AuthorTopic: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability  (Read 7862 times)

Offline RAV

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #10 on: February 17, 2014, 12:29:46 am
The potential for smart creativity within those confines is still staggering, even for Construct, such that it takes greatest talent to fully explore. This is in spirit of pixel art, to make do with what you got; limitation as spark. I don't see how you can stick to 95% design and 5% code, with the expectation to do "anything other than quick mobile games"; to do even that really well you have so much to learn still about game design -- doing exactly that.

It's "compiler versus interpreter" / "binary versus script", but for a computer scientist / professional engineer there is only programming on either. The brunt of the work is about the math and algorithm independent from any one language of implementation; the difference utility.  A script language is not just a weaker programming language, it has programmatical strengths of its own. For this reason, a script might as well outgun the usual binary in power and competence; it really depends who's doing it for what.

Likewise, a game in Construct can easily outgun a game in Unity in terms of art, design and writing -- this is your brunt of work, and it is overwhelming all on its own. Or in other words, if you can't make a good game in Construct, what makes you think you'll make one in Unity. A designer learns and works mostly outside any box. If you look at Construct and are not daunted by your imagination and workload, you're not good enough yet at this job, you might as well start learning there.

However, if you're not interested into studying professional design, as a general appliance, but amateur development of a specific vision of game, you must choose what fits closest.


« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 12:44:21 am by RAV »

Offline Atnas

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #11 on: February 17, 2014, 01:14:48 am
@RAV: The 95% 5% split was hyperbole, but anyone that has tried to create their own game engine will tell you that it feels like that because the engine becomes an obsession. Spending time on the engine vs spending time on the game, the time on the engine always takes longer. Actual game development within an engine and all the coding that comes with it isn't the problem, it's the constant battle to get my codebase working and updated and interwoven and optimized. With something like GM or Unity you pay to have that time vacuum removed.

Construct creates game logic from events and is not expandable via code. Since I am already familiar with programming, I don't see that as anything but limiting myself in the event I need a complex system within the game. I also have a lot of code systems written in Ruby that I can easily port to one of the other proprietary languages.

I don't doubt people can create amazing things with Construct's event system, but for me it's less intuitive than writing a few code blocks.

I will admit I never took to languages other than Ruby and Python, it didn't make sense to go lower level than what I needed to accomplish, and Ruby itself was extremely fast for prototyping, but it doesn't have portability.

I know I wouldn't try for anything less than a good game in any engine. But time is the resource, and I don't want to fight systems. The more open the software is, the less you have to fight it, kind of like that Large box Small box analogy Indigo made earlier.

The way I see it, everything is independent of the software or code used to create it. The only thing that really changes is platform availability and the time it took to create it. The less time I spend fighting a system the more time I can spend on the actual game assets.

@Probo: I have participated in Ludum Dare in the past, it was a lot of fun and I'll definitely participate in the future.

Offline RAV

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #12 on: February 17, 2014, 01:29:00 am
But the limitation is to your programming, not game design. Which is what you said you wanted to get at more. Now read your own reply, you still obsess about the topic of programming, not one word relates to design. Honestly, for the most part I don't think most people have a good idea what game design is about; most see it just as an extension of their work on art or code, though it is something very different; much has been written here about games or design, nowhere I have read someone talk actual game design.

But anyway, you seem to have your own idea about what you want to do, no point in arguing about that.

Offline Atnas

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #13 on: February 17, 2014, 01:39:09 am
I'm sorry if I seemed obstinate, I don't intend to come off that way. I'm mainly confused as to how one software will improve game design. As far as I know the tools only influence the speed of implementation, and construct's event system is a roundabout way of doing stuff that I'm more comfortable doing with code. You can design game concepts in your head or on paper, it really is independent of implementation, right?

Edit: If you have experience in Construct and would like to make a case for it, I am still open to using it. I am very skeptical however. I used to do RPGMaker stuff a decade ago and a lot of that was fighting the system to get what you want.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 01:42:49 am by Atnas »

Offline RAV

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #14 on: February 17, 2014, 02:00:26 am
Yeah, that's my point. It's not about how it will improve game design as such, it's about what gets you to concentrate on your papers and playtest; you have so much else more important to figure out about game design before an advanced event system and further coding has any bearing; can you truly tell me that you understand playable level design enough, mapping out parkour flow, item distribution, enemy patterns, damage/health/armor statistics, etc pp, from start to finish? Only few I'd believe. The prove is in the pudding, not a demo. This is the real deal,  the bread and butter, not to be treated an afterthought, as it ends up so often, sadly. The right course of action depends on why you're really doing this, what you want to learn and exercise, what gets you quickest to the real matters, and what the real matters really are first. I'm not telling you about Construct as such, but the line of thought that guides your choice, what skills you need to work on before getting carried away in ambition that ends up just another demo not game, or another bad game with a rad event system. Getting real games done so you know games really, learning the most important lessons from many simple games, getting confident in the meat of games, no matter your choice, not having the wrong fixation factor in.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 02:15:43 am by RAV »

Offline Atnas

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #15 on: February 17, 2014, 02:24:19 am
Thanks RAV. That makes it clearer. I'll include Construct in my test list, without dismissing it. Maybe it will be the easiest to implement new ideas in, I shouldn't knock it til I try it.

Offline RAV

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #16 on: February 17, 2014, 03:29:33 am
Personally I don't care about any of those engines. I just took the opportunity to rant a bit about game making.

I think it depends on what you mean by testing new ideas. I guess what I meant to say was that people are not having/testing new ideas in the basics of actual game design enough. Like, "Hey today I test out three of those kind of enemy archetypes sitting in that kind of room layout; ah and maybe I should try a different formula for armor". You know, a good game designer needs years of intensive experience with that kind of basic problems to get really good at setting up scenarios and campaigns tying it all together, and goes really structured and straightforward about it.

So I see it as an educational tool; most people are so bad at the basics, I just don't know what they are trying to achieve going beyond without mastering that first.
And on the other hand you can sit a lifelong on these basics and make fantastic games, never really mastering it yet.

If you think you got nothing to learn in that anymore, and your new ideas mean trying to do something fundamentally "different / complicated / advanced", and you need headroom for going freelance indie, you probably don't need to bother with Construct. There's exceptions of dudes making good on that, but I know what you mean with not feeling comfortable coding wise. It's why I write custom engines/libraries/frameworks; but I'm not interested in being something else than a coder.

I like stumbling on Carnivac's update tidbits from time to time when he's turning GM inside out creatively, good stuff.

« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 03:42:47 am by RAV »

Offline Atnas

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #17 on: February 17, 2014, 03:51:43 am
Bit of an update.

Unity is far too vast for me to learn in my free time and expect to get things done quickly. It's an amazing program but it's something I'll tackle at another time. It's a bit too powerful to take in all at once and I'm not as comfortable with any of the languages used to script with than I am with gml. I'm only targetting 2d at the moment anyhow.

I made simple things in construct and game maker, I'm a bit torn. If it weren't for GM's slow compile times I would go with it in a heartbeat. I am spoiled by scripting languages like ruby which launched instantly. So that's one area that Construct seems to be better for my purposes... I will take my tests a bit further and see if Construct is lacking in any key areas. Until Spriter 1.0 there wont be an official GM plugin for that, and development is so slow I don't know when that's coming. Another win for Construct.

@RAV: Oh, I don't profess to have mastered anything. I've finished a few games as an early teenager but they were awful. I did something for ludum dare and it wasnt fun. I was so obsessed with the coding and getting it To Work that I ignored making it Fun To Play. They were personal triumphs but public failures, I suppose. The reason I'm doing this is because I feel incompetent in execution and yet I have funding coming. So yeah, I agree with what you're saying, and I doubt I'll become any sort of master but I know I will improve from trial and error.

I just want to clear up that when I said freelance, I meant that I am a freelance animator. I've never done freelance development. These will be personal games I make in my free time off from freelancing in preparation for directing a small team to make games that turn a profit from an investment(maybe thats not even very indie). I think you might have gotten the wrong impression judging from when you said "and you need headroom for going freelance indie".

Anyway thank you for the helpful advice, you have me giving Construct a second chance. Likely I will use Construct for a few short projects and move up to GM as I increase the scope of my projects.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2014, 03:53:18 am by Atnas »

Offline yaomon17

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #18 on: February 17, 2014, 04:02:46 am
Small addition - Spriter on C2 is still a bit buggy. I would take that into consideration though the devs at the C2 forums are immensely helpful if you run into any problems.

Offline Atnas

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Re: Game Creation Software for quick prototypes and portability

Reply #19 on: February 17, 2014, 05:27:43 am
@yaomon: Aw :/ Well at least it's supported officially unlike GM

I learned you can use Javascript in C2 so it's not a complete black box. I am happy about this, very very happy. Going to continue using C2 for the forseeable future because of the fast debugging and spriter integration. Thank you RAV for making me look back to it and get rid of my preconceptions. I'll keep poking my head back into Unity every now and then to stay familiar. I haven't found any problems with C2 yet, and if I do I will just script around them. Wii U supports HTML5 now and that's kind of the only console I'm interested in ever maybe porting to.