Stencyl released!

I'm a bit disappointed really.

I find the event/code block system to be much too convoluted and counterintuitive. I wanted to do something as simple as change the X offset for the "Camera Follow Player" behavior, something I can and have done in less than a minute in Construct, but in Stencyl I don't know how to go about it. It doesn't really help that the getting started tutorial in their help section requires an internet connection. I only have wireless were I live and I don't have a wireless card on the computer I work on.

On top of that, their own code is buggy. I tested a scene with the Jump and Run kit. If you jump from to high, or have too high Y velocity (not sure), you fall through the terrain.

When I first clicked around in it I thought that I might actually use this for something until C2 is ready for actual work, since CC only does windows, but looking at the convoluted block mess, the unstable code. Yeah, I'll just stick to Construct Classic. Windows has the larger userbase anyways.

It's an early release so there are likely to be bugs. I guess they'll be fixing problems in the long run.

Yeah I'm sure they'll fix the bugs that pop up.

It does have a lot of good things going for it though. If there's a way to have Stencyl allow a projector to display the game fullscreen, and add some gamepad support, I might take a crack at learning AS3 with this.

Yeah, I think I'll stick with Construct...

Also, why Flash? Why not just use Java, if not HTML5? Java should have filled the niche of web-based games that Flash mostly owns... Except that early versions of Java were so slow and so unnatural looking that Flash actually looked good in comparison. By the time they fixed it, Flash had become the de-facto standard for this kind of thing, much to the chagrin of just about everyone except Adobe.

Flash is the de-facto standard as you say, and maybe they want a quicker time to a viable product (i.e. no waiting for HTML5 to reach 99% adoption).

I have tested this app and it looks and works rather good.I went through the tutorials and it was very easy to create a basic game.I still prefer CS 2 though.

Sorry to mention this:

http://www.stencyl.com/stencylworks/overview/

It looks like Stencyl has got iOS/Flash exporter now, and aiming Android/Html5.

Here's a video shows how a Stecyl game running on iOS

I don't know what you think.

It's impressive to me, especially after so much hard work with C2+Phonegap.

The performance on iOS device made me only can choose menu-driven or other static-frame based themes.

I'm afraid that adobe/Flash wins again, Adobe-Air may dominate in next generation,

even phonegap is now adobe's product.

Besides, when Chrome App Store Exporter is a big feature on C2,

The developers over the world take ChromeApp not as real app, but just a link,

link to whereever their flash-game site.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jlhpdgdcmnlikflmppbecgfgmnclaljb

Clever, right?

It means you can't see any opportunity to make money from ChromeAppMarket,

(though you can set meaningless price for your app)

you have to fight with all free flash games over the world.

I sincerely hope that C2 developers care more about mobile-devices.

When Flash survives healthily, with almost no loading time,

if mobile-devices can't get good performance, how could Html5 games make money?

I'm afraid that adobe/Flash wins again

Why? It looks like they've done a lot of work to rewrite their entire engine for iOS, which isn't using Flash at all.

he developers over the world take ChromeApp not as real app, but just a link

You're not required to host a Chrome App on a URL. You can make packaged apps which are not online and must be downloaded to be used. See Publishing to the Chrome Web Store for more information. You can still monetise public apps anyway - you can have the user log in and securely do in-app purchases, buy full version, etc.

sincerely hope that C2 developers care more about mobile-devices.

We do, we really do - we're keenly aware of the importance of mobile and monetisation, and we have lots of ideas for this - but we're a tiny 2-man team and the editor itself isn't even finished yet. We're trying to work through our todo list as fast as we can.

I just can't stands Stencyl's GUI. And the wait time for the test game is really loooong...

It looks like a terribly simple game running on iOS, i don't see why your all up in a fuss

> I'm afraid that adobe/Flash wins again

Why? It looks like they've done a lot of work to rewrite their entire engine for iOS, which isn't using Flash at all.

In some community I hang around, they talk about Adobe Air,

there seems to be new cross-platform solutions everyday.

When everyone says that Flash dies and it's Html5 days,

what I can see is Flash ads/games still everywhere and Html5 is struggling with cross-browser problems(eg. audio/video), furthermore, big Html5 game company shutdown.

http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2012/01/09/moblyngs-shutdown-enthusiasm-for-html5-gaming-is-still-a-little-premature/

It's not Stencyl or Salad I am afraid, it's the "trend" which can't be easily ignored.

I love C2 and C2 community, everyone is kind, Ashley's team made my dream come true,

I hope we are all standing on the "right side".

You're not required to host a Chrome App on a URL. You can make packaged apps which are not online and must be downloaded to be used. See Publishing to the Chrome Web Store for more information. You can still monetise public apps anyway - you can have the user log in and securely do in-app purchases, buy full version, etc.

Actually, I have some games published on Chrome Web Store already.

What we're fighting with is not other "original new contents", it's free-flash-game-collection sites.

They collect games made by some other people, embedded iframes on their own sites (probably without permission), created Chrome App (link only) to the sites, and got advertising expenses.

Yes, maybe ad expenses is a way-out of commercial casual gaming,

but a game collector is better fit in doing so than a game builder.

We do, we really do - we're keenly aware of the importance of mobile and monetisation, and we have lots of ideas for this - but we're a tiny 2-man team and the editor itself isn't even finished yet. We're trying to work through our todo list as fast as we can.

Thanks.

Sorry I didn't mean to urge.

You can take my words as a comment out of anxiousness.

I don't think the environment is friendly to indie gaming today,

casual games are obvious oversupplied.

What we can do is to stand on the right side, keep going with passion.

My first iOS app is published yesterday; however, you know,

there are more than 689+ iOS app published every day,

total more than 87322+ games already there.

May C2 be the best.

This was an interesting read.

I'll admit that im not fully up to speed with the state of things. But that article is not evidence of a trend.. They state themselves that they as a company failed to monotise, the last thing they are going to say as a failing company is that the market was ready we were just imcompetent. (From what i gathered they took a risk with facebook - didnt produce smooth running games - so naturally were not popular).

When i first stumbled across here, i quickly realised my ambitions of releasing iphone apps was going to have to wait. I then started building a game for the chrome web store - but now im thinking Kongregate is the way.

If im not mistaken there isnt any benefit to using flash there financially, (i hope im not mistaken!). I can understand your concern Gonzdevour, but I think your focusing on a dead end (for now) instead of seeing an opportunity. You said yourself - how can you compete with a good free game? Be a good free game yourself :)

Well, that article about Moblyng is interesting, but I don't think it indicates the state of HTML5 in general. Just some thoughts:

• they took $17m in funding, so they'd have to make a lot of money off their games to stay afloat! It might be easier for indie devs to get by on a smaller scale business than that.
• who can say how much their failure is due to HTML5, and how much due to the quality of the games they produced?
• they released last year, when slow software-rendered 2D canvases were still around. It's all hardware accelerated now so the games would run faster if released now. C2 supports WebGL by default as well which is 2-3x faster and usually runs very nicely!

When everyone says that Flash dies and it's Html5 days,

what I can see is Flash ads/games still everywhere and Html5 is struggling with cross-browser problems(eg. audio/video), furthermore, big Html5 game company shutdown.

http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2012/01/09/moblyngs-shutdown-enthusiasm-for-html5-gaming-is-still-a-little-premature/

There's a point here, that I think is totally underestimated. People don't care about the technology or the platform, they just want to play. And when they play, they prefer to have a good gaming experience. I know that sounds so obvious, but here are some facts.

1) 47% of all desktop computers use Windows XP as operating system

source

2) The leading web browser versions are Internet Explorer 8 with 28% and Firefox 8 with 12%

source

So, there's only a minority that makes use of hardware-accelerated HTML5 canvas. 28% can't play at all, and for the rest it is terribly slow (<10fps).

On the other hand there's Flash. Constant 30 fps even on an older cpu (and with IE8).

As long as those numbers don't change significantly, I wouldn't hesitate to predict, who's winning. And even Ashley can't do magic. If HTML5 isn't hardware-accelerated on the majority of browser/operating system combinations, it is too slow compared to Flash, to have any success for now. It will change slowly over time, when more and more people will go from XP to 7, but that's a process that will endure a few years.

So, there's only a minority that makes use of hardware-accelerated HTML5 canvas. 28% can't play at all, and for the rest it is terribly slow (<10fps).

Where are you getting your figures for "a minority" from? Over 50% of the web is Firefox or Chrome which both support WebGL with fallback to hardware-accelerated 2D canvases. Of IE, 10% is now IE9 with hardware-accelerated 2D canvas. Obviously IE8 and earlier aren't supported, but the browsers which don't have hardware-accelerated HTML5 gaming are now in the minority!