Friday, October 14, 2016

Construct2 : Flash Behaviour and Effects not working in cocoon.io build games on iPad

Flash Behaviour and Effects do not work in iPad when using cocoon.io to build your games, using canvas+

Construct2: How to use cocoon.io's Dev App in IOS

1.  Export your Construct2 as cordova app as usual. Then delete the config.xml, as usual and zip it and upload to cocoon.io.

2. After doing the settings, click Build Dev App. Download the iOS Dev App

3. Unzip it to get the xarchive file. Use Xcode to export as Ad Hoc app signing it with the ad hoc dev key which you earlier created in the developer.apple portal.  After exporting you will get an ipa file.

4. Plug in your iPad to your Mac and fire up iTunes.  Drag the ipa file to the Library in iTunes. Then click on iPad device. Goto the list of Apps. Click Install. It will change to "Will Install". Click on Sync button and it will be copied to the iPad. You have now installed the Dev App to your iPad.


To test your construct2 game.

1. Export your construct2 game as cordova as usual. Then delete the config.xml, as usual. Then zip it and upload to your website.  Then get the link to your uploaded file and use an online qrcode generator (e.g. kaywa qrcode) to generate the QR code.

2.  On your iPad, run the Dev App and select URL. Once you tap in the URL selection text box, the Scan QR Code Button will appear. Tap on it and scan the QR code in Step 1 above.

3  Then Select Canvas+ at bottom to open it and run your game.



Thursday, October 13, 2016

Cocoon.io Developer App

Excellent article on developer app right from the horse's mouth

Construct2 : How to solve blank icon problem when using cocoon.io to build for iOS

This happens because you used jpg files when uploading the icon


To solve this problem, make sure you upload 1024 x 1024 png files for IOS icon and also Default icon.  Do not use jpg icons. Also if this fails to solve your problem, make sure you delete all icons in your construct2 editor. You can do this in the Project browser on the right of the Construct2 editor. Just scroll down to the Icon folder and delete all the icons there. That will force cocoon.io to regenerate all the icons.

Construct2 : How to solve white bars on top and bottom in landscape mode iPad

When designing a recent game, I used 1280 x 720 resolution window. It worked fine on Android but on iPad i see white bars on top and bottom of screen.  I was using Letterbox scale.

To solve the problem, I followed the advice here.


And it worked. Bascially, you need to set your window to 16 : 9 aspect ratio, eg, 1280 x 720, or 1600 x 900 etc. and use Scale Inner.

So, I used 1280 x 720 and Scale Inner for the property "Fullscreen in browser" and some of the sprites on the left and right edges got cut off. So, I moved them inwards on both sides, and it worked beautifully.

I chose 1280 x 720 instead of 1600 x 900 because, if you chose the latter, your background images might take up a lot of memory, making your game larger, especially if you are doing a perpetual-side-scrolling game which uses multiple background layers for parallax effects.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Construct2 : How to convert TTF font to SpriteFont



Step 1: Download this program:





Step 3.  After you have imported the sprite font into Construct2, click on the sprite font properties
and change its spacing to a negative value, e.g., -8 to reduce the spaces between the characters.



Note that there is no need to import any json scripts into Construct2.


Saturday, October 8, 2016

How to solve Symbol Tool error when submitting a Construct2 Cocoon.io build xarchive file to itunesconnect via xcode

After downloading the xarchive file from Cocoon.io.  You normally open the xarchive file in xcode to submit to itunesconnect.  If you get the error message Unable to .... Symbol Tool error, then the solution is very simple.

Just uncheck the " Include symbols ...."  when validating, or, submitting to itunesconnect. That's it!

construct2 : How to solve no sound for cocoon.io IOS builds

When exporting the cordova app from construct2, make sure you select ogg as well as m4a sound.  Whether or not IOS uses ogg files, you need to include it, or, else there is no sound.




Thursday, October 6, 2016

How to remove unnecessary permissions in androidmanifest in cocoon.io build

Login to your cocoon.io dashboard. Goto config settings and remove everything except this






Then, save and compile your android apk and download. The only permissions you get will be:

network 
wifi state
phone state

which is all needed by Admob.  You won't get all the other problematic privacy permissions like:

delete modify sd storage
gps location 
read address book

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

How to implement LocalStorage in Construct2

Step 1 is to check if a key exists. Fore example, "HighScore"

Steps 2, 3 and 4 :

The crucial part is Step 4. You need to wait for the "Get" result to come back before you can fetch tie ItemValue and use it - very un-intuitive. If you miss this step and just assigned your ItemValue at Step 3 then you'll be pulling your hair out wondering why LocalStorage seems to fail.




How to solve unresponsive buttons in Construct2

First of all, if you are going to use Cocoon.io to build your games, you should use sprites as buttons, do not use the Buttons object. If you used Buttons objects, then after compiling with Cocoon.io, the buttons will be invisible.

Next, make sure that the sprites for the buttons "Collisions" property is set to "Enabled". Next, for each sprite, make sure that the "Collision Polygon" is set to "Bounding Box". The default is set to follow the outline of the sprite - which is bad and reduces the surface area which can be touched. So set it to bounding box. See the picture below.


Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Construct2: How to solve black screen when running cocoon.io builds on android device

To solve this problem, make sure that in "Project Settings", you set "Loader Style" to "Nothing".


See the comments by DeXVinogradov :

"Also standard Splash screen C2 conflicts with splash screen Cocoon.IO and a black screen appears."

Monday, October 3, 2016

How to add OR conditions in Construct2

It is easy to add AND conditions in Construct2. Just right-click on an event, then select "add another condition". The default behaviour is to add the new condition as an "AND" condition. But how do we add another "OR" condition?

Watch this video on how to do it

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Coocoon.io e-book

You should buy this e-book:

https://www.scirra.com/store/ebooks/quick-starter-ebook-1893

to get you started on how to use cocoon.io to build your construct2 games. In addition, it also teaches you how to create games in construct2.  After reading some pages, I realize that cocoon.io does not support Buttons, you need to use sprites to make buttons.

At time of writing the book costs only USD2.59 and it is the least we can do to support cocoon.io and Andreas.