Time will tell as to whether it helps less proactive people unleash their untapped game design talents.Īlan Martin ( is a freelance games writer, and Deputy Editor of flash games website. In a strange way, it's already worked for him: before creating founding Stencyl, he had no experience with Flash or mobile gaming. Stencyl operates, a hub for publishing Stencyl-created web games and host to a vibrant community devoted to the art of game creation.
#STENCYL SOFTWARE#
With the help of Kongregate's instant distribution and sizeable community of critics to provide prompt (if not always constructive) feedback, StencylWorks should come closer to fulfilling Jonathan Chung's aims of improving budding game developers' strength than past, more insular, game creation software such as Klik & Play. Stencyl creates tools that enable creators of all skill levels publish iOS, Android, Flash, HTML5 and Desktop games in no time. Still, with iOS support just around the corner (a fee has yet to be decided for iStencyl, but should be around the $100-per-year mark for indie developers), and a marketplace - StencylForge - for users to share assets, the company certainly has a great deal of potential.
"It goes to show that if you know what you're doing, you can get good results, but then again that kind of misses the point," he concludes.
#STENCYL PROFESSIONAL#
He also questions the output so far, only singling out one StencylWorks game - Balls in Space - as "really polished", and that's by someone he knows to be a professional Flash developer. James agrees that it's a great tool for hobby designers, but like Maragna is unconvinced by its usefulness to those who already know their way around Flash. "It's a great visual way to create a game and see results quickly," says McBurney.īut despite the relative ease, she believes you still need a certain amount of technical know how: "If someone expects to jump straight into a game, having done no programming before, they may be quickly disheartened." With a helpful community, however, she insists most problems can be quickly overcome by the determined: "The makers themselves and the users always respond quickly to forum queries." Having never worked with ActionScript, she has just completed her second title using StencylWorks - Contract, a card game - with art from renowned Flash artist Rob James ( Cyclomaniacs, Match Day of the Dead).
#STENCYL CODE#
As for those who know their way around Adobe Flash, Flash Kit or Flash Develop, Maragna believes it to be of limited use: "It's slightly quicker than ActionScript 3, but you lose the fine control, and if you've made a number of games already, you likely have a body of code to cover most game design eventualities."Ĭathy McBurney is more upbeat about the software. He sees the most likely users as being school age coders and artists who have never put fingers to coding keyboard.
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