All you need to know about game constructors. 3 indie developers share their experience at Gamemaker, Construct 2, Clickteam fusion 2.5
With the release of unity 5 and the free unreal engine 4, many have completely forgotten about such handy development tools as designers. Perhaps you have only heard of them, but never used them. But in vain, this is a very convenient thing for the implementation of many tasks. Undoubtedly, they are incapable of, and do not seek, with the mammoths of modern game-building. In this article we will tell you how designers can come in handy and reveal all the pros and cons of working in them.
This is one of the oldest gaming middleware engines. GM was originally developed by the Dutch scientist Mark Overmass for teaching primary school children programming skills and worked exclusively under Windows. After version 8, Overmass sold GM to YoYo Games, while he focused on learning issues. YoYo Games retained the concept and interface, but rewrote the engine so that it became multiplatform. Now a game written in GM can be relatively easily exported to many platforms: iOS, Android, Mac, XBox, PS3, HTML5, etc. Each module can be purchased separately for relatively little money (there are no monthly payments).
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In fact, this multiplatform nature, of course, carries with it problems - for example, I did not succeed in launching my own game running on iOS and Android on HTML5 — many functions work under one platform and do not work under another. And just debugging and running, for example, under iOS can be quite painful, so you will sometimes need the help and advice of an experienced developer. However, as far as I know, many similar engines sin with this.
Nevertheless, the main reason for which the GM has attracted me in due time is the very low “entry threshold”, i.e. learning how to make games under GM is very easy. As I already said, initially GM was developed as an educational program for children, so if you are not more stupid than an 8-year-old child, you can understand GM. The Pacman type tutorial included in the distribution kit demonstrates how a game is created by simply dragging blocks of structures from the current set, then literally from cubes.
The basic concept of GM is very simple. There is a room - this is the screen where everything happens. In the editor of the room we place game objects - walls, monsters. Objects have a set of events (for example, a collision event with a solid object), and each event has a list of actions that occur when this event is activated. Also, you need to attach a sprite image to the object.
But unlike a large number of other engines, the GM steepness is only apparent. Action cubes are only a predetermined tip of an iceberg called GML — GameMaker Language. Dragging the “execute code” action into the object, you can program the code manually using a large number of powerful functions and a very simple syntax.
Support for scripts, any audio formats, editor of paths, fonts, editor of texture and sprite sets, as well as a good resource store and the ability to add your own extensions - GM’s ability to create 2D games is actually very good. 3D and I have not tried, but I don’t remember the successful products in this style made on GM.
Add to this a lively forum and good technical support - and it will be clear why I consider GM as the best engine for non-programmers. It can also be used to quickly prototype individual ideas.
For example, being quite an experienced GM user (but not being a programmer), I did the first episode of Who Is The Killer, working 2-3 hours in the evenings, for 4 months.
Summarizing.
Minuses:
Pros:
Interesting projects can be found here: www.yoyogames.com/showcase
The first version of the Construct Classic engine was released in 2007 by two brothers from England. Prior to that, they took part in the development of Multimedia Fusion, but in the end, they decided to use their skills to create their own engine. At the moment, Construct Classic is not officially supported, but many continue to use and develop it.
Construct 2 was released in 2011. From the environment for creating HTML5 games, it has grown into a multiplatform engine.
But, unfortunately, not everything is so smooth and rosy. Export to additional platforms is carried out using third-party programs and packers. Performance suffers, especially on mobile devices. Although, with due diligence and knowledge of the program, you can achieve a good result. Examples include the mobile game Mortar Melon:
As for the development environment itself, it is very convenient. I would even say that this is the most convenient and easy-to-learn constructor. Game programming is carried out using the event system.
In the constructor there is a system of particle, as well as OpenGL effects. You can also highlight audio effects (filters, sound positioning), the ability to create multiplayer using WebRTC, built-in “path finding”, physics, and a full-fledged debugger with a profiler. Another happy testing via wi-fi. Click to start the game and see how it already works on your mobile devices. There is support for the program for skeletal animation Spriter.
As for official support, it is timely. Frequently asked for the source to quickly solve your problem. Updating the program to occur quite often, which is very pleasing. As a rule, this is not only correcting errors, but also adding additional functionality.
The community at Construct 2 is just awesome. People are always ready to help. Almost always, people solve your problem and attach the source. The forum itself is replete with various examples and lots of useful information.
The designer is suitable for everyone. Both for full game development and prototyping. It allows you to create a game in any 2D genre. I most often use Construct 2 for rapid development during various game jams.
The designer helped me focus on other tasks and not spend time writing code.
Several games made with Construct 2:
Behind the Clickteam company are projects such as Klik and Play, The Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion. In early 2014, they released Clickteam fusion 2.5 (hereinafter Cf) and export modules for ios and android. During this period, there was my first acquaintance with the engine. Cf immediately liked its ease of development and promising features. More than a year has passed, during this time I have accumulated a lot of experience that I want to share.
This constructor was selected for the following reasons:
I had doubts about the last point, since there were very few quality games released on Cf and many familiar developers were very critical of creating full-fledged games in the designer. With experience, doubts were dispelled. So, what is the constructor Cf.
Interface
Compared to Unity or Cryengine it looks outdated, but in terms of ease of operation and speed of development, it wins noticeably. Only 8 working windows, and the main work takes place in 4. Despite the simplicity of the structure, some advanced options are hard to find.
Supported Platforms
At the moment, you can release the game on ios, android, pc, html 5, Flash, Ouya.
Genre Preferences
The Cf developers claim that the designer allows you to make any game in 2-d. I would say that it is best suited for games that take place with a static camera (match-3, puzzles, flash bards, quests, card games, etc.). Built-in physics engine 2d-box allows you to play with physics. For example, the well-known cut the rope used 2d-box. Many indie developers make platformers on cf, but for this genre, I would prefer Unity, for faster.
Opportunities to develop on mobile platforms
With the release of the game under ios, using the functions inside the designer, you can embed geolocation in the game, use the accelerometer, in-app purchases, iad and Chartboost banner ads, zoom, multitouch, joystick simulation. The built-in admob setting is available only for android, and Unity ads will have to be added via xcode. For ios, Game Center with leaderboards and achivkas is also supported, as well as multiplayer with matchmaking. I can’t say anything about the latter. On Cf mostly made single games.
Game testing
Press f8 and the game starts in a separate window. For testing on devices, you need to export to xcode or apk. Here lies the inconvenience of working with xcode. Cf works only on Windows, the engine cannot be started on a Mac without having a virtual machine. Since I work on Windows, I also had to install a virtual machine in order to test games on real devices. I recommend VMware Player, on the Internet is freely available. Also, you need to download the latest version of the operating system emulator for Mac. Completed apk and xcode files take no more than a minute for completed games. For prototypes it is seconds.
Optimization for different devices
When compiling the game, you need to select the type of display on the display. There are several options for good optimization for portrait and landscape orientation. I will not go into much detail, a large article can be found on the Cf forum, I can only say that if you do not think about this point at the beginning of development, you will have problems. Some tips for understanding the big picture:
Technical support
I experienced the warmest emotions turning to Cf for help. Quickly, on business, they can even send a ready piece of code to explain something. During the day the answer always came. At the weekend, however, do not work. Separately, I want to highlight the forum. Visually, he is not very (like www.gamedev.ru , sorry for being frank), but very informative. Many ready-made solutions and useful blogs. Apple ipod extractor support Very competent guys.
Engine Update and Extensions
Inside the program there is an extension manager that contains many free objects that facilitate the work of the developer. Periodically there is something new. In general, the engine does not develop as quickly as it should. When ios 8 came out, Cf did not have time to release the update of the exporter, because of which the developers who updated their devices lost the opportunity to test games for them. It took about two weeks to fix this problem. Moreover, it turned out that only the owners of the steam-version of the engine were unlucky. Cf also has its own store, which is still quite small. I had to buy an “share for Facebook” asset in it, but it turned out to be not so simple. Payment in the store is made through google wallet. I dutifully tied my card to this service, agreed to all the conditions, but everything was stuck. Multiple repetition of the procedure was not successful. Maybe you can do it.
Who develops games on Cf
The main audience of the engine - fans, for whom the creation of games is a hobby. Therefore, the quality of most games leaves much to be desired. If to compare with last year, the number of developers who want to earn and make good games in the designer has grown. As a rule, these are indie singles or small teams. I hope that this influx will give an impetus to the Cf team to develop more actively towards business. Also, the engine is often used when prototyping a mechanic for large games.
Popular games developed on Cf
Five nights at Freddy's - IOS, PC
Slayin - IOS
Fort Meow - PC
Pitiri 1977 - PC
OddPlanet Lite - IOS
Pocket Ninjas - IOS
Megacity - ios
Atomic Santa: Christmas Omega - PC
Silence of the sleep - PC
Concrete jungle - PC
Six o'clock high - Android
The complete list here is steamcommunity.com/app/248170/discussions/0/666828126951531546
Total
At the moment I have two games assembled on Cf, the last of them is the design puzzle My Maze for ios. The big disadvantage was that by starting negotiations with the publisher, it became necessary to embed some sdk responsible for analytics. And here cf let me down a lot, the publisher has ready solutions for unity, and integration through my constructor is either very complicated or impossible. Therefore, you have to redo the whole game on the unity or refuse the publisher. Try not to make my mistake and think in advance what sdk you may need and whether it is possible to integrate them into the game. However, in my opinion, every game designer should be able to work in designers. This allows you to be less dependent on other members of the team, primarily on programmers. In addition, not all games need 3D, and Cf provides enough tools for creating 2D games. The most important advantage of the designer is the speed and ease of development.
Game maker
This is one of the oldest gaming middleware engines. GM was originally developed by the Dutch scientist Mark Overmass for teaching primary school children programming skills and worked exclusively under Windows. After version 8, Overmass sold GM to YoYo Games, while he focused on learning issues. YoYo Games retained the concept and interface, but rewrote the engine so that it became multiplatform. Now a game written in GM can be relatively easily exported to many platforms: iOS, Android, Mac, XBox, PS3, HTML5, etc. Each module can be purchased separately for relatively little money (there are no monthly payments).
')
In fact, this multiplatform nature, of course, carries with it problems - for example, I did not succeed in launching my own game running on iOS and Android on HTML5 — many functions work under one platform and do not work under another. And just debugging and running, for example, under iOS can be quite painful, so you will sometimes need the help and advice of an experienced developer. However, as far as I know, many similar engines sin with this.
Nevertheless, the main reason for which the GM has attracted me in due time is the very low “entry threshold”, i.e. learning how to make games under GM is very easy. As I already said, initially GM was developed as an educational program for children, so if you are not more stupid than an 8-year-old child, you can understand GM. The Pacman type tutorial included in the distribution kit demonstrates how a game is created by simply dragging blocks of structures from the current set, then literally from cubes.
The basic concept of GM is very simple. There is a room - this is the screen where everything happens. In the editor of the room we place game objects - walls, monsters. Objects have a set of events (for example, a collision event with a solid object), and each event has a list of actions that occur when this event is activated. Also, you need to attach a sprite image to the object.
But unlike a large number of other engines, the GM steepness is only apparent. Action cubes are only a predetermined tip of an iceberg called GML — GameMaker Language. Dragging the “execute code” action into the object, you can program the code manually using a large number of powerful functions and a very simple syntax.
Support for scripts, any audio formats, editor of paths, fonts, editor of texture and sprite sets, as well as a good resource store and the ability to add your own extensions - GM’s ability to create 2D games is actually very good. 3D and I have not tried, but I don’t remember the successful products in this style made on GM.
Add to this a lively forum and good technical support - and it will be clear why I consider GM as the best engine for non-programmers. It can also be used to quickly prototype individual ideas.
For example, being quite an experienced GM user (but not being a programmer), I did the first episode of Who Is The Killer, working 2-3 hours in the evenings, for 4 months.
Summarizing.
Minuses:
- The difficulty of debugging;
- Different work under different platforms (because there are too many of them!);
- The inability to climb to the "low level" (for example, memory);
- Unstable behavior of new versions;
- Delays in updates that support the new platform functionality (for example, I waited a month until a GM update appeared that supports versioning for a new at that time iOS 8).
Pros:
- Low threshold learning. Literally everyone can start making games;
- Simple internal language with powerful features;
- Multiple platform support. And relatively small one-time prices for the relevant modules;
- Very high speed of creating basic gameplay and prototypes.
Interesting projects can be found here: www.yoyogames.com/showcase
Construct 2
The first version of the Construct Classic engine was released in 2007 by two brothers from England. Prior to that, they took part in the development of Multimedia Fusion, but in the end, they decided to use their skills to create their own engine. At the moment, Construct Classic is not officially supported, but many continue to use and develop it.
Construct 2 was released in 2011. From the environment for creating HTML5 games, it has grown into a multiplatform engine.
But, unfortunately, not everything is so smooth and rosy. Export to additional platforms is carried out using third-party programs and packers. Performance suffers, especially on mobile devices. Although, with due diligence and knowledge of the program, you can achieve a good result. Examples include the mobile game Mortar Melon:
As for the development environment itself, it is very convenient. I would even say that this is the most convenient and easy-to-learn constructor. Game programming is carried out using the event system.
In the constructor there is a system of particle, as well as OpenGL effects. You can also highlight audio effects (filters, sound positioning), the ability to create multiplayer using WebRTC, built-in “path finding”, physics, and a full-fledged debugger with a profiler. Another happy testing via wi-fi. Click to start the game and see how it already works on your mobile devices. There is support for the program for skeletal animation Spriter.
As for official support, it is timely. Frequently asked for the source to quickly solve your problem. Updating the program to occur quite often, which is very pleasing. As a rule, this is not only correcting errors, but also adding additional functionality.
The community at Construct 2 is just awesome. People are always ready to help. Almost always, people solve your problem and attach the source. The forum itself is replete with various examples and lots of useful information.
The designer is suitable for everyone. Both for full game development and prototyping. It allows you to create a game in any 2D genre. I most often use Construct 2 for rapid development during various game jams.
The designer helped me focus on other tasks and not spend time writing code.
Several games made with Construct 2:
Clickteam fusion 2.5
Behind the Clickteam company are projects such as Klik and Play, The Games Factory and Multimedia Fusion. In early 2014, they released Clickteam fusion 2.5 (hereinafter Cf) and export modules for ios and android. During this period, there was my first acquaintance with the engine. Cf immediately liked its ease of development and promising features. More than a year has passed, during this time I have accumulated a lot of experience that I want to share.
This constructor was selected for the following reasons:
- The ability to quickly create prototypes;
- No need for complex programming;
- Low price, in steam with all the modules will be released about 10,000 rubles (in certain places you can download for free);
- You can create a full-fledged commercial product under ios, android.
I had doubts about the last point, since there were very few quality games released on Cf and many familiar developers were very critical of creating full-fledged games in the designer. With experience, doubts were dispelled. So, what is the constructor Cf.
Interface
Compared to Unity or Cryengine it looks outdated, but in terms of ease of operation and speed of development, it wins noticeably. Only 8 working windows, and the main work takes place in 4. Despite the simplicity of the structure, some advanced options are hard to find.
Supported Platforms
At the moment, you can release the game on ios, android, pc, html 5, Flash, Ouya.
Genre Preferences
The Cf developers claim that the designer allows you to make any game in 2-d. I would say that it is best suited for games that take place with a static camera (match-3, puzzles, flash bards, quests, card games, etc.). Built-in physics engine 2d-box allows you to play with physics. For example, the well-known cut the rope used 2d-box. Many indie developers make platformers on cf, but for this genre, I would prefer Unity, for faster.
Opportunities to develop on mobile platforms
With the release of the game under ios, using the functions inside the designer, you can embed geolocation in the game, use the accelerometer, in-app purchases, iad and Chartboost banner ads, zoom, multitouch, joystick simulation. The built-in admob setting is available only for android, and Unity ads will have to be added via xcode. For ios, Game Center with leaderboards and achivkas is also supported, as well as multiplayer with matchmaking. I can’t say anything about the latter. On Cf mostly made single games.
Game testing
Press f8 and the game starts in a separate window. For testing on devices, you need to export to xcode or apk. Here lies the inconvenience of working with xcode. Cf works only on Windows, the engine cannot be started on a Mac without having a virtual machine. Since I work on Windows, I also had to install a virtual machine in order to test games on real devices. I recommend VMware Player, on the Internet is freely available. Also, you need to download the latest version of the operating system emulator for Mac. Completed apk and xcode files take no more than a minute for completed games. For prototypes it is seconds.
Optimization for different devices
When compiling the game, you need to select the type of display on the display. There are several options for good optimization for portrait and landscape orientation. I will not go into much detail, a large article can be found on the Cf forum, I can only say that if you do not think about this point at the beginning of development, you will have problems. Some tips for understanding the big picture:
- Remove all items away from the edge of the screen, so as not to lose them due to different aspect ratios on different devices.
- Usually, when developing an interface in Cf, the following formulas are used: At the beginning of the frame, set the “start” button to coordinate Y = “upper edge of the screen + N pixels”, where N is set on the basis of our tasks. Thus, the interface is always on the screen and is not eaten on different devices.
- For different devices in Cf, you can make one version of the game, which will be full-screen on all ios devices. On android more difficult, but also real.
Technical support
I experienced the warmest emotions turning to Cf for help. Quickly, on business, they can even send a ready piece of code to explain something. During the day the answer always came. At the weekend, however, do not work. Separately, I want to highlight the forum. Visually, he is not very (like www.gamedev.ru , sorry for being frank), but very informative. Many ready-made solutions and useful blogs. Apple ipod extractor support Very competent guys.
Engine Update and Extensions
Inside the program there is an extension manager that contains many free objects that facilitate the work of the developer. Periodically there is something new. In general, the engine does not develop as quickly as it should. When ios 8 came out, Cf did not have time to release the update of the exporter, because of which the developers who updated their devices lost the opportunity to test games for them. It took about two weeks to fix this problem. Moreover, it turned out that only the owners of the steam-version of the engine were unlucky. Cf also has its own store, which is still quite small. I had to buy an “share for Facebook” asset in it, but it turned out to be not so simple. Payment in the store is made through google wallet. I dutifully tied my card to this service, agreed to all the conditions, but everything was stuck. Multiple repetition of the procedure was not successful. Maybe you can do it.
Who develops games on Cf
The main audience of the engine - fans, for whom the creation of games is a hobby. Therefore, the quality of most games leaves much to be desired. If to compare with last year, the number of developers who want to earn and make good games in the designer has grown. As a rule, these are indie singles or small teams. I hope that this influx will give an impetus to the Cf team to develop more actively towards business. Also, the engine is often used when prototyping a mechanic for large games.
Popular games developed on Cf
Five nights at Freddy's - IOS, PC
Slayin - IOS
Fort Meow - PC
Pitiri 1977 - PC
OddPlanet Lite - IOS
Pocket Ninjas - IOS
Megacity - ios
Atomic Santa: Christmas Omega - PC
Silence of the sleep - PC
Concrete jungle - PC
Six o'clock high - Android
The complete list here is steamcommunity.com/app/248170/discussions/0/666828126951531546
Total
At the moment I have two games assembled on Cf, the last of them is the design puzzle My Maze for ios. The big disadvantage was that by starting negotiations with the publisher, it became necessary to embed some sdk responsible for analytics. And here cf let me down a lot, the publisher has ready solutions for unity, and integration through my constructor is either very complicated or impossible. Therefore, you have to redo the whole game on the unity or refuse the publisher. Try not to make my mistake and think in advance what sdk you may need and whether it is possible to integrate them into the game. However, in my opinion, every game designer should be able to work in designers. This allows you to be less dependent on other members of the team, primarily on programmers. In addition, not all games need 3D, and Cf provides enough tools for creating 2D games. The most important advantage of the designer is the speed and ease of development.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/252367/
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