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.

There’s certainly a lot of sites talking about Stencyl…

• “Easiest 2D tile-based game creator ever“

Here is another YouTube trailer showcasing the games Stencyl can make.

The music reminds me of the java game radical aces.

Here is an unofficial trailer demonstrating games which can be made with Stencyl’s game development kits.

When I first became aware of the existence of the Stencyl project my first thoughts were “great, finally some competition for GameMaker”. Following the formation of YoYoGames, who took over the management of GameMaker, things didn’t appear to be going at all smoothly and I hoped that the introduction of a new open-source alternative would give them a well overdue kick up the backside.

When I read into more detail about what Stencyl offered however I was more than a little disappointed. Far from being a viable game creation alternative to GameMaker it appeared that StencylWorks was aimed more at the novice, I even went as far as to describe Stencyl as a “glorified level editor“. From the screenshots and videos demonstrating what Stencyl could do this did indeed seem to be the case.

GameMaker does have an advantage over Stencyl at the moment that being it already exists and has an active user base, thousands of created games and numerous tutorials, examples, websites providing resources and even two dedicated magazines.

However with Stencyl being open source there is obviously a potential for rapid growth as the community will inevitably write extensions at a quicker rate than the YoYo crew will be able to despite their £1 million (~$1.9M) development budget.

Justin, Stencyl’s PR guy popped in with some info about features that Stencyl would have.

Stencyl is not designed to be a simple level maker. It makes full blown games with a large array of capabilities. At launch you’ll be able to make anything from platformers to turn based strategy games.

Stencyl derives a lot of its power from a robust trigger system (akin to Warcraft 3’s). With triggers you can do many things. That is what most users will use to make their creations, and for most users it will suffice. If you want to make your game go beyond the capabilities that come with Stencyl, then you can program additional capabilities using Java. With Java you can make your own kits, add onto existing ones, or even add onto Stencyl itself (since it is open source as per the BSD license).

The general perception from users of gamemaker is that Stencyl appears to be more basic, perhaps they are just defending gamemaker, who knows - however i did reach the same conclusion. Ultimately it looks like we will have to wait for the first general release of Stencyl to see whether Stencyl’s more advanced features turn out to be as promised.

This is an unofficial trailer of StencylWorks, the editor, and a Mario and Mega Man game which have been created with it.