Messages

1

Chit-Chat / HTML5 is here - Kongregate Dev Blog

« on: July 24, 2017, 08:46:35 pm »

http://blog.kongregate.com/html5-is-here/

So, HTML5 + Kongregate functionality is increasingly important. Sadly, Stencyl isn't mentioned as one of the engines :-(

DoctorMike

2

Ask a Question / Re: When did Schools Pricing come in?

« on: May 12, 2017, 01:12:09 am »

Totally understand this, although I definitely don't recall seeing a charge for education use previously; this may just be an innocent error or oversight on my part, though from your reply this WAS a change in policy. It would have been in 2013 when we first started using this, as a replacement for Game Maker Studio, whose developer, YoYo Games, intruduced an unacceptably expensive site licence fee. Interestingly Unity also did this a year or two before, causing many MANY universities to drop what had been a great free resource from their programmes ; something that they later regretted, and have since recanted on, due probably to major competition from Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4, which is totally free to all, and provides source code access to registered parties.

 I would not knowingly have been using the free version on our undergraduate course if I had known that a charge had since been introduced. I have instructed our technicians to remove the software now, and will have to find an alternative 'low programming' entry game engine. This is a shame, as many of them do go on to set up SMEs and work as Indie or Freelance game developers, and likely might have become full licence owners. However, in the current climate, my institution cannot afford additional software licence fees, and we are being strongly encouraged to avoid all but the most necessary expenditure.

I'll carry on using Stencyl, of course, as I have legacy web apps that require this, and I genuinely like the engine for simple projects of my own, but I'll have to say goodbye to it as a teaching platform now. This is regrettable, as the abstraction layer, allowing novice programmers to create games with little or no coding experience, along with Haxe running underneath to allow them to stretch and grow into more specific programming of novel elements needed in more advanced games, was a perfect platform. We (well, they really!) produces some quite interesting games, and many of the students were able, due to the free web version, able to carry on refining their initial prototypes, developed from scratch with no previous experience in just 6 weeks; really only about 4 weeks of actual development time, and approximately 20-40 hours at most of programming time, similar to a sprint or game jam. One more task for my busy Summer now, is finding an alternative. I'm sure they are out there, but I will miss using Stencyl in more than a personal capacity.

DoctorMike

EDIT: According to the wayback machine, the link page http://www.stencyl.com/education/pricing/ has only existed from December 2014, so presumably that is the first time I could have been aware of potential charges. Sadly, I note the price for a site licence then was $149, but only for the FULL version, and the page talks about free plans too, so you didn't even really charge for the web based version for some time. March 24th 2015 is when the free version became an 'evaluation' version. And I also note the price change on March 4th 2016 to $299 for even the basic version and $499 for the Studio one. I don't think these changes were communicated well enough.

3

Ask a Question / When did Schools Pricing come in?

« on: May 11, 2017, 09:20:47 am »

I've noted that there is no free education version anymore, and that the Pricing for Schools page states there is no free version except for evaluation purposes :-(
At my university we have been using Stencyl to teach  first year game programming students, precisely because the basic version was free. While we are not a 'school' as such, I am now assuming that we cannot use this software without a site licence, and will, therefore, be having to find an actually free piece of software to replace it; my institution are (understandably) unable to use software for which we don't have a valid licence. This is a great shame, and a backward step IMHO, although I can understand the company's need to make money.

4

Dialog Extension / Re: Nothing shows up when adding repository

« on: July 21, 2016, 05:48:38 am »

Getting the same problem today

5

Dialog Extension / Re: Where to dl "Dialog Extension Sample" game?

« on: April 22, 2016, 11:26:51 am »

OK, manually removed dialog and data extensions, as well as the common extension from both extensions and engine-extensions, then reinstalled via Get Extensions. At that point, I could see the Data Extension then said Update. I quit and restarted Stencyl, and loaded up your 1.6.6 sample, which worked. However, I was getting an "Ouch this should not have happened" error when clicking on the Data Structures :-(
Then I updated it - compatibility for b8816 (if I recall correctly). At that point I restarted the App and Data Structures now had two sets of data for Dialog (as shown in a previous screen shot). Clicking on bits of either caused the same error. There is definitely only one of each jar file in the engine and extensions folders. As far as I can see there were no duplications in the game sub folders either.

Then (and this is the weird part) quitting and restarting... it now works with both the old sample and the new one.

Thank you so much for being patient. I'll try not to hijack a thread here, in future, and will post issues on the repo.

DoctorMike

6

Dialog Extension / Re: Where to dl "Dialog Extension Sample" game?

« on: April 20, 2016, 06:05:02 pm »

I'm using the latest, 8868!

7

Dialog Extension / Re: Where to dl "Dialog Extension Sample" game?

« on: April 18, 2016, 01:13:32 am »

Ok, sorted the duplicate problem - old dialog.jar in the engine extensions folder - but a new one. I wiped all content by uninstalling in Stencyl, then cleaning the engine extension and extensions folder, removed the game and reimported from your link. installed the dialog (and data structure) extension. Now, when I click on any of the Data Structures objects, say to check the buttons, etc, were installed properly, I get this error:

Code: [Select]

Scene: 1 (Another Scene) from: scenes\1.xml
2016-04-18 09:00:34,300 ERROR [AWT-EventQueue-0] root: Unexpected problem on thread AWT-EventQueue-0: Expected static method stencyl.sw.util.Fonts.getBoldFont()Ljava/awt/Font;
java.lang.IncompatibleClassChangeError: Expected static method stencyl.sw.util.Fonts.getBoldFont()Ljava/awt/Font;
at com.polydes.datastruct.ui.table.PropertiesSheetStyle$Dark.<init>(PropertiesSheetStyle.java:109)
at com.polydes.datastruct.ui.table.PropertiesSheetStyle.<clinit>(PropertiesSheetStyle.java:23)
at com.polydes.datastruct.ui.objeditors.StructureEditor.<init>(StructureEditor.java:37)
at com.polydes.datastruct.ui.objeditors.StructureEditor.<init>(StructureEditor.java:27)
at com.polydes.datastruct.data.structure.Structure.getEditor(Structure.java:166)
at com.polydes.datastruct.ui.page.StructurePage.selectionStateChanged(StructurePage.java:284)
at com.polydes.common.ui.darktree.DarkTree.valueChanged(DarkTree.java:332)
at javax.swing.JTree.fireValueChanged(JTree.java:2927)
at javax.swing.JTree$TreeSelectionRedirector.valueChanged(JTree.java:3391)
at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.fireValueChanged(DefaultTreeSelectionModel.java:635)
at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.notifyPathChange(DefaultTreeSelectionModel.java:1093)
at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.setSelectionPaths(DefaultTreeSelectionModel.java:294)
at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.setSelectionPath(DefaultTreeSelectionModel.java:188)
at javax.swing.JTree.setSelectionPath(JTree.java:1634)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI.selectPathForEvent(BasicTreeUI.java:2393)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI$Handler.handleSelection(BasicTreeUI.java:3609)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI$Handler.mousePressedDND(BasicTreeUI.java:3586)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI$Handler.mousePressed(BasicTreeUI.java:3545)
at java.awt.AWTEventMulticaster.mousePressed(AWTEventMulticaster.java:279)
at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Component.java:6532)
at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(JComponent.java:3324)
at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Component.java:6300)
at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Container.java:2236)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4891)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2294)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4713)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Container.java:4888)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Container.java:4522)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Container.java:4466)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2280)
at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Window.java:2750)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4713)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:758)
at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(EventQueue.java:97)
at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:709)
at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:703)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:86)
at java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:731)
at java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:729)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:728)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:201)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:116)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:105)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:93)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:82)

Any ideas?

EDIT: I can confirm that the dialog sample now works, however.

Mike

8

Dialog Extension / Re: Where to dl "Dialog Extension Sample" game?

« on: April 14, 2016, 01:10:04 am »

Here are my flow scripts settings. So, now I have non-working Dialog, where before it worked but I couldn't change anything :-(

9

Dialog Extension / Re: Where to dl "Dialog Extension Sample" game?

« on: April 13, 2016, 07:13:42 am »

OK, wiped and reinstalled and tried to set all the things that I could see were not set; although it isn't always easy to know what to set things as :-(
I'm still getting the <but> error as I cannot see where to set the pointer animation anywhere.
EDIT I appear to have set the Pointer animation in Script Settings, but the error is still there :-(
Also, when I look at the Data Structures section, I appear to have two copies of Dialog structure (see attached). Is that right? Where do I set the pointer, and what do I set the various blank ScalingImage Images to? (I get these when I open the Structure Editor for either Dialog.)
EDIT2: I went back through and removed everything, including some dialog and data structure jars that appeared to be old ones, so now I don't have duplicated data structures, but still the same <but> errors. Using latest build with clean install of extensions and both the old and new samples.

10

Dialog Extension / Re: Where to dl "Dialog Extension Sample" game?

« on: April 11, 2016, 06:40:25 am »

After importing the game I'm getting the following error when I try to open it:

Code: [Select]

Could not open game.
Could not restore from backup /Users/foobar/stencylworks/games/Dialog Extension Sample 166/snippets/list.xml.bak.


I too got the same error for the new sample :-( and the file structure doesn't seem to be anything like a normal Stencyl project. The old sample https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63356485/DialogTest.stencyl gives the following error whenever the text pauses for key input at the <but> command (see attached):

11

Ask a Question / Re: Problems on High Res Monitor

« on: December 17, 2015, 02:57:43 am »

Bear in mind that this image shows blown up when clicked here, but on the screen itself the word "Kits", for example, shows up at ~3-4mm and is virtually unreadable :-(

12

Ask a Question / Re: Problems on High Res Monitor

« on: December 17, 2015, 02:54:36 am »

Latest build, which still shows 3.3.2 (?) full screen on my Surface Pro 3. The title menu text honours the "make it big" settings, but the icons and in-editor text are still the same :-(

13

Ask a Question / Re: Problems on High Res Monitor

« on: December 14, 2015, 12:36:46 am »

And yet, both myself and my colleague have the text and graphics being tiny, and virtually unreadable/unusable. Glad you aren't having a problem, but we still are.

14

Ask a Question / Problems on High Res Monitor

« on: December 10, 2015, 05:51:29 am »

Like other java apps, I suspect, using Stencyl on a high res monitor on Windows, the icons and text are very small. Changing the screen resolution just scales the app, with it appearing the same physical size, but now with muddier graphics, due to pixel scaling. I'm working on a Surface Pro 3, but a colleague has a 4k monitor, which makes things worse. Any ideas on how to get the app to honour the DPI, rather than scaling itself to the number of pixels?

15

Extensions / Re: Artificial Intelligence Tools Extension (Beta Release 1)

« on: November 27, 2015, 02:56:01 am »

Getting "The engine extension 'raycastapi' does not exist" error with v3.3.2 and the latest extension and the sample project. The project runs fine, but on loading I get the above error. Any ideas?