Topic: Question about starting a game in Clickteam fusion 2.5

[C Belmont]

I'm considering checking out Clickteam Fusion 2.5 and I was just wondering if any of the Fusion 2.5 users here could answer a quick question i have related to creating a Castlevania style platform game with the software.

Creating a custom movement with fast loops or using the Platform Movement Extension were regarded as the best  solutions for a platform game when I was using MMF2 a few years back. Is that still the case with Fusion 2.5 or are the internal Box2D physics that have since been introduced stable enough to use with a large project?. If I recall correctly MMF2's original built in movements were generally riddled with problems.
Thanks.

[BMC_War Machine]

Either creating you own custom engine or using the Platform Movement Object is the way to go, as well as using loops like before.  Doing either comes with it's pros and cons.  Honestly i'm still conflicted as to which i would rather choose over the other lol but that's mainly because i've been using MMF for years. 

Platform Movement Object (PMO):
Pros
- fast to setup and easy to test/debug
- adjustable variables on the fly i.e speed,gravity,jump strength etc
- automatic slope detection
- easy setup for jumpthrough platforms

Cons
- activating/deactivating groups can be tricky, causing issues with various movement types
- steeper learning curve (IMO) when coding enemy AI using spread ID values (this never really made sense to me lol)
- coding things like stairs ( considering its a CV style game) can be a little hairy, lots of tweaking to get it "close" to being right


Custom Engine
Pros
- setting it up the way you want it
- much more control over movements/event triggers etc
- easier to activate/deactivate groups without breaking, really useful for camera pans for boss events/drawbridges/etc
- things like stairs are much more friendly lol.  You will be using actual X,Y coordinates vs velocity like in the PMO.
- learn a bit more about how values work and how they affect things

Cons
- overall steeper learning curve
- no automatic slope detection (can be coded)
- a few more "sensor" objects needed to work, i.e floor sensor. (At least in my case, may not be necessary)

Really it's going to be more of one of those things you'll need to play around with both to see which one suits you the best.  I've used the PMO for years and its a fantastic extension, probably the most used extension out of any i've worked with.  But the more i've used MMF the more comfortable i have gotten with building one from the ground up.  For me, it is a bit more work but this way i know exactly what i need to adjust to make things work the way i want them to, but YMMV.  If you haven't already, you should check out Chaos' Advanced Platform Tutorial on the Clickteam Forum for a fantastic PMO tutorial and also DavidN's Custom Platform Tutorial on making you own.  Try out both and see which one fits for you better.  With either choice though, there's more than enough to make a completed game with.  Good luck! 

[ProjectDread]

War_Machine is pretty spot on with his assessment. I personally never use the built-in Advanced Platform Movement object myself, it seems like it has a lot of cool features but built-in things like that usually give you a lot of problems if you need to tackle specific movement related circumstances (such as Castlevania-styled stairs, player being knocked back by different damage types, swapping from one movement type to another, etc.). Just because these things cause major headaches as your project continues, I'd recommend using fastloops and developing your own custom / "static" platform movement engine.

It has a steeper learning curve but ultimately I think it'll save you a lot more time in the long run. I'm developing a Castlevania fangame in Clickteam Fusion myself so if you need any pointers let me know and perhaps I can give you a hand. Good luck!

[C Belmont]

Thanks for all of your responses I'm surprised custom engines are so popular, I'm probably going to go with the PMO object myself at least for the moment. I was using Unity previously with some success following Sebastian Lague's platform tutorial but one of the reasons I'm considering Fusion again is because I didn't like getting bogged down with code for every little thing in Unity so I'm gonna try and keep things simple if I can.

[piscesdreams]

I have dabbled with all three: the builtin platform movement, a custom engine and PMO.  If you have the skills and patience, a custom engine would be your best bet. Alternatively, PMO is fantastic. Stairs can be done with PMO, as well as ladders and ropes. PMO is much more user friendly than a custom engine, but you are a little more limited in terms of what you can do. A custom engine will only go so far as you design it to allow. If you do tackle a custom engine, really plan out what you want to be able to do with in every aspect and build it with those mechanics in mind. Plan, plan, plan.

Do not use the built in platform movement engine. It’s what I used mistakenly when I made CV Bloodletting. And, well...you might have seen what happened and how buggy it was.