f13.net

Knew about this software a while back when it first was developed and it's come a long way since then.
http://www.scirra.com/

So, this app. is simply a game creator.  Kind of like GameMaker or Multimedia Fusion.  Story goes, a few MF2(Clickteam) users got fed up and cloned their own superior version.  It's still in beta right now but nearly feature complete and bug-free.  It's open-source.  Free. Yada yada.  Community is VERY mature and extremely helpful - typical for most open-source projects I guess, but the difference here is this piece of software actually has some legs.  Runs on C++ and Python (almost).  DirectX9.  2D with more support for 3D perhaps down the road. (right now you can do basic 3D dev. on a 2D plane).  MP plugins will be possible (like lacewing), but right now you have to use "3rd party" means.

I've tried nearly every game creation tool out there and this one, to me, is the best so far if you're really weak on coding.  Sure, you can code if you'd like but you can get quite far w/o having to.  The GUI is a lot slicker than most other 2D platforms out there and the workflow seems smoother.  Just overall a more logical tool.  And the support is phenomenal.  Performance-wise most feel even in its beta state that it's a smoother engine than GM or MF2.

I'd only recommend it right now for rapid 2d prototyping, although you can easily make a fully functional game.  Very nice tool for learning game design concepts and getting into some scripting down the road.  When 1.0 releases it'll probably take the lead in this particular market, or at least threaten tools like GameMaker. (which I despise)

Anyways, I found working within a GUI like this is easier than trying to pry open an engine like Genesis or Eclipse, and in some ways you learn more.  Then again, I'm just a newbish amateur so... to each his own.  Half the fun is playing with the thing with a good group of knowledgeable people and ending up with a superior product.  Obviously stuff like this will NEVER replace raw code, but it's interesting to watch these tools progress over time and a great way to con people into eventually coding their own stuff.  For the skilled coder it might be a hindrance trying to learn a new GUI, but Construct does a good job making things terribly easy - so this is a tough argument to make... plus it's a good way to at least manage your code above and beyond something like VS (in many ways, but obviously not all).

P.S.
Some of the guys who developed "Scratch" broke off and started a new project making the tool more for adults and for the life of me I cant remember what it is.  Anyone come across it??  

This is actually pretty neat. As someone who is used to working with raw code, some of it's not particularly intuitive - I haven't yet wrapped my head around how the Event system differentiates between a created copy of an object and the original object (i.e., instance properties vs. class properties), for example. I've started mocking up a game idea I had a while ago. Of course, I'm leaving town until Tuesday so who knows if I'll ever get back to it.

I also just spent half an hour trying to figure out why my assignments weren't working only to realize it's because they index their arrays from 1.  :mob:

Any issues you have are likely answered in the forums if not the wiki.  Beyond that, there's IRC.
And like I said, there's a learning curve with any GUI and for some it might not be worth it.

The Event and Behaviors system is where the bread & butter lay.  There's a drag and drop for nearly every conceivable combination of gaming code you can think of.  And if it doesnt exist you can make or modify one.  The Properties area has all the requisite power you'd get from something like VS or Unity.

Can I ask why you would use this over Torque 2d? (http://www.torquepowered.com/products/torque-2d) Looking for a comparison, not engine battle, just to be clear.

I dont like Torquescript.  Dont like the Torque GUI (though the 2d is easier I guess).  It's not free.  And Torque requires more coding unless you can snipe it from the community... which THEN you apply to the WYSIWYG.  Construct has already done this part, which saves a serious amount of time.

Tbh though, I havent played with the most modern versions of Torque, so I'll give it another try.  Hell, you might be right.

Doesn't Torque 2d cost like $200 bucks or something?  I think scirra is free.

You can pretty much guarantee that Torque is going to go "free" at some point soon.  UDK, Unity, and now a few really nice 2D tools are all going free or have free versions.  Torque is very weak in this regard.  If I recall, their licensing fee is PER PROGRAMMER also... so shared projects are 'spensive.  Then there's all the extra "kits" that you have to buy if you dont want to work from scratch...  no thanks.

Scirra's only real weak point is its lack of true MP support, which we're working on currently.  We do have solutions, but they're not nifty plugins like we'd like.  Once 1.0 goes live we should have the plugins ready (most likely one for a TBS game, chat engine, and one for RTS), along with full debugged Python support.

The buck stops at what's the best tool though.  Which is fastest to dev. with, with minimal code, learning curve, and max. physics/graphics.

Okay so, we've now got Construct: 2.0.  1.0 has been shelved indefinitely, but the release version is still supported by the community.  The difference?  2.0 is based on HTML5.   :drill:

Hi,

Tom here from Scirra!  (I hope it's ok for me to post here!)  Thanks for the support we appreciate it.  You are right Construct 2 (http://www.scirra.com/construct2) is HTML5, I'm not sure if that smiley is a rage icon or a positive icon!  Anyway, we really think HTML5 has so much potential and future ahead of it, check out a couple of our HTML5 Demos (http://www.scirra.com/construct2/demos)!

We've just released early adopter licenses, and lots of music, sound FX and sprites for game makers :)

I'll subscribe to this thread, if anyone has any questions please do ask!

Tom

Just a quick tutorial!
 :drill: is awesome
 :drillf: is also awesome
 :mob: is rage
 :uhrr: is awful
 :ye_gods: is also awful
Most of the other smilies are used as expressions of various levels of ennui.
And all of them may be used sarcastically, without warning or explanation.

But in this case I do believe the HTML5 awesome smilie was sincere.

Now back to work!

Construct 2 now offers real time multiplayer. Unprecedented for a hobbyist build-without-needing-to-code engine of this kind, AFAIK. Awesome. https://www.scirra.com/blog/142/make-online-multiplayer-games-with-construct-2

If you dig into some of the old community threads, MP was something I was about to start working on in Construct 1 (using old-school chat methods with an already available mod).  I shelved the idea once 2 came out...  nice to see the fellas over there finally completed it.  I'm assuming they've got a plug-in for it now??  (last I checked you had to do things "manually")

Also nice to see the sound is fleshed out.  It wasn't "back-in-the-day."

Yeah, Construct2 really seems to have fleshed out a lot of the rough edges from the original project. Will be interesting to see if MMF2 offers something similar... my understanding is that Lacewing isn't nearly so user-friendly.