Skip to main content

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).

 imageimage

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.

image

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mail labels and letter templates for jasperreports

The following are free (MIT license) mailing labels and letter templates for jasperreports that you can download and use in jasperserver and/or ireport: Update 3/15/2011 : I moved the Mail templates zip file here . Please consider making a small donation if the templates are of help to you, Thank you! If you need more information on how to use those templates please leave a comment in the blog.
14 comments
Read more

How to create online multiplayer HTML5 games in Contruct2

  Construct2 can use websockets to send and receive messages between games. By using socket-io , we can use a Node.js script as the server and my modification to the socket-io plugin for Construct2 to allow the games to synchronize data between them in real-time. There are two parts to this design: the Node.js server and the Construct2 clients (the games playing). The main part of building an online multiplayer HTML5 game is to plan: how the clients will communicate how often and what to communicate how much of the logic will go into the server and how much to the client. In my sample game, I chose to have each client own a player and have the server just relay messages: Use string messages in the form TypeOfMessage, Parameter1, Paremeter2, Parater3, etc to communicate. Have the clients send their player position about 16 times a second. Whenever their player shoots, the client needs to send a message immediately. Almost all of the game logic will...
9 comments
Read more

Send Email from C# using Outlook's COM late binding

The following sample code shows how to send emails from Outlook and Exchange using C#. This code works with any version of Outlook because it uses Late Binding to automate Outlook. Parts of the code where taken from other websites. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Reflection; using System.Threading; namespace LateBindingTest { class OutlookEmailerLateBinding { private object oApp; private object oNameSpace; private object oOutboxFolder; public OutlookEmailerLateBinding() { Type outlook_app_type; object[] parameter = new object[1]; //Get the excel object outlook_app_type = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Outlook.Application"); //Create instance of excel oApp = Activator.CreateInstance(outlook_app_type); //Set the parameter which u want to set parameter[0] = "MAPI...
5 comments
Read more