Chapter 2. Hello World! Construct Style

Now that we know how to navigate around the interface, we can move on to making games. The first, we'll be making is a platformer, such as the classic Mario and Sonic, the Hedgehog games.

In this chapter, we are going to:

Learn more about sprites, as well as how they can be animated
Learn how to use the tiled background object to make levels and backgrounds
Learn how to set the attributes of objects
Learn what behaviors are and how they affect objects
Learn what private and global variables are and how to define them
Use textboxes to display information to the player
Use events to control the game

So let's get started!

Sprites revisited

We've already covered the creation of a sprite object in Chapter 1, Our First Look at Construct. We'll now learn to create animations for them and get them ready for a real game. These skills are needed for making player and enemy sprites in nearly any game made in Construct.

Sprites revisited

We've already covered the creation of a sprite object in Chapter 1, Our First Look at Construct. We'll now learn to create animations for them and get them ready for a real game. These skills are needed for making player and enemy sprites in nearly any game made in Construct.

Time for action — creating a player sprite

We are now going to make our player object and set the animations for it.

1. Start a blank game project (similar to the one we created in Chapter 1, Our First Look at Construct), and give it the name MyPlatformer. Then enter your author name in the Creator box.
Note
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2. Next, add a sprite into the layout.
3. We're now going to need some player graphics. You can use Construct's Picture Editor to make these or use a painting program of your choice. For this game, the player is ball-shaped and rolls around the map. It has animation frames for falling, jumping, dying, and winning a level. See the following reference image (exact image size does not matter, as the player...

Tiled backgrounds: defining the world

If you tried making a large image out of individual tile sprites, you'd quickly tire of trying to position each one. It is equally troublesome to store a large level in a single image, as they would take up too much video memory.

This is where the tiled background comes into picture. It repeats the same graphic, for as long and wide as you stretch it. These are great for making levels and worlds!

Time for action — make some tiled backgrounds

We are now going to make two tiled backgrounds: one for the grass that our player walks along, and the other for the dirt underneath.

1. First, we'll create the grass background object. Once again, open the Insert object box. Instead of a sprite, insert a Tiled Background object from the group Game.
2. Now draw the image for your grass. It does not need a hotspot, as the hotspot of a tiled background is always in the top-left corner.
3. Now name it Grass, and move on to making another one called Dirt. Position them to form an initial platform underneath the player, as in the following screenshot:
4. Change the Width of the layout to 1000 and the Height of the layout to 800. Then, make the entire level by copy-and-pasting (or dragging from the Objects bar) the grass and dirt objects around the layout, as shown in the following screenshot. You can use Ctrl and the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out of the layout.
5. Finally, set the layout background...

Attributes: telling Construct more about our objects

We are now going to learn about attributes. These can be thought of as a list of features about objects. An example of this is how apples, bananas, and oranges are all fruits.

In Construct, attributes can be custom-made, but there are also some built-in ones with special uses we'll be looking at.

Time for action — adding attributes to our objects

We are now going to give each of our objects the Solid attribute so that they can collide with each other. We will also give the player the Center view on me attribute so that the screen scrolls with the player.

1. Click on the player sprite and expand the Groups menu. Then expand the Attributes submenu. We can now tick the two boxes Solid and Centre view on me. The end result is shown in the following screenshot:
2. Now move on to give the Solid attribute to the grass and dirt tiled backgrounds.
3. To stop the player leaving the level, create a new tiled background called WorldBorder and place three of them: one for the bottom and two for the sides of the layout, as in the following screenshot. Tick Solid for these as well.
4. Finally, scroll down to the Properties menu (outside of Groups), and untick Transparent fill for the WorldBorder object and choose WebGreen as the Fill color. Notice in the following screenshot, the world border on the...

Behaviors: teaching objects how to act

In this segment, we'll be looking at the platform behavior and how to tweak it. Behaviors are pre-made movements and actions that an object performs in certain situations. They all have varying levels of customization, but when used correctly, can speed up game development tenfold.

Time for action — getting our player moving

Now we can give our player the platform behavior and try it out when we run the game. This is the first step in making the game interactive.

1. Select the player sprite, and scroll down the left-side menu to the Behaviors group. Then, click on Add in the New Behavior box. We now see the following screenshot:
2. Our player object now has the ability to move around using the arrow keys and jump using the Shift key. Run the game to see this in action.
3. Now we can look at the settings for the behavior in the left screen. Change the Jump Strength and Max floor speed values, as in the following screenshot, until they control how you would want them to:
4. Finally, if you'd like to change the controls of the game, bring up the game properties menu and scroll down to the Controls menu. Then use the drop-down boxes to choose keys for each movement, as in the following screenshot:

What just happened?

Our character can now move around the level at the player...

Variables: private and global

A variable is used to store a value that can change. These are useful in every game for keeping score and tracking the player's lives or health. In Construct, a private variable is stored by an object itself and can be different for each copy of that object. Meanwhile, a global variable is stored between layouts throughout the program.

Time for action — giving our player a life

In video games, a player gets a Game Over when the character they control runs out of lives. Right now, our player doesn't have that luxury, so let's change that. In our game, the player will have a Score private variable to store how many enemies they stomped in that life, while a Lives global variable stores how many lives they have left before they lose.

1. Open the left menu for our player again. Scroll down to the Private Variables group, and click on Add/Edit to get a window similar to the following screenshot:
2. Now click on the plus button and create a number named Score. Leave the value of it at 0 and click on OK. Then click on Done in the private variable manager screen.
3. To finish, make a global variable Lives. To do so, open the right menu, and in the project tab, right-click on the item Global variables and click on the context item Add global variable, as in the following screenshot, when it appears:
Set the value to 3 and click on...

Textboxes: giving the player a heads-up

Textboxes are used to write information to the player. They can tell the game story, or tell the player how they are doing. They are important in most games as they can be used to teach the player how to play, as well as guide them through the levels.

Time for action — showing our player their health and score

We are now going to make two textboxes: one is to tell the player the score, and the other is to tell the player how many lives the character they are controlling has left. We'll also learn how to keep these textboxes on the screen with the player.

1. First, we will need to add a new layer to the layout. To do this, open the Layers tab on the right-hand menu, and click on the upward pointing paper button to make a new top layer.
2. Layers can be modified similar to objects. Open the left menu and rename the text layer to HUD (Heads Up Display), and the other layer to Game.
3. In the layer properties for HUD, change the Scroll X Rate and Scroll Y Rate percentages to 0. This keeps all objects on the HUD layer in the same position on the screen while the game is running.
4. Now, make sure the HUD layer is highlighted, as shown in step 2. This means each object we make is created on that layer. Insert two new Text objects to the layout...

Events: setting the rules and goals of a game

We are now going to learn a little of the biggest part of game-making in Construct. Events are used to define the very logic of a game and play an integral role in complex games.

For now, we'll be learning how to use them in this game to keep their lives and score updated.

Time for action — very eventful games

When the player's character touches deadly spikes, we know they should lose health or die, but how does the game know this? That's where we are heading. First, we need to learn how to create events in the Event Sheet Editor.

1. Add a new sprite to the Game layer, which will be the end goal, and place it at the end of your level. Name it Goal, and give it the Bounding box collisions mode.
2. Now put some sprites around your level named Hazard. They can be lava, saw blades, spikes, or any other contraption you can think of. However, this time they will keep Per Pixel collisions mode.
3. Now we are ready to switch to the Event Sheet Editor tab. Right-click while in the Event Sheet Editor, and click on Insert event in the context menu that appears.
4. Each object can have its own conditions, but for now we are going to create an Always condition from the menu opened by double-clicking on the System object. The System object is included in every game.
5....

Summary

Now that we have started learning how to make platform games, we've covered a lot of the basics needed to make one with Construct.

We started this chapter with animated sprites, which are the most important object in any graphical games made with Construct Classic. Then we learned about tiled backgrounds, which decrease the difficulty in making large maps. We then used some attributes to define which objects are solid and learned that the Player object must have the camera centered on it at all times.

After that, we gave the Player object movement with the Platform behavior, a pre-made movement designed for 2D platformer games. Our Player object then gained a personal score counter and some lives to add some challenge to the game. We then went on to add some textboxes that show the current score and lives, and then finished off the chapter with learning how to create events, the building blocks of any new gameplay elements we want to make.

Now that we've learned to do all this, we're...