Preface

Chapter 1, Introduction, explains what Stencyl is, how it works, and how we're going to learn the skills that we need to develop our own video games. We'll also install Stencyl and check that the installation is working as expected.

Chapter 2, Let's Make a Game!, guides us through the first steps of creating our game. We'll learn how to control our game's main character, design a game level with platforms, and create a scrolling display.

Chapter 3, Detecting Collisions, explores the management of different types of collisions within Stencyl. We'll add enemy characters and collectible items, and we'll fine tune the collision detection by modifying collision shapes.

Chapter 4, Creating Behaviors, explains how we can take full control of how our games work, by constructing our own custom gameplay routines. We'll learn how to use Stencyl's instruction blocks to introduce more advanced features into our game, such as random in-game events and decision making.

Chapter 5, Animation in Stencyl, introduces some of the different ways in which we can implement animation in our game. We'll discover how to bring our in-game characters to life with Stencyl's built-in animation and graphics editing tools.

Chapter 6, Managing and Displaying Information, focuses on managing information and sharing that information with players of our game. We'll be learning how to display text on screen, keep track of collected items, and also how to display a countdown timer bar.

Chapter 7, Polishing the Game, shows us how to add some essential elements to our game, such as an introductory screen, a game-over message, and a pause feature with a pop-up banner. We'll also be implementing an interesting visual effect and creating additional levels for our game.

Chapter 8, Implementing Sounds, concentrates on the skills that we need for implementing audio within our game. We'll learn many of the important techniques required for introducing sound effects and a soundtrack, to add that final professional touch to our games.

Chapter 9, Publishing and Making Money from Your Games, explains how we can publish our games on the Internet, and discusses some of the options available to us for selling or licensing our games. We'll also discover how to implement in-game advertising so we can earn some money each time our games are played.

Chapter 10, Targeting Mobile Platforms, discusses how we can test our games on mobile devices, and we'll also learn how to use the accelerometer and touchscreen features to control games.

Appendix, Planning, Resources, and Legal Issues, examines some of the important aspects of planning the development of a video game. We'll also consider the availability of third-party tools and resources and, finally, we'll review some of the legal aspects relating to the use of third-party assets within our video games.