deltaphc

Edit: D'oh! Just found the other thread about Construct. Didn't expect it to be there. Sorry about that. It's likely that no one here knows me, so hi. I was actually into Sonic fangaming several years ago, and submitted a couple things to SFGHQ back then. They probably no longer exist as they were complete crap, but yeah. Anyway, I know enough that you guys tend to use Clickteam products or Game Maker. Recently I came across a third, very viable alternative, called Construct. Info: http://scirra.com/info.php Download: http://scirra.com/download.php It's difficult to explain in just one post what it can do compared to MMF2 or Game Maker, but put very basically, you could see Construct as combining the best of both MMF2 and Game Maker into one nice package, while adding some of its own things. Some highlights: Powered by DirectX 9. Includes an event editor, similar to MMF. Can include an arbitrary number of event sheets inside another event sheet, so that gives you global events. Can use Python scripting in conjunction with events, so you can very easily code whatever crazy platforming algorithms as needed. Python scripts have access to all objects in a Layout (a Frame in MMF terms). However, it's not required to use scripting; as in MMF, you can program the logic of everything with events. Being DX9-powered comes with benefits, such as being able to apply pixel shader effects to sprites, and having hardware-accelerated scaling, rotation, color filters, and opacity control. As in MMF2, it includes a Layers feature. Each layer can have its own scrolling/zoom rate, in addition to having effects applied to the whole layer (such as pixel shaders). Object familes/groups, multiple movements, private/user-defined object variables, global objects. Built-in 2D rigid-body physics engine. A nice, modern, tabbed interface. Includes a whole suite of objects and movements, comparable to MMF, and it's extensible via an SDK. Export to standalone EXE's. And much more. Free and open-source. The author has plans for future versions to have better 3D support, as well as cross-platform deployment (Mac/Linux). At the moment, despite having a ton of features, Construct can still be considered "beta", so it's not perfect. Currently at version 0.91. Unfortunately there's no way to import MMF/GM projects into Construct, so I don't expect anyone to just drop what they're doing and migrate over, but for new games, it's yet another great option. Screenshots: