Stencyl 3.0 Tutorial (100% Done 07/08) [Project DONE!]

I'm not great with journals, but it might be interesting to see just how long this will take me to finish it. The goal is the 28th as the Jam doesn't say anything about doing tutorials with games in them . But, quality will come first. Unlike the second set, which borrowed a lot from the first set, I'm restarting from the ground up, using all of the things I have learned over the years to make this tutorial far more interactive than any of the ones before it, attempting to make it as close to being in Stencyl as possible. The arrows are still there, but now they will actually show the "player" what to do in the tutorial itself instead. I'm also optimizing the file size to attempt to make one giant tutorial instead of the set of 5 as before.

Okay, enough rambling, on to the log:

Saturday, March 08: Began work on the foundation for the game. Created the text system and the list system to be able to quickly add objects later on. Created the first page and searched my computer (and then my jania emails... glad I saved them) for the avatar from ilolamai.

Sunday, March 09: Continued work on the pages, getting through the startup. Updated the foundational coding to make future slides easier to handle. Computer difficulties causing major headaches in advancing the code.

Monday, March 10: Continued work on the pages, getting up to the first actor. Computer difficulties getting worse. Figured out ratios for easier conversions later on. Already reaching 90% memory issues.

Tuesday, March 11: Fixed the computer difficulties (took most of the morning though). Updated the graphics system for more control over animations of different sizes although it now requires me to redo the ones already done. Starting on the events screens. Have the first events working, including my new dragging code (finished at 1AM).

(Attached is the file so far. It will only work up to a certain point.)

Current File: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/26503

Wednesday, March 12: Many student cancellations, so I spent a lot of the day working on the tutorial. Lots of bugs and issues popped up. In the end, got both the dragging and double-click codes to fully work. Am almost done with the movement code for the paddle. Have the rest of the images made, but I need to implement an "alt+drag" mechanism... am thinking of using "ctrl+drag" instead. What's wonderful is that it's still under 1 MB even with a lot of the bigger images done. TinyPNG.com and my own optimization methods seem to be working well.

NOTE: Since I'm tired, I forgot to take out my debugging codes, so it starts partway in and you can see the boxes for the "regions" I am using.

(Late Post for Saturday, March 15)
Friday saw almost nothing done on the tutorial (had lots of IRL commitments)

Saturday saw a lot of bugs being fixed and the paddle coding being completed. I began to go back and fix some of the things I had overlooked when I had friend look at it... who didn't like the setup. Many of the things were already going to be added later (that bottom area is for quick controls, such as a scrollbar and simple click-to-advance/go back controls. One thing did really stand out though, which has been an issue for every tutorial so far: the visibility.

Thus, I'm actually about to overhaul the system, setting me back quite a bit. I'm hopefully going to implement a major change, which is a zoom option at any time... will be crazy to pull off, but I do think I can do it. Stay tuned for that improvement soon.

For now, here's the tutorial up to this point, with the paddle being completed in its first phase.

If I may add a suggestion: When you import the graphics explain the Scale menu? Or maybe point out that they need to set it to 1x ?

I'm trying to keep this section as simple as possible. I might add that as a later part. Thank you for the feedback though. I really can use feedback on this tutorial as I'm trying to make it as great as possible.

In case anyone wants to see how I am doing the coding, I've decided to attach what it is so far here. While there are some minor code blocks in other areas (such as the custom block you can see in it), the main part of the tutorial is here, including the start of the "zoom" code I'll be using.

It's primarily for anyone who wants to see how I make many "scenes" quickly and seamlessly using lists. In fact, the entire thing is just one scene so far .

March 20/21 (night of the 20th):
Ever since this weekend, my focus has shifted from adding more panels to handling the zoom (and the forward/back buttons). While the forward/back buttons were easy to implement, the zoom proved to be one of the greatest challenges I have done yet. It's certainly not perfect yet, but I'm very pleased with the mostly seamless transition from normal zoom to 100% zoom. All of the coding was done with the forward thought of expandability, but this was much more than I had originally intended. Still, after prayer and thought, I did indeed find a method that completely works for either zoom and will now be expandable into the future with both zooms using just my simple (hah) list setup. Now the question is how much more can I do in one week if I am to get something in for the game jam...

Enjoy the new zoom options in the updated file (still under 1MB ):

March 23 (night of March 22):
Today finally saw the advancement of the tutorial beyond the paddle code. I have taken pics for all of the first part of the ball, but I've only added up to a certain point in the actual tutorial since it's almost 1AM here.

Some notable updates are that the zoom is now fully working, there are now buttons to control the zoom (and go forward/back in the slides), and the addition of key controls to handle the buttons (space/enter/period (>) to go forward, shift&space/shift&enter/comma (<) to go back, Plus (either normal or numpad) and Minus (either normal or numpad) to zoom in/out).

Just barely over 1 MB now. Any sarcasm in the dialogue comes free of charge .

This project is taking way more time than I originally thought...

Is there really an interest in it so that I should keep going?

I'm pretty sure most beginners and intermediate stencylers would find the final tutorial interesting and would benefit from it Tuo. I for one would like to see this one finished

After a two week hiatus, progression on the tutorial has indeed begun again. It took a lot of time rebuilding some of the engine to handle Stencyl's REALLY annoying actor size limitations (I hit the 90% and 100% marks way too quickly... and can't get the java workaround to work...). Anyways, the tutorial is done up to part 1 of the ball's coding.

At this point, I do plan to finish the tutorial, but only the first phase right now. I'll see how people take to part 1 to see if it's worth expanding on (which it is capable of doing). I don't want to waste the time I've put into the project thus far.

I'd still really appreciate comments on it, how to improve it, what works well, what doesn't, any wording issues (I'm aware of the one four-liner, will change that later).

Below is the file. I hope it helps someone out (still holding on to its rather small size).

While I hate to admit it, I think this is the end of the tutorial. Even I can't get the paddle mechanisms quite right without some pathetic workarounds. The coding is simply too advanced for a newbie tutorial. Thus, this is indeed the end of the tutorial. I've fought Stencyl long enough with it.

If anyone does like the work and would like to see the ideas implemented in a different tutorial (and would like to either hire me or generate enough interest that it seems like people would benefit from it), or if anyone knows of a simple way to do a paddle code that works 100% of the time, please feel free to let me know.

While I am sad to see it go, what's even sadder is to think that virtually no one has cared enough to even drop a comment. Perhaps the other newbie resources have gotten better at this point so that the tutorial is no longer needed... I don't know. It's rough to try to make something for a community that is totally unresponsive to it. Makes me wonder why I am wasting my time (it's been about 30 hours so far...)

In that regard, my  sincere thanks to Sadiq, who has basically been the only support I have had in this project. Thanks buddy.

This is sad news. I was actually interested in this project, even if it would turn into an intermediate/advanced level tutorial. Most tutorials out there focus on the beginner level Stencylers, and I would have loved a different tutorial

Maybe forcing the players to actually download the swf file was not the best choice and people just waited to see the finished product?

The issue with an intermediate/advanced tutorial is that every step is multiplied by a factor of 20. So, if a part takes me one minute to do for myself; it takes 20 minutes to do in a tutorial. Intermediate games take about twice as long to make, so the 30+ hours to make a beginner tutorial turns into 60+ hours for an intermediate (about 90+ for advanced). That's why I've switched to the "Demo-" games for those types of topics; those are only by a factor of 3, which scales much nicer.

Whoops!  Got here a bit late for this one.  Just want to say I have gotten a lot out of your previous tutorials and also the demos you put on the forge.   I'll definitely be having a look at this one even in it's unfinished state I'm sure I will glean some valuable knowledge.

I really love learning to make my own games.  Thank you for your help.

-Aeklad