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Construct 2 Exports to HTML5 and more

Construct 2 (Scirra)Exciting developments are underway at Scirra where the Construct game creation software is undergoing a rewrite.

Out will go Construct 0.99.96, which exports games to the .exe format, and in will come Construct 2 which will have HTML5 as its main export format. Exporting to HTML5 means that games made using Construct 2 will be playable across a wide variety of devices including iPhones and iPads, Android phones and tablets and computers running Windows, Linux or Mac.

While HTML5 support is not currently as standard for users of old devices the repositioning of Construct leaves it in a good place to take advantage of upcoming future growth in demand for HTML5 application creation.

Development of Construct 1 has now stopped aside for a few promised bug fixes and the two versions will not be compatible with each other.

An public preview of Construct 2 is now available to try but as it is so early in the development cycle its functionality is very much limited. A very basic example of a HTML5 game created using the engine can be found here (playable only if you are using a decent browser).

Unlike Construct 0.x which has been a free download Construct 2 will follow a pay-what-you-want distribution model similar to that we have seen in several Indie game sales.

Construct 2 will also contain built in support for third party exporters which community members will be able to write using a Exporter Development Kit to support the playing of games on new platforms.

A list of new features can be found here.

See also: 5 areas where Construct beats Game Maker

What do you think?

16 Comments

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  1. HTML5 is a great thing but it works not on every device and in every Browser. I like it to play Browsergames but if a Browsergame is made in HTML5 there a tons of peoples that could´t play this game because some browser don´t understand html5.. but i hope in future this problem will be fixed…

    Thanks for your Article 🙂

  2. yeah bad future this would make content theft very easy unless files are not wide open.

    Welcome to the internet. I can copy almost anything I see online – such games are actually web pages.

    Anyways, coincidentally, I was actually doing just what Construct is doing 1 day before this blog post!

    http://darkflow.net/game.php?id=0

    This is a demonstration of a HTML 5 powered Game-Maker-type game. The engine has support for rooms, objects, events, actions (which are separately defined and are built from Javascript code). There are already actions I made like ‘Set Sprite’ and ‘Jump to Position’.

    The blue ball has a step event where I use the action ‘Jump to Position’ with ‘Mouse_X’ and ‘Mouse_Y’. The red ball has a click event which does the action ‘Create Instance’ of ‘red ball’ at position Random(0, Room_Width) and Random(0, Room_Height). The red ball has a step event in itself to make it bounce (using VX and VY).

    All of the above is powered from an SQL database (?id=0 at end of link). I will write a converter next week which will push DS Game Maker games completely online. Then I will write a GM converter in Wales using the GM 8 decryptor code with the .NET code from that shiny new room editor.

    I will have to finish my HTML 5 engine first though. Keyboard events must be done, and also animated sprites. I will rewrite the loader to be faster (and safer – SQL injections!).

    Here is the exciting bit – my loader will detect the client USER AGENT and perform specific optimizations for it – it will serve the game at iPhone resolution for an iPhone and do more efficient blitting. It will do the same for iPad.

    What you’re looking at is GM for PC, iPad, iPhone… (maybe Android, but its browser sucks. Now I DID test it, but it was horribly slow).

    This game design way is also completely online as the games are served. Nothing to install.

    Have a play. Launching in summer or sooner.

    EDIT: Works ONLY in Firefox 4+, Chrome, (probably Safari), Opera. No IE at all.

  3. I want it to succeed. Being able to author straight to html is a beautiful thing, but what do you give up in exchange I wonder. BTW, after downloading the preview it won’t let me add any events, objects, etc. but maybe I’m doing something wrong.

    • I dont think so. That is only “pre-alpha testing” and you can get some better demo in scirra forum. When it’s full, it will be an awesome HTML5 game/web engine, will be able to make too much money! That’s I belive from Construct 0.x
      I’m GM user or must say, I’m GM FAN. I said that and that’s warning GM about hard competition.

  4. That’s actually slightly disappointing, in my opinion. HTML5 (a rather vague term) is still a long way off from being 1) standardized enough and 2) fast enough for even flash-level games.

    On the other hand, a lot of browsers are beginning to use hardware acceleration, and Game Maker’s done perfectly okay this long with what it has, so… maybe. In any case the potential is good, if not current implementations.

  5. o_O YoYo Games is going to be getting a lot more competition.
    Construct’s new logo looks a lot like Game Maker’s–except for the fact that Construct’s logo is better looking.

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