What extensions to start out with?

Having been recently reintroduced to the world of Clickteam after many many years, I knew that after purchasing MMF2 I will have a lot of new things to learn and that there will be a lot of things that are done differently -- as someone who last used Click & Create in the late 1990's, you can imagine my delight when I found out that parallax scrolling was now something that could be achieved in under a minute! :cool:

So as my skills with clicking around in the event editor seem to come back similarly to how one returns to playing the piano after years of hiatus, I'm getting used to the software again. However, my biggest concern -- that is, to wrap my head around all the extensions that are available -- remains. So far, looking through the endless wave of extensions in documentation, tutorials, forum topics and repositories, I've been able to divide all that I've seen and read about into the following categories:

#1. Extensions that add new functionality to MMF2, used for a specific purpose or game type
#2. Extensions that are intended as a replacement for existing MMF2 functions
#3. Extensions that are intended as a replacement or enhancement for older or abandoned extensions.

Now I'm still just trying to re-learn the ropes so right now I need your guys' input mostly with the second category, namely extensions intended to enhance on already existing functions (eg. the Platform Movement object). I would also be greatful to hear about extensions from category #1 that are the most generally used by people.

Bonus question: I'm quite confused as to which Extension list should I be looking at? The Neatwares one? The one downloaded by Fusion Updater? The one called MMF2 Stuff? The Released Extensions forum?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Adam

Start out in the Released Extension Sub-forum. Also make sure to download BonusPacks 1 and 2 from the side-bar--->

Marv

I would download the bonus packs on the side bar --- >
And then look in the released extension forum for something that sounds interesting and get it.

You shouldn't worry too much about extensions until you think you need a feature one could provide you with. Design your creation then see what functionality you will need -- then figure out if you need an "extension" of not.

Then ask in the forums or gwerdy chat on how you would do "X" -- if an extension is the best solution people will tell you and point you to where to download it.

Thanks, guys, I'll definitely be starting out with the two Bonus Packs.

Jeff, the reason I was asking for Category #2 was because I've often run into people saying "Don't use built-in function X, use extension Y for that instead" -- mostly for the built-in movements. So that's why I asked.

There are four bonus packs ;)

Yeah, I should've said "the two numbered Bonus Packs" :) But I installed the latter two anyway.

But I kind of solved my own problem when I realized that I primarily want to build Flash SWF's with the software, so I have a limited number of extensions to work with anyway. So I'll be looking into what I can do with the extensions that Flash can handle.

Well I'll mention lacewing, which is essentially a replacement for the old Moo objects for doing network multiplayer games. Flash compatible too :)

And the surface object, which is a replacement for the overlay objects.

Excellent, that's exactly the kind of things I was hoping for. Thank you guys!

There's a few favorites of mine:
Lacewing
Surface
String Tokenizer
String Parser
Advanced Direction Object
INI++

and, well, WaitFor + Chances but that's still under development (By me)


OH! I almost forgot. Dungeon object rules.

What I did was get the ExtensionView or whatever the main one is called, and downloaded all of them. That covers most of the extras that aren't too new. If you'd like, you could find one of the many people who has 300+ extensions, and get them to upload you their extension folder and the examples, etc.

I know it seems odd to get so much as a newbie, but I'd reccomend it, just so you can take a look over the options and have everything.

Oh and something that took me a long time to learn - There are example files for each extension in the extension folder within the MMF2 folder.

Unless you use Fusion Updater to obtain the extensions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eliyahu

If you'd like, you could find one of the many people who has 300+ extensions, and get them to upload you their extension folder and the examples, etc.

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This may mean getting extensions that are not free (or dev only) that have special licenses without being aware of these licenses.