Contruct classic vs gamemaker

[mehguy]

I've been thinking of making a shmup lately, but I dunno witch engine is better. Contruct classic seems more simpler to use.

[buko-studios]

We haven't used Constuct Classic, but two thumbs up for Construct 2. Can't praise it enough.
Only thing we felt was the Shmup Game Sample in Construct 2 left a lot to be desired.

Other options could include Unity and Stencyl.

Unity has a lot of potential to do cool stuff if you are in it for the long run. (Including the MLBullet Pattern plugin)

We wouldn't really recommend Stencyl unless its a static screen like Space Invaders or Galaga. (but ultra quick to get something up and playing)

Best of Luck!

[nasty_wolverine]

GMOSSE

(but as always, i recommend learning and coding in either of these: C/C++/C# )

[mehguy]

We haven't used Constuct Classic, but two thumbs up for Construct 2. Can't praise it enough.
Only thing we felt was the Shmup Game Sample in Construct 2 left a lot to be desired.

Other options could include Unity and Stencyl.

Unity has a lot of potential to do cool stuff if you are in it for the long run. (Including the MLBullet Pattern plugin)

We wouldn't really recommend Stencyl unless its a static screen like Space Invaders or Galaga. (but ultra quick to get something up and playing)

Best of Luck!

What about gamemaker? Would you recommend it?

[BPzeBanshee]

Biased opinion here, but as someone with a lot of Game Maker knowledge and having done testing for games made in various forms of Construct, I'd recommend GM (or just about anything) over it any day of the week.

Construct is simple, you can get simple stuff going but it's easy to run into unfixable issues with it (railslave's games were all made in Construct and had a lot of hitbox response issues that from what I saw of the code looked like the tool rather than the programmer). Game Maker has some issues like these once you get *really* advanced, but it gives you a lot more headroom with enough learning. IIRC he was using the current iteration of it with html5 export options.

GMOSSE serves as a good example of what can be done but code-wise can look very intimidating, especially with some of the unfinished work I've started lately. A better example project for someone like yourself to look at for basic GM projects would be Warbird (see signature).

[buko-studios]

Interesting thread forming here..

We aren't very familiar with GM.. the idea of learning the scripting language puts us off a little.
Not that it appears too difficult, just another set of syntax.
GM certainly gets plenty of praise from people we know that use it.
We should definitely check out G.M.O.S.S.E, it looks like a great resource!

We've dabbled in shmup development in Cocos2d-x.
Its C++, free, and relatively easy to get up and running.

Interesting to hear some criticism of construct (perhaps Classic?).
Construct 2 has come forwards quite a bit in the last year. We find it a joy to prototype with and certainly basic shmup capable.
Stress testing Construct 2 is on our todo list for a shmup.

We have done a couple of days worth of exploration of Stencyl but have gotten irritated with the Development interface.
However, there seemed to be a perceptual increase in performance on flash than that of current html5 browser shmup action.
Again, we'd love to stress test more..

I noticed that there is another topic running: Awaken:Underwater Odyssey, that is being done using Stencyl.

We have considered setting up some kind of benchmark to compare and contrast the different engines.
Would be a useful addition to some of the plans we have on our group.

[mehguy]

Biased opinion here, but as someone with a lot of Game Maker knowledge and having done testing for games made in various forms of Construct, I'd recommend GM (or just about anything) over it any day of the week.

Construct is simple, you can get simple stuff going but it's easy to run into unfixable issues with it (railslave's games were all made in Construct and had a lot of hitbox response issues that from what I saw of the code looked like the tool rather than the programmer). Game Maker has some issues like these once you get *really* advanced, but it gives you a lot more headroom with enough learning. IIRC he was using the current iteration of it with html5 export options.

GMOSSE serves as a good example of what can be done but code-wise can look very intimidating, especially with some of the unfinished work I've started lately. A better example project for someone like yourself to look at for basic GM projects would be Warbird (see signature).

GMOSSE is somewhat of a template for shmups in gamemaker?

[BPzeBanshee]

Interesting to hear some criticism of construct (perhaps Classic?).
Construct 2 has come forwards quite a bit in the last year. We find it a joy to prototype with and certainly basic shmup capable.
Stress testing Construct 2 is on our todo list for a shmup.

I'm curious to hear back when you do your stress testing. I confess most of my Construct experience with the actual IDE itself has been second-hand - as a tester of the output from it I wasn't too impressed with what seemed to be issues locked in to Construct specifically. But alas, some common misconceptions about GM have been the results of the dev rather than the tool, and I suspect it may be the case with Construct as well. I'm keeping an open mind with alternatives like these.

GMOSSE is somewhat of a template for shmups in gamemaker?

That's the general idea, yeah. "GMOSSE: Game Maker Open-Source Shmup Engine". It's very advanced for a template though - one of the main criticisms I've received for it is that the GMK file itself is very intimidating to a novice user, so for folks like those I recommend Warbird instead to get the hang of coding completely in GML in an organised manner.

Eventually GMOSSE will be in itself a full game with good performance and all the "standard" options people want. I mention the latter because things like TATE and joystick support wasn't widely considered possible in GM around here for a long time until the right people showed up and I made a big deal out of it. Now whenever people say they're having trouble with "core" stuff like that in GM good folks like nasty_wolverine point them to GMOSSE to show (at least one way) how it's done.

[mehguy]

So the ultimate question is, which one is the most simple engine to use?

[nasty_wolverine]

So the ultimate question is, which one is the most simple engine to use?

C
give gmosse a try, most stuff is done for you, easier to start with.

[mehguy]

So the ultimate question is, which one is the most simple engine to use?

C
give gmosse a try, most stuff is done for you, easier to start with.

I tried gmosse, but when I try test run the game in gamemaker it shows a extremely long error and says at the bottom "fuction only available in pro edition".

[BPzeBanshee]

Free versions wont work because things like external file commands are locked out, which GMOSSE uses. Also GMOSSE currently spits other errors under GM:Studio if that's what you're using, this is being worked on for a future release.

Try Warbird instead (see signature for thread link): it has a GM:Studio build that should work under the Free edition. GM:Studio's free license limits resource use last I checked, however (ie max 10 objects in a project file).

[mehguy]

Free versions wont work because things like external file commands are locked out, which GMOSSE uses. Also GMOSSE currently spits other errors under GM:Studio if that's what you're using, this is being worked on for a future release.

Try Warbird instead (see signature for thread link): it has a GM:Studio build that should work under the Free edition. GM:Studio's free license limits resource use last I checked, however (ie max 10 objects in a project file).

Um, when I downloaded it, my browser blocked it because it was malicious...

[BPzeBanshee]

Try this: https://www.mediafire.com/?usn4nntc1g4eejm

The other one also spat the dummy for me too, then I realised GM:Studio has updated its "free version" to Standard so I went and updated the project file and put it in a .7z instead of a .zip anyway - .exes in .zips gets Google Chrome a case of paranoia. FYI I don't tarnish my reputation with adding viruses and crap to my apps.

[mehguy]

Try this: https://www.mediafire.com/?usn4nntc1g4eejm

The other one also spat the dummy for me too, then I realised GM:Studio has updated its "free version" to Standard so I went and updated the project file and put it in a .7z instead of a .zip anyway - .exes in .zips gets Google Chrome a case of paranoia. FYI I don't tarnish my reputation with adding viruses and crap to my apps.

I got it, but how would I add the another room? It seems that it goes in an premade order. When I tried to make a level 2, it completely skipped the level.

[BPzeBanshee]

Level progression is controlled by code - specifically the stage clear controller (Objects\Controllers\CORE\obj_ctrl_stageclear) handles that. I made it so it just went to a room saying STAGE CLEAR and then restarted due to time constraints I had when making the original version.

Ideally you'd draw something to indicate the stage was cleared in that object, and then instead of jumping to the stage clear room like it currently does, set it to the next stage. I usually do a global variable of a number that the stage represents and check against that.

[ZTags1]

I've been using the http://mightyfingers.com editor for a while now.. don't know if it's what you're searching for, but I recommend giving it a try if you want to build a fun game fast!