Stencyl.org

Another update from the Stencyl team- this time about game publishing as opposed to their summer update about their game editing tool.

There will be two websites, one for the game players and one for the game developers. Their goal for Stencyl.com, the game-player site, is this: “Stencyl.com, which can best be seen as a ‘YouTube for games’, will allow you to showcase your games to the world.” Sounds a bit like YoYo, no? They’re providing more for you when you publish it there:

Stencyl.com will allow you, as a developer, to take advantage of our web services: an achievements system, where players can earn badges and other goodies; leaderboards and high scores, where players can compete; comments, where users can give you advice and feedback on improving your game. This is just the tip of the iceberg — there are plenty of other game-centric features that we’ll reveal in future updates.

The website for developers is StencylForge. Jon calls it a “marketplace for resources.” Supposedly it’ll be integrated into StencylWorks as well as providing a web interface. You’ll also be able to create teams and upload all your game’s resources and use a private team forum.

As for when all this will happen, still no solid dates, but the team is “doing [their] best to make it amazing.”

Since their last update, Stencyl has apparently made a lot of progress. According to their news post, they are still developing one major feature, but everything else is just being polished or done.

Jon has provided a list of tools that will be part of StencylWorks. “Just note that this isn’t a complete list of what to expect.” The tools are written in Java and run locally on your computer.

• Scene Designer - this is the main program, used for making rooms/levels/etc.
• Snippet Builder - this is used to put together snippets, the logic of the game. It can be used visually or in a ‘code mode,’ where you can script in Java using the Stencyl API.
• Individual Resource Editors - there are editors for each type of resource in the game- Actors, Sprites, Tilesets, etc.
• Resources Editor - allows you to manage which resources from the previous tool you put in your game. It also sounds like you’ll be able to distribute these resource packs.
• Game Center - This ties everything else together for your game- the scenes, snippets, resources “and more,” such as high scores and achievements.
• Sandbox - integrated with “the editor” (don’t know which one) for testing the game
• Publisher - program for publishing your game from StencylWorks, you can also use a web-based method.

The beta is “drawing closer,” an update should come in early September, possibly with a date. The beta will start in a closed phase, beginning with hand-picked testers that can make good games and are active on the forums. They will be inviting more people later,  “so there will be many chances to get in.”
Even though they’re still in “stealth mode,” they will be trying to post more updates on the forums and blogs.

Back in January this year Stencyl, the currently under-development open-source game development engine, founded a Limited Liability Company to manage their project.

Speaking of the reasons behind the move Stencyl’s webmaster and Lead Web Programmer Stephen said

“We appear more professional and committed just because we have the “LLC” after our name. It’s a minor thing, but it allows users, investors, and other such people, at first glance, to see that we are quite serious about the project.

“It centralizes the finances, risk, and legal liability for the websites. When we transfer over all of Stencyl’s assets (servers, mainly) to Stencyl bank accounts, it saves one of us from being the “official” host for the project and being personally liable for all the costs and liability that comes from our site. It also allows much more transparent and equitable distribution of our funds.”

Founder of the Stencyl project Jon also revealed that work on Stencyl only started at in January 2008, despite information regarding the project being online for a much longer period of time.

“Despite our seemingly late start and our busy schedules, we’ve made terrific progress in these months and are well positioned to start our beta program in the latter half of this year…..

“…We will only announce a release date when we are ready to release. We are (obviously) planning to release this year.”

If all goes to schedule this would mean that we would see the first version of Stencyl before Game Maker 8 which Sandy has said will not be seen until 2009.

Stencyl.org hasn’t been updated in a long time, so it’s time for a new post. I’m a new author here, so there should be more updates now (as long as there are updates to post).

Not much has really happened with Stencyl that has been released to the public recently, other than a change in the underlying engine from SlickSet to PulpCore. All the old demos are pretty much not Stencyl anymore because of this. Jon has posted a new demo of the browser-based player using PulpCore here.

Pretty much all the other happenings on the Stencyl forums have been in the “Ask a Question” forums, clearing up questions users have had (usually pretty pointless ones to people who have had any experience making games before).

Pencyl, Stencyl’s script builder has been compared to the drag and drop features currently available in Game Maker.

Last month Jon from Stencyl posted a comparison between Game Maker and Pencyl on the Stencyl forum. The mood on the Stencyl forums seems positive as space is used more effectively than in Game Maker which has retained the same interface for a good number of years now.

Hopefully Stencyl will give Game Maker the kick up the arse it most certainly deserves, especially considering it is now no-longer a one man band but the product of a commercial business.

If you are fan of IRC, I must admit I am most definitely not, then you may be pleased to know that there is Stencyl IRC channel.

The details are below:
irc://irc.initialized.org/stencyl

Server: irc.initialized.org
Channel: #stencyl

Otherwise you will pretty pissed off to know that, once again, you will inevitably miss things that go on in IRC and will be expected to go there to chat.