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[Lobotomist]

As continuation from my previous post -
I am Designer trying to go solo team (Graphic&Programming)

> Aim is simple arcade games + interactive books
> Should be fairly easy for begginer but later give advanced options (scripting)
> Should publish on wide range of devices (mobile) and have good performance on them

Now I narrowed my list to either Game Maker or Construct 2

> Construct 2 : Seems easy to visually work with and expendable enough , its also cheaper than GM. But rumor is that HTML5 games have horrible performance on mobile devices.

> Game Maker : Harder to work with than Construct 2 , quite expensive , but seems to have much better mobile performance + many allready published project that prove the value (but than again its much longer available)

...

Please help me decide.

Especially people that have some experience with said platforms , and have published for phones lately.

Thanks

[Nillo]

My experience with Construct 2 is that it ran very slowly on my netbook (Asus EEE 901) even though it's usually able to handle indie games. I haven't tested it extensively so it's possible that I was just using the program incorrectly, but as of now I haven't been able to make any action games that worked well on my netbook using that program, which I could in the original Construct.

I don't know what the performance is like on a handheld device, but I can imagine the results would be similar.

[Lobotomist]

Thanks,

BTW Do you have experience with similar programs (Game maker) that did run ok on your netbook ?

[Nillo]

Thanks,

BTW Do you have experience with similar programs (Game maker) that did run ok on your netbook ?

Sadly no. I've only used Construct 1 and 2 recently, and Multimedia Fusion/The Games Factory before that (those programs all work in a similar way so it was easy for me to transfer my old TGF/MMF skills to Construct).

[eyeliner]

Considering both have a trial, test them extensively, and purchase them only if you feel you have reached the limit of said trials and if you feels confident it is suited for the task you want.

Regarding performance:

Construct has no chance on desktop publishing. It has to rely on wrappers and converting hocus-pocus that always makes the program output almost unplayable .exe games. This blows. Hard.

GameMaker has native exporters that are suited to the task at hand.

GameMaker has programing, Construct 2 does not.

Find your poison and use it the best you can/want.

[Amirai]

C2 games for mobile vary considerably in performance - you have to be very careful about stuff like overdraw and not trying to do too much at once but many people have made smooth 60 fps mobile games with it. There are currently some problems with the new version of cocoonjs on iOS, but it's being worked on.

My experience with Construct 2 is that it ran very slowly on my netbook (Asus EEE 901) even though it's usually able to handle indie games. I haven't tested it extensively so it's possible that I was just using the program incorrectly, but as of now I haven't been able to make any action games that worked well on my netbook using that program, which I could in the original Construct.

I don't know what the performance is like on a handheld device, but I can imagine the results would be similar.

Construct has no chance on desktop publishing. It has to rely on wrappers and converting hocus-pocus that always makes the program output almost unplayable .exe games. This blows. Hard.

C2 uses node webkit for exporting, which is basically chrome given extra abilities and made to look like a normal application instead of a browser. While the code execution speed isn't as fast as native, it's easily enough for the vast majority of games on desktop.

And believe it or not, C2 actually renders faster than construct classic does. The performance problems you're encountering are almost undoubtedly a result of having a graphics card or driver that google for whatever reason decided to blacklist, resulting in it using software rendering instead. You can view the blacklist here: http://www.khronos.org/webgl/wiki/BlacklistsAndWhitelists#Chrome_on_Windows

It is possible to turn the blacklist off if you want to, though the process is not straightforward, and it could cause visual glitches.

For computers that aren't blacklisted, the performance is great. I get a nice silky smooth 60 fps at 1920x1080 on an amd 4400+ with a 9800gt.

[Nillo]

It is possible to turn the blacklist off if you want to, though the process is not straightforward, and it could cause visual glitches.

Fair enough, but I can't expect everyone else who plays my game to go through all of that as well. This advice is only useful in the context of a single machine.

[Amirai]

Sorry, I should have been clearer - the players don't have to do any of that, the dev can set it up so it's a checkbox or something in game (the exe will need to be restarted though).

[Uykered]

Construct 2 is the best possible 2D game making software currently. The mobile stuff is getting better with time, as it did with desktop.

[feminazi]

game maker. theyre supporting every platform and it's still the only game making tool that makes any cents to use. (like every object being global, the only way games could ever be made without a headache)

[Blademasterbobo]

if you are capable of typing on a keyboard, construct is a huge pain in the ass

[Conker534]

I use Game Maker and I love it

[Leon Fook]

if you are capable of typing on a keyboard, construct is a huge pain in the ass

[RyanHuggins]

I'm a student of game design and I've been using Game Maker for awhile now and, personally, I really love it. However, I've also heard that a lot of developers like Construct 2 as well. Now, I haven't used Construct 2 directly, so anything I have to say about it is based on what I have heard from other students who are using it or from articles that I have read.

Construct 2
Construct 2 is a tool much like Multimedia Fusion 2, which means that you won't be doing any scripting in the editor; though unlike other engines that provide drag and drop or non-scripting interfaces, it will allow you to create fairly complicated systems akin to systems that you would be making without a scripting language. To this end, it's a fully functional engine and despite not having a scripting language, it seems that people can do pretty much the same things in Construct 2 as they do in Game Maker.

I personally like the feeling of "control" that you get when using an actual language versus little code blocks so I personally prefer the GM (or straight up coding approach (C++, AS3, whatever)) to game development.

I can't vouch for the performance, but I hear that it's pretty solid. Consider that Construct is a lot like Multimedia Fusion 2 which has been used to make games like Knytt Stories and Treasure Adventure Game (if I am remembering correctly). Both are pretty solid games.

Game Maker or GM: Studio
Until recently, I've been using Game Maker 7, 8 and 8.1. Literally, you can look any number of places and see the kinds of ridiculous things people make with the non-studio versions of Game Maker. Super Crate Box, Hotline Miami, a huge number of the games made on this site and sites like Game Jolt are made with Game Maker.

I don't really want to plug my own game, but I made and released a game in GM 8.1 called Dolphin Squadron (http://acpcproductions.com/ds/). It's an arcade-style game and is probably a good indicator of the type of things that you might want to make? (arcade-style game). Keep in mind that it's a student-made game, but GM can do much, much more than this. Haha.

I just recently decided to start using GM: Studio, which I purchased almost a year ago just because it was on sale; and so far, other than a fair number of quirks, it's pretty solid software that has a trajectory for being great. In a lot of ways, it's just GM with some new (useful) features like an improved room editor and the ability to port to multiple platforms; but atm it's more difficult to create extensions (or impossible) and the sound engine (even if it's better) only lets you play a single BGM at once (so vertical reorchestration (dynamic music like in Skyrim) is hard/impossible). In old GM you could just use one of many sound extensions. Pretty much that means that some of the things that Windows only GM can do, Studio can't yet do (if only because of the export addition).

At the same time though, Studio is adding some seriously interesting features with the new 1.2 update and a lot of the issues with it are slated to be fixed/improved in the coming...years probably, but they're on the list.

So yeah, I can prototype arcade games in < a day in GM and larger games in a week or two. My tendency to polish prototypes though, means I'm a bit slower than most. Haha.

Anyway, I like GM because of the scripting language and I've been using it for awhile, so I'm biased. I also use AS3, some C++ and pretty much whatever I want, but GM is my go to for a new (serious) indie project atm.

[Lobotomist]

Thanks Ryan , this is very helpfull 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

as someone who has been using GM for 8 years i say don't use either GM or construct 2, go with unity. it's slightly more expensive, but much more capable. i don't see any reason to use GM over unity, even though i'm using it (mainly because when i began my current game unity didn't exist / wasn't as capable)

if you absolutely must choose between those two however, GM is probably a better choice because it's more like "real" programming than construct 2 is, so it'll teach you more about game development. when you move to other engines (and you inevitably will have to) GM will give you a better base of knowledge to transition off of than construct 2 will, and make it easier to learn other engines

[Lobotomist]

But I dont care about 3d

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

of course, but i mean in terms of 2d. unity is more capable in 2d than either GM or construct 2 is. it's notable that of the 10 unity games on steam, 8 of those 10 are 2d games.

[Lobotomist]

Can you give me a good example ?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

this list is somewhat outdated (april of this year) but it's a good list; it turns out there are 13 unity games on steam, not 10 as i remembered there being:

http://www.mrphilgames.com/what-unity-games-are-on-steam/

of those, most of them are 2D, and most of the 2D ones are beyond what game maker and construct 2 are capable of