How can I implement a full-screen toggle feature for my game to allow players to adjust the screen size dynamically in Construct 2?

Implementing a Full-Screen Toggle Feature in Construct 2

Construct 2 offers built-in functionalities to implement a full-screen toggle feature, allowing players to switch between windowed and full-screen modes seamlessly. Here’s a step-by-step guide to achieving this using Construct 2:

Step 1: Enable Fullscreen Mode

First, ensure that your game is set up to support full-screen mode:

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Open your Construct 2 project and navigate to the Project Properties.
Under Display, set the Fullscreen in browser property to Letterbox scale or another appropriate mode like Letterbox integer scale.

Step 2: Add a Full-Screen Toggle Event

To toggle full-screen mode, you need to create an event that triggers the toggle:

Go to the Event Sheet associated with the layout you want to toggle full-screen for.
Add a new event to detect when a specific key is pressed (e.g., F11 or a custom keybinding).
For the action, use the Browser object’s Request fullscreen action to enable full-screen and the Cancel fullscreen action to exit it.

{ // Example: On key pressed F11 -> Browser: Toggle fullscreen }

Step 3: Handling Different Screen Sizes

Consider implementing responsive UI elements to ensure they look good in both windowed and full-screen modes:

Utilize Anchor behavior to attach UI elements to specific screen edges or corners.
Test your game’s interface at various screen resolutions to ensure visibility and usability are maintained.

Step 4: Test and Debug

Thoroughly test the full-screen toggle feature on different devices to ensure that it works as expected:

Check performance in both windowed and full-screen modes to ensure smooth transitions.
Pay attention to UI scaling issues that might arise due to different aspect ratios.

Considerations

Remember that different browsers and operating systems may handle full-screen modes differently. It’s important to account for these differences in your testing phase. Leveraging Construct 2’s built-in tools simplifies this process considerably, making it accessible even for those with minimal programming knowledge.