Should I buy Construct 2?

    So as you may have seen in the I'm planning to learn game development.

    My first priority is to design and prototype a 2D game. Construct 2 seems to have almost universally positive reviews, but I don't have much experience with it yet. The free edition also isn't fully featured and prohibits commercial use, but the tool is on sale until Monday.

    Do you guys think it's a wise bet to jump on the offer? Do any of you have experience with C2? I've been burned by impulse buys before… If it's any help, my games will use heavily procedural level generation.

    Pressed on time here guys…

    I think I've decided on the Personal edition ($71.40). I've bought game collections for more than that, so I guess it's reasonable… I really just need something to prototype in, but the free edition might still be too restrictive for me.

    If anyone wants to convince me otherwise, though, let me hear your wisdom I'll wait until tomorrow night before buying, so you'll have time to respond.

    My opinion: use Unity. It's got a few add-ons (including free ones) to handle 2D workflows better, and knowing Unity in and out will certainly benefit your future more than knowing Construct 2.

    That said, if you've figured out Construct 2 is EXACTLY what you need for that project, and don't mind learning it for maybe only that project, go wild!

    At least that's the conclusion I reached, looking myself into 2D game prospects.

    You have a good point Corwin, knowing Unity might come in handy later… Then again, knowing a wide range of tools tends to help me understand them better (I noticed this when going from PHP > Java > C#).

    Unity also seems pretty barebones, while C2 has lots of basic game functionality bundled. It seems more "designer friendly" overall, which is a definite plus for me as I don't have other programmers to work with at the moment. I understand the desire to know the inner workings of a program intimately, but it's not practical for me at the moment.

    Thanks for your response, reading it helped me reflect on my priorities. I'll still be going with C2, but not ruling out Unity for the future

    I acutally bought construct 2, but the thing that annoyed me a lot is that you can't export your game in.exe; only html 5 But maybe there's another way around really if you know it

    And i'm also affraid about memory issues if you try to make a very complex game into it

    I share your concerns, which is why I wouldn't make a memory intensive game with this. I figure it should be great for making simple game "prototypes", like how Derek Yu made Spelunky in Game Maker.

    I believe you can export to .exe now, it's just a WebKit wrapper though.

    Also, I just missed the offer! That's what I get for assuming it would last the whole day, I guess:

    Quote

    This sale will run until 6pm BST on Monday the 29th April

    Why even choose an arbitrary time like that? Jeez… Screw this, I'm waiting til the next offer

    o bought construct2 so i can export for mobile =)

    i tried to learn programming for a while, but you know, there's that kind of frustration when you just don't get things working as you want to.

    So i tried C2 and it was very simple (probably i'll find out the limitations) but so far so good. My personal project is to make a collection of small games (atari like scope) and then release it on android or something, you know, like an small arcade place... where you can enter and play those different arcade games.

    Cool! Let us know how you fare, simple games should be really quick done with C2. I'm actually experimenting with the free edition right now, I think I've already ran into a few limitations…

    For instance, I can't seem to manipulate the cursor to simulate weapon recoil. Might seem intrusive, but c'mon. It's a game. But yeah, nothing earth shattering yet.

    You mentioned yourself Derek Yu made spelunky in Gamemaker. Have you considered it?

    I haven't used either (I roll my own usually) but the one thing Gamemaker has over construct 2 is there have been a lot of awesome games made with it.

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