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Construct2: surpassing GameMaker and Multimedia Fusion

I a few years ago, I posted an article about why I preferred GameMaker over Multimedia Fusion. A lot has happened since then, Clickteam released many exporters for MMF (Flash, IOS and others) and YoYo Games have made HTML5 gaming GameMaker’s new target. Another product has been in the works too, Scirra produced Construct2 as a HTML5 game maker. Just like I reached my conclusion back then through spending time on GameMaker, I have come to the conclusion that Scirra’s Construct2 is a very worthy contender to both by spending some time using it and writing plugins for it.

Construct2’s main target is HTML5 gaming, however, it is straight forward to create exporters for it and I am actually working on a XNA exporter for it. I have also created plugins that allow Construct2 games to create simple 3D games (WebGL via Copperlicht), online multiplayer games (through websockets) and isometric games (through a Z sorter plugin).

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Construct2 enjoys an easy-to-use event-driven interface similar to MMF’s. However, you can take full advantage of the engine by writing plugins in Javascript. The plugin system in Construct2 is one of the easiest I have ever worked with. Any programmer can write plugins for it, the dozens of useful plugins created by the community being proof of that.

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The plugin system allows experienced programmers to design their game code in a clean way using separation of concerns (which they should be doing in the first place). You can write your heavy custom logic into plugins and use the event editor to glue the plugins together. If you are just a beginner, you can use the many built in plugins and behaviors (8 dir movement, car movement, physics, Facebook, platform movement, particle system, etc.) or use the many plugins made by the community.

Construct2’s HTML5 game engine is currently faster than GameMaker’s in canvas mode. Construct2 also allows you to use webgl in your game and that makes your game graphics even faster.

It will be exciting to see how MMF and GameMaker will react to the many features that Construct2 brings to the world of beginner’s game making.

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