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Stencyl 3.0 Released, A Game Creation Kit With No Programming

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Stencyl is an interesting toolkit that enables you to create games without traditional programming, and they have just released the big 3.0.

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I have personally tested it and be warned, it has been designed with Ubuntu in mind, especially with pop-ups telling you to "sudo apt-get" for installing missing packages needed to test the Linux exporter.

The last time I tried it I failed miserably, I find the interface to be a little confusing and all over the place, although I am sure like anything if you spend enough time on it, it would eventually come naturally.

The free version only publishes to the web (flash), you need to fork out at least $99 to publish to the desktop though (or without a splash-screen on the web).

The best thing about the 3.0 release is that it no longer exports using adobe air, it now exporter native hardware-accelerated apps, that's quite a difference. Hopefully we will see less and less adobe air based games as time goes on, we can hope anyway right?

See the full what's new in 3.0 here. Worth noting the editor has supported Linux for quite some time now. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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10 comments

adolson Feb 22, 2014
Honestly, there are far better, more flexible, more powerful options out there for game dev, ranging from free and open-source (such as Godot Engine, which is what I'm working with at the moment) to the upcoming LeadWerks, not to mention other engines that are already out there or on the horizon. True, this is targeting the Visual Basic crowd even more aggressively than the alternatives, but running into the limitations of a closed-source, point-and-click, newbie-friendly kit such as this will almost certainly lead to compromises in game design - and you're paying for it, to boot.
xuwang Feb 22, 2014
Quoting: adolsonHonestly, there are far better, more flexible, more powerful options out there for game dev, ranging from free and open-source (such as Godot Engine, which is what I'm working with at the moment) to the upcoming LeadWerks, not to mention other engines that are already out there or on the horizon. True, this is targeting the Visual Basic crowd even more aggressively than the alternatives, but running into the limitations of a closed-source, point-and-click, newbie-friendly kit such as this will almost certainly lead to compromises in game design - and you're paying for it, to boot.

How is Godot coming along? How "beta" is it? I follow it on Github and I see a lot of activity. It's quite exciting to see!
manny Feb 22, 2014
nice.

I think I can use this to show my kid how to get used to using logic.
This is kinda like 'Scratch' on steroids :)

Also I don't think is bad if you make simple games or web games. For bigger more complex games you may want something else.

Anyway, Apart from Godot or leadworks, Shiva 2.0 editor is finally being ported (2014 the year of game editors on linux :D)

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTYxMTc
manny Feb 22, 2014
good tutorial for making a flappy bird :P

View video on youtube.com
paupav Feb 22, 2014
Programing isn't that hard. You just have to spend a week learning C++ and Another week learning SFML.
adolson Feb 23, 2014
Quoting: xuwangHow is Godot coming along? How "beta" is it? I follow it on Github and I see a lot of activity. It's quite exciting to see!
It's pretty great, in my opinion. Mind you, I used to try making games in many different languages over the years, most recently in C/C++ with SDL - back in 2001-2003. Always, after a few weeks I'd just stop working on said game and eventually start work on another. Not very productive, but lots of writing of code.

I took the assets for a 2D game I last worked on in 2003 and got it to the same state in Godot in no time - with literally only five lines of hand-written code. Everything else was all handled in the engine interface. Now, it's very early; I will have code to write, for sure. But the heavy lifting is already done for me, and it's been a breeze. My buddy did the graphics in 2000-2001, and I probably let him down by not finishing coding the game. I may even finish it now, finally. :)

As far as the "beta" moniker, I dunno. Games made in Godot have shipped already (search Anthill in Google Play Store, for an example), so it can't be THAT beta. But they're working on it a lot, tweaking, adding features, fixing little bugs here and there. It's hard to tell how much the community is growing, but there's definitely people using it right now, and contributing, trying to help each other figure things out. It's exciting - I haven't felt this way about development of any kind for about a decade.

But anyhow, this is really off-topic, and I realize that is my fault. Check out the forums if you wanna see what people are up to (seems to be more active than their FB or my reddit sub).
Sslaxx Feb 23, 2014
Godot is, though, still very rough and ready in places (Linux, Mac OS X and iOS support are only partial, Win32 exporting has issues). It is, though, shaping up nicely to be a useful tool.

As for other alternatives to Stencyl, well if you're willing to do some coding (there is a Stencyl-esque drag and drop system as well but coding gives access to the system's full power) there's the Game Maker-inspired http://enigma-dev.org/ ENIGMA.
xuwang Feb 24, 2014
Quoting: adolson
Quoting: xuwangHow is Godot coming along? How "beta" is it? I follow it on Github and I see a lot of activity. It's quite exciting to see!
It's pretty great, in my opinion.
[...]
But anyhow, this is really off-topic, and I realize that is my fault. Check out the forums if you wanna see what people are up to (seems to be more active than their FB or my reddit sub).

Thanks for the interesting write-up.
My fault for the off-topic. Last question -- what forums do you mean? Do you mean GOL or does Godot have a forum somewhere? Googling "Forum Godot" didn't turn up much.

Good luck with your project. I bet your buddy will be surprised if you finish it.
adolson Feb 24, 2014
Quoting: xuwangMy fault for the off-topic. Last question -- what forums do you mean? Do you mean GOL or does Godot have a forum somewhere? Googling "Forum Godot" didn't turn up much.

Good luck with your project. I bet your buddy will be surprised if you finish it.
www.godotengine.org - check the community page. ;)
xuwang Feb 26, 2014
Quoting: adolson
Quoting: xuwangMy fault for the off-topic. Last question -- what forums do you mean? Do you mean GOL or does Godot have a forum somewhere? Googling "Forum Godot" didn't turn up much.

Good luck with your project. I bet your buddy will be surprised if you finish it.
www.godotengine.org - check the community page. ;)

Thanks ;)
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