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[Krang]

Hello, I lurk around these forums from time to time- I've always wanted to make my own 2D platformer, and i've been watching stencyl's progress  for while. I'm not in the beta, and the old forums closed so I'm not sure what they've been up to besides going from java to flash.

Has anyone else been following stencyl development? It was the stencyl facebook where I saw that it is coming out may 31st. http://www.facebook.com/stencyl

I'm pretty excited to finally try it.

[Cow]

Pretty excited to try it out after being pretty annoyed that I couldn't get into the beta even though everyone else I know did.

[wedieyounge]

Stencyl uses Flixel, right?

Are they using the newest 2.5x version?

I'm pretty excited about Stencyl too. I was beta testing it, but was dropped when they updated the web site.

[alastair]

Is it going to be just flash? Or .exe runtime too?

[man of doom]

I thought it looked really cool, managed to get into the beta too. I find their drag and drop coding system to be borderline unworkable though, though perhaps I just can't get my head around it. Of course they support scripting too so anybody willing to use that would be able to sidestep the dnd elements.

[Krang]

I thought it looked really cool, managed to get into the beta too. I find their drag and drop coding system to be borderline unworkable though, though perhaps I just can't get my head around it. Of course they support scripting too so anybody willing to use that would be able to sidestep the dnd elements.

I can see how a drag n drop system would be awkward to someone who already has programming skills, it would probably feel slow and backwards in a lot of ways. But do you think stencyl's dnd would be o.k for a total noob who hasn't already learned the ways of a real programmer?
I guess what i'm really wondering is whether you think Stencyl's way of DnD is particularly awkward or poorly thought out compared to say, gamemaker? I guess i'm just a little nervous, i've hyped up stencyl in my head as the program that will finally let me bring my games to reality, being easy enough for me to use.

[JaJitsu]

I tried it out, and it was alright. For someone who sucks at programming [like me] it was pretty easy to get the hang of. Also being able to export to browser was a 

[Dragonmaw]

Stencyl's d-n-d system is pretty terrible, IMO, but I got used to it. I wouldn't say it's as good as, say, Construct, but it probably has a lower threshold for learning than actual programming does.

[man of doom]

I thought it looked really cool, managed to get into the beta too. I find their drag and drop coding system to be borderline unworkable though, though perhaps I just can't get my head around it. Of course they support scripting too so anybody willing to use that would be able to sidestep the dnd elements.

I can see how a drag n drop system would be awkward to someone who already has programming skills, it would probably feel slow and backwards in a lot of ways. But do you think stencyl's dnd would be o.k for a total noob who hasn't already learned the ways of a real programmer?
I guess what i'm really wondering is whether you think Stencyl's way of DnD is particularly awkward or poorly thought out compared to say, gamemaker? I guess i'm just a little nervous, i've hyped up stencyl in my head as the program that will finally let me bring my games to reality, being easy enough for me to use.

I always found GameMaker's dnd relatively easy to use. The issue I have with Stencyl is that there are so many small pieces to drag and drop together, and you have to use special structural segments for ifs and loops and things, and for different variable types- and they're arranged in a way that I can't find most of what I'm looking for. I'm sure with work you could get used to it but it's way too fiddly for me to get into right now. Everything else about Stencyl I thought was pretty terrific.

If you take a look at Scratch it uses a very similar drag and drop system http://scratch.mit.edu/. Of course Stencyl's is far more powerful, and therefore complicated.

[Aquanoctis]

Is it solely drag and drop?

[Dragonmaw]

No, you can decide to use either a normal text view or DND view. The DND view also has a text view option to the side. When I was fiddling, though, it didn't look like there was any way to mix working in text with DND.

[FrankieSmileShow]

I worked on some art for Stencyl packages years ago. I'm glad its finally coming out! The project changed a whole lot since then, and I think I like this direction much more.

[Supermini_man]

Stencyl has gone live today. http://stencyl.com/

[Aquanoctis]

Sweeeeet. Time to give this thing a try.

[Cow]

I'm going to make a stream of consciousness post with my first impressions.


Interface seems nice if you're into that sort of thing (read: you own a Mac or really like smooth looking gradients). Separating everything into individual resources is messing with my brain. It definitely goes against my normal workflow for making games, which is basically more holistic and "tweak every individual aspect at once until it works" but yeah. That's annoying. And thinking of behaviours as resources? Seems ridiculous to me. I just opened some resource pack with a behaviour resource that says "stomp on enemies". I have no idea what that means. Clicking on the behaviours though, brings up what looks to be like the meat of the editor, with the actions and code editor. Again, it's weird to think of each of these parts as an individual thing instead of part of a whole, but that might just be my learning style. There is also an attribute editor that reminds me of Unity quite a bit.

It's also odd to see so many default collision groups in a "blank game" template. Also the fact that there are A MILLION TABS FOR EVERYTHING, ALL INTERCONNECTED makes me think that developing in this/bughunting will be really slow. The interface is definitely very cluttered at all times and be prepared to be flipping through forms trying to find the things you need to change, especially when you're learning. There's some hotkeys though so that might speed things up a bit.

Scene editor seems fairly nice. It's weird that you have to define gravity per scene, but I guess it makes sense. Just finished making the little tutorial platformer thing.

So yeah, so fart I'm not taking too much issue with the drag n drop system, it's mostly the way the whole thing is structured with forms to fill out and tabs for everything, individual "resources" for graphics/sounds/behaviours(??). Doesn't seem to have a huge learning curve but overall workflow in Unity or even Game Maker is a lot better I feel.


Now just to see if I can make a roguelike in this baby. Probably not.

[Aquanoctis]

Just finished having a play with it. For the most part it seems pretty good. Although the behaviours and what-not confused me slightly as well. I suppose they're just there to try to prevent the whole drop and drag thing getting cluttered. I just found myself wondering 'Am I allowed to put the movement stuff in with the jumping mechanics, or do they have to be separated behaviours?' It feels a bit weird that way.

Still, I've only been fiddling for a bit, and it doesn't seen like it'd be too complex to get to grips with. There's just a lot in your face. All the time. From the very beginning. So trying not to lose track of something on one tab whilst you wade through behaviours on another is hard.

[HD]

What is the license on this ? Who owns the games that you make? What's the catch? 

[Aquanoctis]

Pretty sure there's no catch...I hope.
http://www.stencyl.com/stencylworks/overview/
Seems like you can pretty much do whatever with your creation.

[eiyukabe]

Is it going to be just flash? Or .exe runtime too?

Second this question. Is there any way to convert .swf to .exe if Stencyl doesn't do so automatically?

[Krang]

I got to try it for like an hour today. I'm pretty impressed-  it looks like they put a ton of work into it. I like how all the assets are organized in one place, that will help me out a lot. I only did the "crash course" tutorial so far, which makes a very simple platformer. 

The games I plan on making are platformers, which are very common and relatively simple to make, so i'm sure there will be lots of help with building a good engine with features like moving platforms and wall jumps.

I think it's a pretty big deal how it outputs flash, it's a great way for a kid to get their game seen and played whether on a portal or just sharing with family and friends. You can just send a link to Grandma and her computer will most likely run your game, no downloads required. Pretty cool stuff.