Friday, October 24, 2014
In this article i will talking about Construct 2 game engine, if you don't know it. it's a HTML5 2D game engine
dedicated for non programmers or for fast prototyping. basically you don't have even to write a single line of code. but at least you must have a little basic programming knowledge, just basic.
Construct 2 is a HTML5-based 2D game editor, developed by Scirra Ltd.It is aimed primarily at non-programmers, allowing quick creation of games in a drag-and-drop fashion using a visual editor and a behavior-based logic system. wikipedia
after stealing that little definition from Wikipedia let me just explain why it's called Construct 2 you might think it's a version, no it's not! in Wikipedia they refer it as Construct which is a mistake, because anyone knows Scirra Ltd would think you are talking about Construct Classic, scirra is small company of 3 persons, yeah thos 3 guys , Ashley Gullen, Thomas Gullen and Paulo Ricardo Reinehr. so Scirra made an game engine that work only on windows and export
to windows, i think some people still use it untill now, because it's free and open source. but later when HTML5 technology started to invade the Web they let down Construct and moved to develop a new one which they called Construct 2, this last support more platforms by using the HTML5 technologie you are able to deploy your game probably on any platform. Construct that old engine was abandoned even the source is available but none is developing it as i think. then it's renamed to Construct classic to make it tell the difference. that's the story of the twin Construct engines.
Now let's talk about Construct 2:
What is Construct 2?
it's a powerful ground breaking HTML5 game creator designed specifically for 2D games. It allows anyone to build games — no coding required!
It's great for beginners, and powerful enough to let experts work even quicker than by coding!
Indies and Hobbyists: Use Construct 2 to enter the world of game creation.
Teachers and Students: Teach the principles of programming in a fun and engaging way.
Designers and Artists: Produce games without having to learn difficult languages.
Professional Developers: Rapidly create mockups and prototypes, or use it as a faster alternative to coding. Scirra.com
anyway that's what they say on the website
i have been using construct 2 for 2 years learning new tricks every time and
i had a lot of problems and figured out how to solve so i think I'm in a good position to allow me talk a little about Construct 2:
First the engine is easy and fun, it doesn't look complex as other engines, if you have a good computer knowledge and you used to many software interfaces you can start working without even tutorials the user interface is very friendly, the engine is well documented and there is even a little note with every component in the interface to to explain what that thing does.
the engine is really powerful thought it's limited only to 2d games, but 2d games still have a good part in the video games industry. it comes with a lot of plugins and behavior, and your can extend it by getting more plugins made by other or if you are familiar with Java script you can make your own plugins and behaviors.
Plugin is used to add more functionalities to the engine
Behavior is used to tell your game object how to act you can make it manually but behavior save a lot of your time and makes it simpler to make games. don't worry there is a good variety of great behaviors that allows you to make a different type of game in manner of time, you can make a platform game with few little mouse clicks.
The Editor is easy and comes with a drag n drop workspace, and an event sheet editor, that last is used to make your game code without writing a single line of code it only uses logic blocks, it's like playing with LEGO you take parts that can fit together and make anything you want.
the engine uses Webgl and canvas2D for render it's on Canvas2d by default but if the platform support Webgl it will use webgl to make a better performance.
by supporting webgl you are able to make great effects.
the engine also uses Box2d as its default physic engine.
there is a lot more features in the engine, but enough talking about features for now i will talk about some important points :
Scirra says that engine export to multiplatform and .... , actually the engine doesn't export to any platform, the engine give your the source files as html and javascript. and then to build them to a specific platform you need a third party service like phonegap, cocoonJs or intel XDK or for desktop systems webkit.
at least the engine come with web-kit included so when you choose to export to windows or linux... the editor will automatically deal with web-kit and give you the final executable.
another thing is the performance, when you use Scirra Construct 2 you need to make your extreme optimizations, the problem is not in the engine itself but it's the HTML5 your game will run on a browser so it's not directly running on the system this will reduce the game performance, if you don't take care of optimizations you will suffer low frame-rate.
Conclusion : in general Construct 2 has advantages much more than it's disadvantages so it's still a great Engine give it a try if you are interested in making 2d games for many platforms using HTML5 technology.
Whoa!
ReplyDelete2D game using HTML5 engine. Awesome. I am a Unity Developer. But I sure will give this a try. Keep sharing.