. I need something more permanent, and unfortunately if C3 can't accommodate for that it won't have any future with me.

  • I too would much rather a rent to own model, even if it makes C3 more expensive initially.

    > I remember their team expanding a couple of months back, but wasn't it just like social media/PR people or something? Didn't seem to make any difference to the actual product and seemed like dead weight and a waste of resources. There are heaps of developers making a good living without subscription models, if Scirra wants to go that route it's up to them, but the argument that software developers need to use subscription models to be profitable simply isn't true.

    >

    We've got a much bigger team now, (compared to when it was just me and Ash in our mums house all those years ago). We have an MD who takes a lot of administrative burden off me so I can work more on web development stuff and is helping grow the business, Laura doing social media and engaging with the community (we felt we needed to increase communication with the user base), Diego and Iain who are both full time developers working on Construct 3 with Ashley, and we currently have Paulo in house doing lots of graphical work, and Julien of course always being a huge help in the forum and with support emails No one is a dead weight, everyone is working very hard for Scirra and doing great work. A lot of it is behind the scenes, at least for a little longer.

    That's great, and glad to hear it. I do hope you guys continue to grow. Love your product, just like many on here not happy about getting trapped into a subscription model.

    I remember their team expanding a couple of months back, but wasn't it just like social media/PR people or something? Didn't seem to make any difference to the actual product and seemed like dead weight and a waste of resources. There are heaps of developers making a good living without subscription models, if Scirra wants to go that route it's up to them, but the argument that software developers need to use subscription models to be profitable simply isn't true.