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    TBF Scirra did just create the pipeline for people to at least create their own Steam integrations with the C++ extension SDK, but it's only for WebView2 so windows only, I personally don't care about macOS, but no Linux / Steam Deck is very bad. And who knows what kind of macOS based gaming things takes off in the future, making Mac more important again too.

    So it's again Steam support* with a big fat asterisk. I know Scirra doesn't have control over it, they can't force Microsoft to add Linux support. But for us it stays the same, a game engine with minimal and problematic Steam support.

    Was it not possible to make this C++ extension SDK for NW.js? I literally don't care at all about the "advantages" of WebView2, I don't care much if a game is 300MB or 1GB bigger and I certainly don't want WebView2 to auto update the browser version my game relies on without my involvement.

    But let's say it's currently literally impossible to create a fully functional Steam plugin for HTML5/Web games that works on all platforms, then play to the strength of C3 and give us some kind of web monetization plugin for browser games, or work on the Scirra arcade some more to integrate easy monetization into that, talk to devs and ask what they would like to see and what would be useful to them. How about a plugin for itch.io? Again a big indie platform that's especially liked by C3 devs where Construct is the 2nd most used game engine.

    There are a bunch of monetization plugins on the Store, but I don't trust them at all.

    Some show in screenshots that you need to copy paste the secret key into the plugin itself, Idk much about this stuff but even I know that's not good. Every documentation I've read about this says that you shouldn't store the secret key client side, It's not a save way to do it. Again I wish some kind of service would come from Scirra directly, how am I suppose to know which 3rd party addon I can trust and is save to use? It's one thing with some plugin for the game, either it works or it doesn't, but these types of plugins are about security. Another way could be Scirra getting in contact with 3rd parties asking if they would be interested in providing addons for their services on their own, if it is officially from the actual service provider then it would also be more trustworthy.

    The only fully working, relatively easy monetization option in C3 afaik is mobile. I personally don't care about mobile and never really looked into it, so I just assume it works, because I didn't hear much complains about it.

    ...besides the usual iOS pain.

    Ruskul I'm not saying it isn't possible, clearly it is since there are a bunch of Construct games on Steam. I'm saying it is low priority for Scirra.

    To prove my point I invite you to open a project, right click in the layout and click "+ insert new object", scroll down until you get to the category "Platform Specific" and insert the Steam plugin.

    ...problem is, there is no default Steam plugin (unless you already installed an extension from the addon exchange).

    As long as I can remember there was always some kind of problem if you wanted your game to work on Steam with overlays and everything.

    The Steam overly not showing up, you always needed very specific NW.js + Greenworks version combinations to get it kind of working ...but maybe streamers or youtubers couldn't record your game anymore or only with weird workarounds.

    Now the official Steam addon that works with NW.js has this warning

    NOTE: this plugin is no longer actively maintained, and where possible we recommend using the Steamworks for WebView2 plugin instead.

    So we are expected to use the WebView2 version, which doesn't support Mac or Linux and therefore also no Steam Deck.

    And all this to get the absolute bare minimum of Steam API features. Basically just achievements and some basic use info stuff.

    No Steam Input API, nothing to help with Steam workshop integration, nothing to help with remote play together, etc.

    But I get it, other engines have entire teams dedicated just to platform specific things, and for Construct just 2 engineers have to do this stuff on the side.

    But then you get updates that add a BBC micro:bit plugin that reminds you that Scirra's priorities and goals doesn't necessarily always align with your goals.

    One thing is for sure, Scirra's priorities and goals would be much more in line with those of game developers who want to make a living with their games if they would have chosen a "free" monetization model with revenue share.

    How C3 users are able to monetize their games wouldn't be an afterthought like it fells now, it would be the #1 priority.

    The Steam support would be rock solid with support for the entire Steam API, there would be options for monetizing web games and/or official integration plugins for payment providers, increased efforts for console exports, an interest in collaborating with fitting 3rd party platforms and potential partners, etc.

    Also Unity was perfectly profitable for most of the time, it only went downhill once the previous owners wanted to cash out by going public. They hired a CEO that knows how to pump a stock and that's what he did, by overspending on irrelevant company acquisitions to create a narrative that's enticing for investors who have no idea about game development. They had all pulled out their money by the time it all collapsed, and the CEO got a big fat severance pay before leaving.

  • It's literally just this meme at this point.

    From both sides.

  • I can't imagine the SDK ever being flexible enough to allow addon devs to provide solutions like e.g. changing the FOV, because if Scirra puts the time into it they might as well simply add that feature themselves.

    Or the ability to control the sampling mode and fullscreen scaling quality on a per layer basis. So many times I wanted to have a small scale render for automatic pixel perfect visuals and low cost for effects but also needed a high quality HD render for readable text.

    There will never be an SDK flexible enough to providing these things that can't be worked around with other means and that Scirra would never add themselves if I made a feature request for it.

    I'm not great at art and for me it opens up a whole host of projects that I put on ice because I wasn't able to use that art style without readable text in game and for menus.

    If they obfuscate all internals, those (and future) solutions to my problems are simply gone, Scirra wont provide them, SDK wont fix it.

    And for what, for the possibility that it might stop working in the future?

    I rather have a period where a hacky feature is working than it never being available for me at all.

    Every commercial game eventually sticks to one C3 + exporter version combo anyways, and that's not just a C3 thing Unity, Godot, Unreal, every game developer does this.

  • Single features changing or even disappearing is something entirely different to obfuscate all internals at some point.

    And that was the question, "is it your plan to obfuscate all internals at some point?"

    That's a big difference in quality and quantity.

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  • If I'm missing a small feature or some ACE in an addon from Overboy I know I can contact him and he will most likely add it if it is possible and it's done the next day, sometimes within an hour. Or he lets me know that it isn't possible and I can move on trying to find a different solution.

    If I am missing a feature or ACE in an official addon (I'm screwed) I make a feature requests, it gets deleted after a year, I make it again on the new platform, wait another year, etc. etc., sometimes I give up, sometimes it gets added after 3-7 Years.

    You can't argue with how things work in other engines when this is the state of your engine. Look at how stressed you were dealing with Apple, this is the same for us, this is cutting us off from our last resort to be able to fix our own issues because WE KNOW FOR A FACT that Scirra wont.

  • IMO it's actually more important for C3 than new features. But I'm probably pretty alone with that opinion. Just a round of exposing more ACE from existing plugins and behaviors would improve C3 so much already.

  • I'm currently working on a game where you craft rockets, and I have to jump through a lot of hoops to make this somehow work in C3.

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    If the Tilemap plugin would be able to rotate this would make it sooo much easier for me to make this game, but more importantly it would allow me to do so much more fun things in the game too. Right now, after the player drew their rocket with tiles, I need to paste the tilemap into a drawing canvas, then run a marching square algorithm, that R0J0hound wrote in JS, over the pixels to detect the edges and create a collision shape via a distorted mesh.

    I could avoid all this if the Tilemap plugin was able to rotate, and I would still maintain the ability to change the tilemap unlike with the pasted image of it.

    This is also not the first time I ran into this, wishing it was possible. I wanted to make an RTS once where you build your own tanks out of tiles, but I had to drop the idea because of this limitation. I can easily think of many more examples, like a space game where you can upgrade your spaceship by installing new rooms and modules, or a construction game where you construct buildings, but if you don't add enough supports, pieces can break off. Etc. etc.

    I bet you have many idea for a games that would be possible, or way easier to do with rotatable tilemaps yourself.

    You can also not work around this limitation easily (or at all depending on your requirements).

    If I wanted to recreate the tilemap with sprites and combine them via hierarchy I would not be able to assign one physics behavior to all objects, and if I apply physics to all of them it would become a nightmare of unstable physics or they would not interact as if they are one connected object. Joints do not work for this either because there is no weld joint where everything would acts as one.

    Creating your own collision shape is also only possible in this very hacky way of using deformed meshes, and we do not have access to the collision polygon points so you can't just try to only take the outer points from the collision polys you already have, you need to use approximation algorithms like marching square to recreate new collision shapes from scratch.

    The 9-Patch and Tiled Background plugin already got rotation added and they became so much more useful and versatile because of it. I know that the implementation of angles for the Tilemap plugin is quite a bit more difficult than these two, but the increase in versatility this would bring is immense and would open up so many possibilities for the C3 community. I hope this improvement to the Tilemap plugin is considered by Scirra.

    I added a suggestion on the suggestion platform https://construct23.ideas.aha.io/ideas/C23-I-522, but I don't have high hopes for many votes.

    The problem is that feature improvement suggestions often die on there simply because it's not a shiny new toy.

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  • If it is by Aekiro as you claim Everade why was it posted on github.com/aekiro2 and not github.com/aekiro ?

  • I added a way to change the collision cell size

    YES! Wohoooo, that's great news, love it.

  • I have a general question about performance.

    Ashley if we want to help by making performance benchmark projects, where would we send them?

    Should we open a GitHub issue and add "performance" in the title, or should we post it here on the forum, or send a mail?

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TackerTacker

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