Stencyl seems to be kinda dead

Most things i seen from stencylforge are from 2013 with 2017 being the newest items i seen so far and updates dont seem to be coming much faster either.

Stencylforge was discontinued last year. You can still download things, but not upload them.

Stencyl has been broken since last September on Mac - if you updated to High Sierra it hasn't been able to compile to flash.

As a long time Stencyl subscriber, i'm seriously assessing other platforms, as I'm starting to doubt the long term viability of stencyl. It seems like they only have one dev - Justin, who obviously doesn't have time to sort everything out.. What happens if he decides to change jobs, or just gets bored of Stencyl?

Stencyl has been broken since last September on Mac - if you updated to High Sierra it hasn't been able to compile to flash.

As a long time Stencyl subscriber, i'm seriously assessing other platforms, as I'm starting to doubt the long term viability of stencyl. It seems like they only have one dev - Justin, who obviously doesn't have time to sort everything out.. What happens if he decides to change jobs, or just gets bored of Stencyl?

Hopefully make it open source.

The engine is already opensource. Which means that even if eveyone at stencyl die, you could still compile your game. I would love for the toolset to be opensource too ( specially if they abandon the porject).

@designpeg, I also think about it often and have the same concerns as you. To be honest, this matter is worrying me more and more. I would really like to know what Jon thinks about this critical and unfavorable situation and how he plans to solve it.

I remember this question asking 2-3 years already,  and nothing changing, in basics... nobody care.... probably....
It sad. Stencyl is great!
I think stencyl choosing wrong direction when make the engine for kids and educators, kids will not make games, it is too hard for kids, for just plays and discover programming we have scratch, that is better than stencyl for kids.
My opinion,  stencyl got to be for those who dont like typing and learn complex syntax
And without fast updates,  integrated easy multiplayer solution, full function HTML5, bug less ads features it will not stand against competitors
If Jon can't handle the engine, the exit can be
1 searching for investors (very active)
2  kickstarter
3  make it fully opensource 

I don't mind things progressing slowly with 3.5, and obviously that seems to be the priority, but keeping the current version funtional on the latest os versions must get equal importance. It also really concerns me when you see comments from the Stencyl team saying things like, 'if someone with a mac could check this out', or 'i don't have access to a idevice at the moment' - really?

Actually I think 3.5 is really a step in a good direction.  It's not only an engine for kids and educators anymore. Debug is better, having big games is better,  games take less space, manage better your ressources at runtime, plenty of things have been optimized., you can use your own SDK, NDK,  make your own test options for games etc

So I'm not pessimistic. But maybe too much things have been done and with openfl going from 4.0.0 to 7.0.0 so  fast, and having constantly to check what's new, correct the regressions ... it's kind of normal.
But people doesn't necessraily know this. That's why there is a need of better/ not more communication.
Stencyl has discord, github twitter, facebook,issue tracker, which is great. But people go on the forum and they don't see all of this.
It only had when I had a studio account that I learned the existence of a beta version
Why not have widget, where you can see automatically when there's a new beta version that is published,  a new commit done, etc ? Where can Stencyl tell some messages like " Be patient!" and show it's alive. There are plenty of times when Jon or Justin post some interesting posts but it is buried in the forum and so easily missed

yoplalala, i'm in total agreement with you on 3.5 being a good step - essential really as the old version of openfl was getting left behind. I just think that the public version should be maintained so that it actually works, (ie. can compile to flash on Mac).

I've downloaded 3.5 beta, but it's just got too many issues for me to use at the monent.

Justin, who obviously doesn't have time to sort everything out.. What happens if he decides to change jobs, or just gets bored of Stencyl?

I would have to be hit by a bus, but you're right that it's not ideal.

It also really concerns me when you see comments from the Stencyl team saying things like, 'if someone with a mac could check this out', or 'i don't have access to a idevice at the moment' - really?

Yes, really, but also not true anymore. Assuming I'm the one who said both of these things, I've since bought both a Mac and an iOS device.

The problem with 3.4's flash export not working on high sierra has us in a difficult position. It would take some time to go back to 3.4 and fix the issue, but I always try to put my time toward furthering work on 3.5 (both great new features and important bug fixes, as well as all the work that goes in to keeping up with OpenFL's changes, as yoplalala mentioned). This goes back to having one primary developer being pretty unideal.

We'll talk about this and come to a solution, and we'll keep you updated.

I think is very important to change this "Stencyl is dead" image, because it probably keeps a lot of people away from buying a Stencyl  licence.
They need update the page, and make some post on the "news" thread, the last post is from february 2017, that alone makes people think Stencyl is dead.
 (They've been good on Facebook posting lately though)

So fixing this could lead to more sales for Stencyl imo.

edit: another idea could be making the subscriber only forums / changelog available for everyone so you can see updates, but restricted for subscribers only for download the betas.

I think is very important to change this "Stencyl is dead" image, because it probably keeps a lot of people away from buying a Stencyl  licence.

The topic crops up every few months, so it's certainly an issue. Just a brief weekly or fortnightly update would be good. Even if it's just a bullet list of what's been done. At the top of the page you have "Stencyl 3.4.0 is now out. Get it now!" Why couldn't a link to the latest update be stuck there?

I can understand the points - and the earlier versions not producing flash on high sierra is certainly a concern (something that has caused me a bit of grief as well).

However, I am still making and publishing games. I just released one yesterday on iOS. I'm getting close to releasing another (maybe in a week or two). I am still making money using stencyl so it is obviously not dead.

I can understand the points - and the earlier versions not producing flash on high sierra is certainly a concern (something that has caused me a bit of grief as well).

However, I am still making and publishing games. I just released one yesterday on iOS. I'm getting close to releasing another (maybe in a week or two). I am still making money using stencyl so it is obviously not dead.

It definitely is worrying times though. I want to update my backlog of games to the latest xcode and iPhone X but my tests in 3.5 have not gone well. My boxing game that runs flawlessly in 3.4 runs at 20fps on an iOS device. Apple will eventually stop featuring and supporting games released without Xcode 9 and iPhone X support. The decision to not keep a stable up to date version of the engine while working on the 3.5 beta has damaged my confidence.