Messages

1

Ask a Question / Re: Is Stencyl Dying?

« on: August 29, 2021, 09:29:58 am »

I even found an interactive Stencyl Book? Yeah, broken link.

Do you mean my book? I checked the website and the link works.

https://photics.com/books/stencyl-textbook/

Currently, this book is free to download. Where did you see this broken link?

Please understand this question comes from my heart. I am in no way meaning to offend anyone. I am just heartbroken about my experience with Stencyl and I am not sure what to do about it.

This doesn't offend me. Actually, this is a problem that I'm concerned about. I was thinking about refreshing my previous book projects, which includes the Stencyl book, but I am concerned about the future of Stencyl. I've been working on https://photics.tv — which is mainly an educational / tech channel on YouTube.

Although, now that I see that documentation is one of the main concerns, maybe I should get to work. The idea was to create a Stencyl playlist and then promote a new edition of a Stencyl book.

I think it's fair to say that forums are losing popularity--not just the Stencyl forums, but web forums in general.

Yeah, it does seem that way. Forums are kinda dead these days. It's hard to build a community around a website when everyone chats on the major social networks. Although, I think this forum could use some work. It's hard to format a nice reply. It's a bit discouraging, as writing a book is not an easy task.

It would be helpful to clean up this web forum and i think Stencyl would need a dedicated person because it is also a lot of work. 

I also became quite frustrated at a certain point with this web forum.

The website does look like it could use an overhaul and it is a lot of work. I don't know what resources are available to Stencyl, but maybe the forum software should be changed to something more modern and easier to manage. The folks at Tumult seem to like Discourse. They certainly have the capability to run their own forum, but they went third-party so they could focus their efforts on building their software.

But every time there are fewer people I think due to the lack of documentation.

Seriously? Is that the consensus around here? Is documentation really that needed? How interested are you in an ebook (that would probably be $25), YouTube videos, and downloadable examples?

If the demand is really there, I could start working right away.

2

Chit-Chat / Re: [NOW AVAILABLE!] The Interactive Stencyl Textbook

« on: December 29, 2016, 09:10:12 am »

The Interactive Stencyl Textbook is now available — AS A FREE DOWNLOAD — at Photics.com

• https://photics.com/books/stencyl-textbook/

Enjoy! 

3

Journals / Re: Having fun modifying the engine to get the html5 export to work.

« on: February 29, 2016, 06:43:33 pm »

Wow!

I've been gone a while. I was busy with another book project. Today I was checking in on Stencyl, to see how things are going. I was pleased to see that HTML5 publishing returned. So, I tested out. It works surprisingly well. I exported two projects and they ran as expected... well... mostly.

Here's what I noticed...

The exported projects are large. It's too bad that SVG is not a native Stencyl image format. Although, it looks like "letmethink" has already been working on that issue... http://community.stencyl.com/index.php?topic=43097.0

Also, a similar issue exists with audio. OGG is good for the web, but M4A has more compatibility.

http://caniuse.com/#search=AAC

I tried running one of the projects in Safari and the loading wouldn't complete. It worked in Firefox though. I was able to play all five levels. The only major problem was the sound starting to stutter on the fifth level.

And finally, one of the projects I tested is about six years old. It was ported from GameSalad to Stencyl. Now that HTML5 publishing is finally here, I'm not so sure that I want the game to be listed on my website anymore. Ha!

4

Chit-Chat / Re: [NOW AVAILABLE!] The Interactive Stencyl Textbook

« on: July 06, 2015, 11:07:51 am »

I'm not sure, but this might be good news for people that have been wanting to get this book, but didn't have a Mac or iPad. Apparently, iPhone seems like an option, but I'm not sure if/how it actually works.

I tested it out today. The Interactive Stencyl Textbook is better on the desktop / iPad, but it is usable on iPhone. The free sample is a great way to test. That way, you can see if the results are acceptable to you.

5

Chit-Chat / Re: [NOW AVAILABLE!] The Interactive Stencyl Textbook

« on: June 30, 2015, 04:08:43 pm »

It looks like there's an update to iBooks.
According to the iBooks Author page on the Mac App Store...
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks-author/id490152466?mt=12
"iBooks for iPhone now supports books made with iBooks Author"

Although, I only have an iPhone 4 (which is too old for the latest iOS update) and an iPad Air 2 (which already can view books from iBooks Author.)

I'm not sure, but this might be good news for people that have been wanting to get this book, but didn't have a Mac or iPad. Apparently, iPhone seems like an option, but I'm not sure if/how it actually works.

6

Ask a Question / Re: Counter wont count

« on: May 03, 2015, 03:04:34 pm »

When an item is collected, record that in a game attribute. When you want to display how much was collected, read the game attribute and display it. That is the basic idea.

From what I can tell, you are not grabbing the game attribute, and you probably overwrote the game attribute considering the behavior attribute is probably defaulted to 0.

I made it so when the item is collected it changes the game attribute but it still stays at 0. PLease Help!

That doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing the math. A good guide in computing, if you're doing lots of repetitive work – you're probably doing it wrong.

Why not just always set "One Cargo" to "Cargo Counter", since that's what you appear to be doing? Even if you want to continue using the method you're using, it breaks around 6-7, as you have 7 inside of 6.

Why are you using two separate attributes, since they are being changed to the same value?

7

Shared Resources / Re: Extension Question - Push Notification

« on: May 03, 2015, 02:54:36 pm »

The problem is getting Stencyl to run in the background.

Maybe this helps put you on the right track...
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,26596.0.html

8

Stencyl Essentials / Re: Stencyl Essentials (Out Now!)

« on: May 03, 2015, 02:49:48 pm »

Congratulations! It's hard to write a book!

9

Teaching with Stencyl / Re: Are you an educator? Introduce Yourself!

« on: May 01, 2015, 07:12:48 pm »

...but it is not very user friendly, do you have any suggestions?

What makes you say this?

I was thinking the same thing.  Well... I got as far as "What?!"

10

Ask a Question / Re: Need a limit on extra lives and medals

« on: April 13, 2015, 04:16:09 pm »

New game attribute - Checkpoint.
Default value 5000.

If Current  Score > Checkpoint
Then Set Checkpoint to checkpoint + 5000
            ...and set lives to lives + 1

11

Ask a Question / Re: clicking an actor to play animation

« on: April 13, 2015, 04:08:36 pm »

First, I don't recommend Stencyl for creating an interactive book. It's great for making apps/games, especially retro games, but I think something like Hype is more suited for that. If your response is, "Yeah, but I don't want to build a webview in Xcode. Stencyl is just easier for creating the total package" ...or... "I don't have a Mac." ...or... "Do you really think sounds in HTML5 are consistent enough?" ...then that's a fair response.

You can split up the animations in a single actor. One animation can be just one frame - like standing. Another can have more frames - like running.

Why are you using "Mouse enters self" instead of a touch event? If you're creating an iOS app, commands like "mouse over" don't really apply.

I think my recommendation is – Don't be afraid to experiment. That's a great way to learn. Create a new document and just play around. See what happens.

12

Ask a Question / Re: Help needed for ground detection whilst actor is hovering

« on: March 23, 2015, 03:18:16 pm »

Back when I was using GameSalad for game development, we didn't have fancy things like event based collision detection. You could know if an actor was colliding with another actor, but it wasn't so easy to detect where that hit was coming from. To get around this problem, I used invisible actors as sensors...

https://photics.com/arch-fiery-wall-jumps/

Shown in the screenshots, there are little red dots. If the sensor was touching a wall, then the main actor could do a wall jump. Perhaps that's what you need here. The shadow could be a separate actor, with it's position relative to the main actor... at least a long the X axis. (If the hero moves upwards, along the Y-Axis, the shadow could shrink to simulate a third dimension.)

It seems like you have the pieces, but how you arrange them is personal preference. With Stencyl, an actor can have multiple collision points. It seems that's what you've tried. However, I find that I have more control and greater accuracy by using separate sensor actors.

13

iPhone / iPad / Android / Re: Tiny Dangerous Dungeons - Coming to the App Store on 2nd of April!

« on: March 23, 2015, 03:09:34 pm »

That looks well-made, with a clean retro look. It could be a winner.

14

Ask a Question / Re: How to switch animations fluidly using accelerometer movement?

« on: March 23, 2015, 03:05:32 pm »

If you display the accelerometer data onscreen, putting the accelerometer data in a display text block, you can see why this doesn't work. The value is constantly changing, often going above and below zero. To fix this, creating some space around the zero might help... like less than -0.1 and greater than 0.1

15

Ask a Question / Re: How to make enemies fight back

« on: March 15, 2015, 05:25:36 am »

It's usually about range.

If the absolute value between the enemy and the hero is greater than 500 pixels
...then wander around
If the absolute value between the enemy and the hero is less than 500
...then move towards the hero
...and face the hero
If the absolute value between the enemy and the hero is less than 200
...then shoot
If the enemy is touching the hero
...then punch/kick

That's basically the kind of stuff I did with BOT... https://photics.com/bot/

Advanced...
http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/topic,15343.0.html
A* can help the enemy walk around walls.