NeithR's Stencyl Journey - Scenes

Managed to do 100 minutes duration of learning Stencyl. Had to do it at evening because I was busy at day. Also, I was so sleepy when learning at evening, but at least I still managed to learn things.

This time I continued from the Scenes. It was also based on chapter 4 guide (http://www.stencyl.com/help/toc/). In this part, I learned on using region, drawing texts & hud, changing scenes, using backgrounds, and customizing actors.

Learning Scene Part

Using region, I could trigger event on area. It was just like making an invisible square to be collided to trigger an event. On drawing texts & hud, I could draw text and something on the screen. Too bad I didn't try with image yet. Also, the drawing was already automated at the top so I don't have to worry with object's z order on the screen with non text/hud.

Scene's Background

Changing scenes was also easy to do. It also had transition so I don't have to program transition from the start. I also could use the region feature to do a hidden scene like hidden room. Also, the background was easy to add. I used my old pixel art for the background. Instance added to scene, it was possible to modified again as needed in the scene. This gave more variation to the instance in the run time.

Okay, so far I did 500 minutes or 8 hours and 20 minutes. Still not much. I hope I had more times in the future to learn Stencyl deeper and enjoy what I can do if I spend my time more to learn it.

NeithR's Stencyl Journey - Actors and Scenes

Finally managed to do 200 minutes duration of learning Stencyl. Twice than yesterday. It was more tiring than 100 minutes, but it was worth it that I learned more.

This time I still did more exploring on Stencyl especially on using Actor and Scene. Also, I use Stencyl's guide site on chapter 3 and 4(http://www.stencyl.com/help/toc/) as reference.

Applying Attribute in Behavior Code View

When starting the learning, I tried to apply attributes for a Behavior in Code View. The reason was I didn't manage to do it in the previous day. However, this time I managed to do it using "Refresh Attributes" button on top left. It made the attribute I made appeared in the top right list.

Actor's Animation

After that, I am focusing on the Actor. In this part I tried to implement animation, then I did it. Also, I read about concept of motion, forces, and physics. I didn't tried much of it since I didn't have an idea for the sample (:p). After that I tried to implement controls, collision, and creating/killing. For the Tweening, I didn't tried to implement it, but understand the concept and the keyword. It turned that Tweening was very important part of gamedev that I should have learned from beginning (which I didn't implement in my previous games).

Tilesets

After dealing with the Actors, I moved to Scenes section. I haven't finished learning all the parts. The parts I mananged to learn are the basic, the camera, and tilesets. The camera was easy to implement. I increased the size of the scene then tried to focus the camera into an actor instance. It was successful. For the tilesets, I used the tile I made several months ago. I learned that the tilesets also including the collission shape.

After that long writing, so far what I have learned:

• Applying Attributes in Behavior Code View
• Deeper concept of Actor
• Using Animations
• Concept of motion, collission, physics
• Creating instances
• Tweening
• Deeper concept of Scene
• Using camera
• Using Tileset and its Animation

It is already night here so I am a bit too tired and has less concentration to continue. I am planning to continue to learn the Scenes chapter in the future and the next chapter. Also, so far I did 400 minutes or 6 hours 40 minutes.

NeithR's Stencyl Journey - Behavior, Attributes, and Log Viewer

Finally did a 100 minutes duration of learning Stencyl. I could do more for more 100 minutes but there was other graduation stuffs I need to do. Most of this learning session is focused on Behavior and Attributes or chapter 2 in Stencyl guide site (http://www.stencyl.com/help/toc/). The other is about using Log Viewer, making Scene, making Actor, printing to log viewer.

I did more exploring in this game engine. I tried on making Actor, Event, Scene, etc. I tried random stuffs first before focusing on the Behavior-related only. This way, I got more picture about the game engine.

A Barrel which prints to Log Viewer

After doing random stuffs, I focused on Behaviour-related. The reference I used was the official guide from the site I mentioned on the beginning of this post. From this, I learned on making Behavior, attaching it to an Actor or a Scene, making Attributes, making Game Attributes, and making Events. I learned that for global values, I can use Game Attributes.

Log Viewer

On using the Log Viewer, I tried to print something to Log Viewer from Behavior and Scene. At first, it was confusing because there was so many text. I didn't know where did the printing result went. However, I finally managed to find it went, it was to the top text of the message and in the blue-dot-type-thing category.

So, in this lesson I learned on:

• Using Event
• Making An Actor
• Making Behavior
• Attaching Behavior
• Making Behavior using Code View
• Using Log Viewer
• Printing to Log Viewer using trace()
• Using Game Attribute
• More that I forgot to take note

I hope in the future I had more times to do more learning of this game engine. Currently, I did 200 minutes or around 3 hours to learn this game engine. Still not too long for me.

NeithR's Stencyl Journey - Exploring

Finally I got the time to get more concentrated to study the new game engine I purchased from Humble Bundle. The game engine is Stencyl Indie which has 1 year subcription. I activated it in this month.

I had no experience on using this game engine. So, the first thing to do is exploring the game engine and the instruction. I studied the term used in Stencyl like Behaviour, Actors, Scene, etc. I also studied its GUI. I tested the sample game it has and checked how the project is made to give me more picture of how a game is built in this game engine. I spent the exploring for 100 minutes. It gave me plenty information of the basic stuffs.