I’m not the type of guy to make New Year’s resolutions. When I set out to do something, I typically keep working until it’s done. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s the first of January. Yet, I’m a bit behind on the roadmap for Photics.com. Where’s the new book on StencylWorks? Where’s the new Photics Arcade? I’ve been busy with web development work, but at least I’m starting the year off right — with an iStencyl Pro subscription. Since the first day of 2012, I can publish my StencylWorks games to the web and the iTunes App Store.
Although, before I can start publishing iOS apps with iStencyl, I have to figure out how the software works. It’s been a bit more of a challenge than I anticipated. That’s because I’ve gotten spoiled with GameSalad. I found myself getting frustrated with StencylWorks. I wasn’t a know-it-all. I was stumbling to complete basic tasks.
But between Christmas and today, I made major progress in converting Arcading. I figure that’s an excellent starting project for iStencyl. With iAds and additional Game Center features like achievements, it should be possible to port my old GameSalad project to iStencyl. After a feature comparison of GameSalad vs. StencylWorks, it seemed like Stencyl was the clear winner.
There was one major caveat — PARTICLES. How would I make a scrolling starfield/warpfield? How would I create the cool fiery effects? Fortunately, StencylWorks added lightweight actors. By disabling actor physics, I was able to recreate the scrolling starfield from Arcading.
With the particle problem out of the way, I could enjoy the freedom of iStencyl. There are so many new features to enjoy. Things improved with testing too. It’s a lot easier to test my iOS apps with iStencyl. That’s because it uses Xcode. I didn’t have to fumble with a goofy viewer app. All of the puzzle pieces were starting to fit into place. I was making scenes, actors, attributes and other essential parts of an app. In just a few hours of hard work, iStencyl was demystified.
Sure, there’s still much that I have to learn, but now I can see some real progress. 