Pros & Cons
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- Intuitive visual programming language
- Supports JavaScript
- Exports to the web, mobile, and desktops
- Runs in browser and saves projects to the cloud
- Marketplace for 2D graphics, sound effects, and other assets
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- Limited 3D support
- Free trial is very limited
Construct Specs
| 3D Editing | |
| Community Marketplace / Gallery | |
| Platform | Android |
| Platform | iOS |
| Platform | Linux |
| Platform | Mac |
| Platform | Web |
| Platform | Windows |
| Starting Price | $129.99 per year |
People depend on mobile devices for many activities, so their productivity tools should be equally accessible. For example, I don’t tether myself to a word processor on a single PC when writing a review; I use cloud-based apps to pick up where I left off on multiple devices. Construct follows that principle. Along with being a capable game development tool, Construct’s cloud-connected, browser-based interface lets you create games on any supported hardware. Due to its limited trial and polygonal chops, Construct falls just behind GameMaker, our Editors’ Choice winner for consumer-friendly game dev software. However, it's definitely worth exploring if you focus on 2D titles.
What Is Construct?
Construct lets you develop various 2D video games, from single-player, side-scrolling platformers to arcade-style, top-down multiplayer shooters. The games may remind you of the fun distractions on Kongregate or Newgrounds. In fact, Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp praises Construct, and more than half of Kongregate's HTML5 games come from this software, facts that Construct proudly touts.
(Credit: Construct/PCMag)Construct is a popular engine in the itch.io indie game marketplace, rivaling the much more powerful and prominent Unity. Browse Construct’s example games, and you’ll see indie projects and surprising licensed tie-ins for Netflix’s The Old Guard and Teen Titans. Big-name game publishers like EA, Sega, and Zynga also use Construct.
Some of its more elaborate graphical effects, such as soft lighting or a burn filter, add enough depth to impress potential players. You can also add limited 3D layers for aesthetic purposes. But to make true 3D games, you should use Fuze4, Game Builder Garage, GameMaker, or less novice-friendly professional software like Unity or Unreal Engine.
Price and Platforms
You can test Construct for free in your browser, but it has harsh restrictions. With Stencyl, you get the full program with limited publishing options. Construct, on the other hand, doesn't let you publish games at all. You can only customize a handful of example titles, like a golf game or space shooter, to get a feel for the engine.
(Credit: Construct/PCMag)You must pay for Construct to get the most from it. Personal licenses start at $129.99 per year, which is pretty low for this category once you consider all the benefits. Paid users gain the entire set of features. You can also publish to the web, Android phones, iPhones, and desktop platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux). In comparison, GameMaker’s console licenses cost $799.99 per year. Construct also sells a dedicated animation app called Construct Animate for $59.99 per year.
Developing Games Using Construct
You can run Construct in a modern web browser and save your projects to cloud storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive. Only Inklewriter and Twine offer similar browser functionality, and their text adventure games aren’t nearly as complex as what you can make in Construct. You can work offline once Construct starts, but you must save your projects locally.
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Construct’s interface is easy to navigate. Unless you want to constantly open and close vital windows, snapping menu bars to the workspace's outer edges is more than worth the clutter. Tabs keep your project nicely organized. For example, the Start tab displays your current projects and links to guides and samples, while the Layout tabs let you create and organize objects and backgrounds. You enter your programming in the Event Sheet tabs.
For novices, writing sterile code to make lively games presents a challenging mental puzzle. Knowing how to code is essential for serious game development, but a friendly visual language goes a long way toward building confidence. With Construct, I easily expressed myself on the layout page. Turning tile sets into platforms and animating the jumping blue hero requires more skill than building Super Mario Maker stages, but it’s surprisingly close.
Things naturally get more complicated once you start programming your game. Construct includes JavaScript for developers who want more control over how their games work. Still, the simplified visual language provides plenty of power, too. You program a game by writing events, which are statements that tell specific objects (or the game itself) how to behave in certain circumstances. Events determine controls, enemy behavior, and win conditions.
Whereas Stencyl obfuscates its trickier functions in the name of accessibility, Construct’s events better ease you into higher-level concepts, such as invisible hitboxes, properly aligned animation origins, and game states that update with every frame. Even programming something as basic as jumping on an enemy makes you realize that the game looks at various on-screen objects' current X and Y coordinates.
You can add different premade behaviors to different objects to modify what events you can create for them. If you place a timer behavior on a bomb sprite, you can make it explode and play the theme song from No Time To Die when time runs out. Even a small game requires a lot of events to run, so I recommend creating different event sheets for your different objects and game elements. Otherwise, they start piling up on a single sheet, making it tough to parse your code at a glance. GameMaker does a better job grouping objects with the related code and editing windows in the workspace by default, but that’s how I prefer to work.
(Credit: Construct/PCMag)If you need some inspiration, Construct’s developer Scirra provides free examples to download, online tutorials and documentation to read, community forums to join, and links to games to play that show the engine at its best. You can also buy and sell games and royalty-free asset packs from Scirra’s store. Prices for these graphics, sound effects, and game templates range from under $5 to more than $50, so make sure to do some research before spending.
Verdict: Construct Helps You Build 2D Games With Ease
Launching Construct in your browser and writing games with its approachable, powerful visual language feels effortless in a way all consumer game development software should. It’s an excellent pick for novice game creators. That said, our Editors’ Choice winner, GameMaker, edges it out slightly by offering more publishing options, graphical power, and an arguably more intuitive workflow.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Construct)
Construct
Construct’s capable tools and browser-based interface make it an excellent program for crafting 2D games.