We’re hot off our 2.0 launch, and we’re already gearing up for another one: Stencyl 2.1.

If Stencyl 2.0 was our first step towards a more productive and pro-oriented experience by targeting the block designer, 2.1 furthers that by applying the same principles to our Scene Designer.

In its current state, the Scene Designer is a solid and relatively bug-free part of our toolset. We’re building on that by augmenting it with new functionality in order to improve your productivity and to address a few of the outstanding issues. Here’s a quick rundown of the planned features…

Inspector

The Inspector is a Properties pane for any object inside a scene. Objects include Actors, Tiles, Regions, and Joints.

Using the Inspector, you can edit an object’s properties and, if it’s an actor, customize its behaviors. In the current scene designer, this is handled through clunkier modal dialogs.

Here’s a rough mockup of the concept. I’ll blog separately about this when the feature’s ready.

Inventory

As its name suggests, the Inventory is a comprehensive listing of all objects inside a scene. Combined with the added ability to define a custom name for an object, this makes it easier to manage your scene and keep track of what it contains.

Here’s a rough mockup of the concept. I’ll blog separately about this when the feature’s ready.

The Little Things

On top of the Inspector and Inventory, we’re working on a few smaller things.

• Let you place objects outside of bounds.
• More shortcuts to switch between tools and working modes.
• Make it easier to work with tiny actors.
• If time permits, we’d like to add Copy + Paste.

There’s More

This isn’t the end all, be all list of features for the Scene Designer. More tools will be added in the future past 2.1. We’d like to support locked objects, grouping, templates and other advanced functionality and will do so in the future.

When?

We’ll be releasing Stencyl 2.1 in May.

As you can see, our release train is becoming steadier. Each release will be smaller but more focused, and our plan is to steadily but swiftly work across the app, making each major area fantastic.

While this is all happening, I’ll be working on the next major release – Stencyl 2.5, which will introduce support for Android and HTML5 and will arrive this summer.

Talk about Stencyl 2.1 in our forums

If you’ve been following the 2.0 beta or peeking at our revised pricing page, you might have come across something we’ve called Stencyl Pro. In a gist, it’s our new entry-level package for publishing splash-free Flash games and desktop games.

Before I talk about the details, it helps to know how Stencyl Pro came about.

Motivation

It all started last summer when people started coming to us to ask about how to remove the splash screen. They tended to fall into a few categories.

• They got a sponsorship or contract, and the sponsor wanted it removed.
• They ran their own site/portal and wanted it removed.
• They simply wanted it removed.

For this, we charged a nominal fee. For many cases, this was a pittance relative to the projects, which generally brought in several thousand dollars, sometimes even more.

Over time, these requests started to come in more frequently, and they went beyond just removing the splash screen. Some needed to have Mochi pre-game ads integrated or CPMStar integrated. Some wanted a custom SWF animation. These custom requests started taking up time, and it was clear that developing all of this into a self-serve product made a lot of sense for all sides and went beyond simply removing the splash screen.

Thus, Stencyl Pro was born.

What is Stencyl Pro?

Stencyl Pro provides all of the following:

• No forced Splash Screen / Badge
• Custom Preloaders for…
  • Mochi
  • CPMStar
  • Newgrounds
  • Custom SWF
• Publish standalone desktop games (Windows & Mac)
• Priority Support forums
• Automatic-entry into the Android & HTML5 betas when they begin

That’s just the start. As we develop Stencyl further, I expect this list to grow and build on this foundation. The guiding principle is that features that contribute to the end user’s bottom line will likely fall under Pro, and anytime a feature will fall under this, we’ll talk with our customers about it and hear it out.

To be clear, nothing that already exists today will be locked down – I’m only speaking of things as we go forward, and to back that up, features like the new Google Chrome Store export are free.

Pricing and Availability

Stencyl Pro will be offered at an introductory price of $79/yr.

We’re also offering a package called Stencyl Studio for $199/yr. This combines iOS Pro + Stencyl Pro into a single, discounted package.

Both packages will debut with the release of Stencyl 2.0 this week.

Visit our new Pricing Page

Talk about this on the Forums

FAQ

Do I have to pay for upgrades?

You never have to pay for upgrades while you are a subscriber – that’s the key benefit of this kind of model, particularly given how quickly things are changing.

If I buy Stencyl Pro, iOS Pro or Stencyl Studio today, will there be a discount when Android / HTML5 come out?

Yes. You’ll be able to purchase those at a significant discount and will not have to pay the full price. We’ll communicate those details when the time comes.

Will the price and scope of Stencyl Studio rise once Android / HTML5 come out?

Yes. We’ll communicate those details when the time comes.

Is there an education discount for Stencyl Pro?

Nope. But there is for iOS Pro and Stencyl Studio. Check out our pricing page for details.

Is there a trial for Stencyl Pro?

Nope—you may consider the free version of Stencyl as a feature-limited trial version. Unlike iOS Pro, where there is considerable set up involved, there is very little required for Stencyl Pro. If for any reason you experience issues, we’re happy to help you out.

Do I publish my game to Stencyl’s servers for Stencyl Pro?

Nope, it’s all locally built. There was a strong opinion to go this way, and we ultimately agreed with that.

Are there any limitations I ought to be aware of?

When publishing to desktop, you can only publish to the same platform you’re on. So Windows can only go to Windows, Mac can only to Mac, etc. We are thinking about providing some kind of service in a future version to allow for web-based builds for all platforms. Let us know on the forums if this is something you’re interested in.

We’re putting the finishing touches on 2.0, the kinds of things you tend to put off till the end, like this.

Besides that we’ve still got a few things to take care of.

• The Installers
• Fix a residual issue with iOS
• Update the site and remove stray references to “StencylWorks” and “iStencyl”
• Update the Store to let you buy iOS Pro, Stencyl Pro or both, all directly from the store
• Announce pricing and the final feature list for Stencyl Pro

The all-important release date is probably what you’re here for. We’re targeting a launch in the April 15 – 18th range depending on how things shake out. When we’ve got a definitive, final date, you’ll hear it from us first.

We’re proud to announce that the new Stencylpedia is complete.

Across 12 chapters and about 100 articles, we now cover the vast majority of the things you need to know to create great games with Stencyl. Over 90% of these articles are brand new and were written from scratch.

Although this marks the completion of Stencylpedia for now, we’ll be adding to it to extend our coverage to new topics or shed more light on challenging ones.

Visit the new Stencylpedia and let us know what you think!