Comments for Stencyl Tutorial: First Game

Ichee, that is covered in tutorial 5. I wanted to keep this tutorial simple enough to complete an entire quick game in it.

Did you accidentally place the time loop in "always" instead of "when created"? That would easily cause your issue.

Agreed! I am also active in the Stencyl help forums... far too many questions come from beginners trying to use Forge behaviors and not understanding what the heck they are doing with them.

I do that on a regular basis... tutor IRL ;)

I'm glad you were able to figure it out. I am guessing you changed the enemy graphics at some point from a larger graphic to a smaller one... that is normally the reason for a larger collision box than it should (for some reason Stencyl doesn't automatically resize when changing graphics).

I suggest posting to the bug forums: http://community.stencyl.com/index.php/board,4.0.html Also, your question was a bit a confusing... who doesn't appear and what is the thing that is annoying?

The tutorial is about 90 scenes long... so I do understand if people just click on through. I kept it as short as possible while still having detailed explanations and ending with a working game.

Stencyl is basically a more powerful form of Scratch from what I have heard (never have used scratch myself).

Glad to be of assistance. Good luck with your game :)

Congrats on your game. The second tutorial (there's 5 in total) goes over the scoring ;).

Strepto, glad to be of assistance :). I'd suggest starting off with smaller game (or just smaller parts to a larger game) and building up from there, like how the tutorials go from a bland game to a decent avoidance game. If you want some ideas for breaking down a larger idea into segments or need any other help, let me know :)

Good luck with your project. As I suggest to everyone, start with something small and manageable and expand on it. For example, start with walking around on a field, then, add swinging a sword, then add the collision of a stationary enemy, then add enemy AI, and so on. Break down big projects into smaller ones :)

Thanks :)

Pickle, sorry about the annoyance. I do have bookmarks at the start/middle/end (press 0/1/2) to help, but I do not see how I can add many more bookmarks except using other numbers. If it would help a lot, will see about updating the tutorials to add more points.

The categories were confusing users, so Stencyl deleted them. My version still had them included. If I can, will try to update it to get rid of the categories. Thanks for the 5. I'm glad it helped :)

Stencyl is partially built on the Flixel framework, so the two should be compatible. The official listing of the API might help: http://api.stencyl.com/ (I am still a newbie for the deeper programming, so I cannot say much about the framework at this time)

RPG games are very tough to do for your first Stencyl game. I would advise focusing on something smaller first to learn the ropes. Perhaps to a simple turn-based combat game that could develop into an RPG later ;)

Well, whatever your name is, I'm happy to have helped :)

Thanks Wolfgang. StencylWorks is still rather new. I started this summer when it was coming out of beta. Please let me know if you have any questions after (or during) the tutorials. I'm here to help.

Thanks for the 5's. I'm always happy to help. If you need any further assistance, that is what I have setup my livestream for. If I am on the computer, I am on there, and programming help takes precedence over just about everything else :)

You can either use a graphics program which allows you to make transparent pixels, or, when you import the image, set the white around the actor to be the transparent color (it's an option you get right after uploading the image into Stencyl).

I'm glad to have helped :). BTW, I think I saw you in the stream... if there is something further I can help you with, please let me know (was sleeping when you posted).

Deltian, the coding for each arrow being down is still naturally in the coding in the updated version. I think at this point it might be easier to directly show you how to do the coding. Feel free to stop by stream (livestream.com/poweredbyflowers), and if I am on, I can walk you through the tutorial myself.

I was using the original Stencyl version to make the tutorials. What part confused you? There isn't too much that changed (I now have the updated version as well).

Tutorial 5 can be found here: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Abigayl/stencyl-tutorial-5-music-powerups-more (While it is best to do the tutorials in order, can skip there to see how to do it or take the shortcut of finding my "8 way" behavior on StencylForge with the edge detection already in place.)

Chargeit, the idea is to start with a simple idea and expand on it. To see time-based score, please advance to tutorial 2 :) http://www.kongregate.com/games/Abigayl/stencyl-tutorial-2-attributes-etc

Why is that funny Farook?

Thank you :). One of the goals I have in making these is to show users how to start with something basic that is playable and continue to expand on it until it becomes more of a normal, higher-quality game.

Thanks! Be sure to check out the other ones too :D

Just wait two days and it should be up :P. That is what tutorial 4 is about.

There are already 2 more uploaded and 3 more in preparation :). The fourth does turn the game into a shooter ;). Thanks for the 5!

I use Paint NET: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html In the fifth tutorial, I will briefly go over one of the key features in it: clouds.

Well thank you for your kind comment :)

Compassion International. It's a Christian organization that tries to help poor children all over the world get food, water, education, etc. http://www.compassion.com/

What do you mean? This tutorial is supposed to be basic; the later ones go more in-depth (2-5). The few scenes I do not cover, I still write about. If you could send me a PM with more details as to what the issue was, I'd appreciate it. You can also come to the stream: livestream.com/poweredbyflowers

Ah, that was the original plan but it was quickly nixxed when I decided to make these tutorials interactive. In this tutorial, I already used the arrows for game movement and later use WASD for the game too.

Listerine, have you looked at tutorial 3? ;) This is a basic game. I kept it as simple as possible. Later on (in #3) I show how to include WASD keys AND how to avoid the ctrl+key issue that crops up with using them ;)

Dan, if you can upload your coding pics to imageshack.us or something and send me a PM with the links, I can try to see what is going wrong. :(

Glad to be of help :)

Do you mean like in an RPG? If so, the coding is a bit complicated. If you can tell me exactly what you are looking for though, I may be able to make it into a tutorial or just show it in a livestream for you.

Stencyl is not designed for handling multiplayer games. It can do anything you would normally use AS3 to do (which is just about everything), but multiplayer games are far more complex. I personally don't see myself doing multiplayer games for probably at least year from now... one player is much simpler. Even 2-player local can be trickier (although definitely manageable).

I'm glad to be of assistance :). I have not tried Unity3D myself yet, so I am not familiar with that coding.

Wow, glad to be of assistance! Please feel free to PM me with any specific questions (or just join in the livestream when I am on) :)

Thanks :)

Tutorial 4 will go over cursor-based shooting. You can use some of the ideas there and expand on them to make an action RPG game, but I strongly advise against it for a first game. RPGs are generally much more complex than other games you can make instead and then build your way up to making an RPG. Just like the platformer though, if there is enough interest, I will try to make a tutorial for it later on. :)