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Forums Stencylpedia Stencyl TV Translations Go Pro - Plans & Pricing Download Stencyl


Switch to Book Layout

1: Getting Started

  • Getting Started
  • Crash Course
  • Crash Course 2
  • StencylForge

2: Building Logic

  • What is a Behavior?
  • Creating a Behavior
  • Attributes
  • Game Attributes
  • Attribute Types
  • Events
  • Our Behaviors

3: Actors

  • What are Actors?
  • Animations
  • Motion & Forces
  • Physics
  • Controls
  • Collisions & Groups
  • Killing vs. Recycling
  • Tweening
  • Effects
  • Chapter 3 Challenge

4: Scenes

  • Scene Basics
  • The Camera
  • Tilesets
  • Regions
  • Drawing Text & HUDs
  • Changing Scenes
  • Music, Sounds & Channels
  • Backgrounds
  • Customizing Actors
  • Chapter 4 Challenge

5: Game Mechanics

  • Saving
  • Pausing
  • 3rd Party Services
  • Web Requests

6: Advanced Topics

  • Get/Set Attributes
  • Custom Events
  • Blending Modes
  • Lists
  • Custom Blocks
  • Continuous Collisions

7: Testing & Tuning

  • Testing Games
  • Optimizing Performance 1
  • Optimizing Performance 2

8: The Last 10%

  • Flash Publishing
  • Standalone Apps
  • iOS App Store
  • Chrome Store
  • Making Money

M1: Mobile - Intro

  • Getting Started
  • Testing on your Device
  • Flash -> iOS Guide

M2: Mobile - Basics

  • Atlases
  • Drawing Text
  • Retina Display
  • Accelerometer
  • Joystick
  • Universal Games

M3: Mobile - Services

  • iAds
  • Game Center
  • In-App Purchases

M4: Mobile - Publishing

  • Debugging
  • Publishing to the App Store
  • Optimizing Performance
  • Promoting your Game

A: Troubleshooting

  • Showstoppers
  • General FAQ
  • iOS FAQ
  • The 90% Memory Warning
  • Recovering Broken Games
  • Can't Export to SWF
  • Reloading Documents
  • Generating Logs
  • Flash Security Settings
  • How to Report Bugs

B: How-To Guides

  • Importing Assets
  • Scene Designer
  • Code Mode
  • Font Editor
  • Pencyl (Image Editor)
  • Tile Editor (Shapes)
  • Game Cleaner

C: Reference

  • Glossary
  • Block Reference
  • Useful Shortcuts
  • Stencyl API

D: Resources

  • Stencyl TV
  • Abigayl's Guides
  • Giving Critiques
  • Creating Extensions
  • Translating Stencyl
  • Credits

3.0 Drafts (In Progress)

  • What's New in Stencyl 3.0?
  • Setup (Android)
  • Setup (Desktop)
  • Setup (iOS) - Concepts
  • Setup (iOS) - Mac
  • Setup (iOS) - Windows
  • Testing iOS on Windows
  • iOS Troubleshooter

  • Mobile App Scaling
  • Full Screen Mode
  • Simple Physics
  • Backgrounding an App

  • iOS App Store
  • Mac App Store
  • Windows Store
  • Google Play
  • HTML5

  • Android Ads
  • Android Purchases (WIP)
  • 4" Form Factor (iPhone 5)
  • Mobile Input
  • Mobile Features

  • Extending the Engine
  • iOS / Android Extensions
  • Developing the Official Extensions
  • Developing the Engine

  • iAds (Revised)
  • Game Center (Revised)
  • iOS Purchases (Revised)
  • Atlases (Revised)
  • Drawing Text (Revised)
  • Joystick (Revised)
  • Accelerometer (Revised)
  • Sounds (Revised, WIP)
  • Debugging (Revised, WIP)
  • iOS Performance (Revised)
Level: Beginner

Attribute Types

Earlier in this chapter, you learned about Attributes, which are changeable and configurable properties of Behaviors. What kinds of Attributes are at your disposal?
 

The 16 Types

Stencyl includes 16 different Attribute Types, corresponding to most of the resource types within Stencyl.
 

stencyl-design-mode-attribute-types

 

Guide

Here are some examples of common Attribute types and how they might appear on an Actor Type’s Behaviors page.

Attribute Type

Appearance in Actor Type Editor > Behaviors

Actor Group

stencyl-design-mode-actor-group-attribute

Actor Type

stencyl-design-mode-actor-type-attribute

Animation

stencyl-design-mode-animation-type-attribute

Boolean

stencyl-design-mode-boolean-type-attribute

Color

stencyl-design-mode-color-type-attribute

Control

stencyl-design-mode-control-type-attribute

Font

stencyl-design-mode-font-type-attribute

Game Attribute

stencyl-design-mode-game-attribute-type-attribute

Number

stencyl-design-mode-number-type-attribute

Scene

stencyl-design-mode-scene-type-attribute

Sound

stencyl-design-mode-sound-type-attribute

Text

stencyl-design-mode-text-type-attribute

 

Gotchas

Something you might bump into fairly early on is this.

Why are some Attributes unconfigurable? They fall into two categories.

  • There's nothing to configure. (Effects)
  • It's an Actor behavior, so until the actor's actually inside a scene, there's no context for being able to pick out a specific (Actor or Region)

For the latter case, this can be addressed by customizing the Actor once it's inside a scene. We've got an entire article devoted to customizing actors.

 

Game Attribute Attribute - What's that about?

The Game Attribute Attribute is a tongue and mind twister. It was originally intended to help behavior authors create behaviors that would be used across-games by letting the game specify which of its game attributes to use within a behavior.

This practice has since been superceded by a lesser known fact - you can create and use Game Attributes on the fly while the game is running, thereby making this use case obsolete. We'll be removing the Game Attribute Attribute type in the future in order to make room for more useful types.



Last Updated: 2013-02-17 by Joe

12644 have read this article
Disclaimer: The Stencyl Team does not actively monitor comments on articles. If you're seeking help for your game, please ask a question on the forums. Thanks!
4 Comments
toscano
When you say that these guides don't really help ..., I could say that game programming is not for you.
don't give up, do it for fun like me at least.
Thank you everybody.

1 3 months, 3 weeks ago
coolernow123
Game Attribute Attribute really confused me, lol
0 4 months, 1 day ago
andyclark
The Guides are PRICELESS and I find them very helpful. Game making is VERY complex yet some people expect it to be easy. I downloaded Stencyl for free, I made some free games to amuse myself. I have not yet paid my $199 but I will in a couple days when i got the money. Anyone who complains about anything they get for free (like poster below) is not thinking straight IMO. Thank you, Stencyl.
1 6 months, 2 weeks ago
emerarudosempai
First comment huh? Just saying but... These guides don't really help... Me at least... AT ALL.
-2 6 months, 4 weeks ago



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