Construct is super intuitive, especially if you've ever spent time in Klik'n'Play / The Games Factory / Multimedia Fusion. And if you're not the fan of no-code / event-driven visual programming, Construct has very good Javascript / Typescript support now.
Sounds like a mix between Scratch and Game Maker. I wish I had something like this back in the days. Trying to implement a 2d platform on game maker without access to the internet and with a very rudimentary level of programming was really hard
> Iirc Construct is a later iteration of Game Maker, or bought Game Maker, or something like that
I think GameMaker Studio is just a bit similar to Construct, a bit like how GDevelop or something like that also is, but I don't think there's much else of a connection there.
I do recall the old versions of Construct (which were renamed to Construct Classic and are long dead) targeting Windows and DirectX in particular, which was quite a while ago at this point, so perhaps it was even more similar to GMS, before their move to web technologies starting with Construct 2: https://sourceforge.net/projects/construct/
Still, I think that the new iterations are probably a good fit for educational settings, or just messing around with smaller projects and such, it's very nice to see them still working on stuff!
(Author here) Construct is completely independent of GameMaker. Key differences are it's fully browser based and built entirely on web technology, has more focus on the block-based alternative to coding, but also support for industry-standard JavaScript and TypeScript rather than a custom language (GML).
It's amazing to see how far Construct has come. Some of the games in the showcase are quite impressive! On par with some of the best indie games out there.
Another point to note is this is rendered in to the canvas so it can be processed with effects and layered easily with other game content, which isn't so easy with HTML (although our new HTML layers feature also helps with that).