Scratch

Death_Wish wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

Death_Wish wrote:

On the other hand-
Stencyl- Publish to iOS, flash, desktop, chrome store, and soon HTML5 & Android.

Scratch-Scratch.mit.edu.

To creativity-I disagree, you have to get used to it. How hard creativity can be depends on what you make.

To forcing to use splash screen-Hmm, what's better branding-wise, having a 2 second splash screen before the game (or having a little box on the bottom right that looks nice and pretty for the time it loads) or only being able to publish to one website?

You have to pay a crazy fee to publish to iOS as far as I know.

Scratch is open source and you can compile it into jar, app, exe etc.

Creativity? Can you make an OS simulation in Stencyl? Not likely. Can you make a calculator? Not very easy.

Stencyl is commercial. Commie.

OS simulation-Yep, although I never did it.
Calculator-Are you serious? 

Hmm, well, I've never seen a Scratch project anywhere (on the internet) other than the scratch website (Not counting embedding), so maybe you're right. I haven't been very active here for a while.

Crazy fee to publish to iOS-$150, not that much. I've seen pics of people that are people on stencyl who have made more than $1000 on the app store-Really, it's easy to get more than $150 on the app store. Anyways, if you want me to take out pay for the debate, you can publish to flash, something better than Scratch can do, and having a 2 second splash isn't as bad a restriction to only being able to put it on this site.

Scratch is a great program, but Stencyl's more advanced.

Stencyl is great for some things, not so much for others.

Why on earth would you want to say how heavy a button is? And whether or not you want it to collide with the desktop background?

Seriously?

Dom818 wrote:

slinger wrote:

Death_Wish wrote:

Scratch is a great program, but Stencyl's more advanced.

Ok but seriously, why bother with Stencyl if you've already learned scratch? Why not move on to something advanced like Pascal, C++, or Java?

Move on to Stencyl to help you learn how to code! 

One reason I chose Stencyl was because you have the option to view the real code you are making with the blocks. So you can learn actual code while still sticking to the block interface. Stencyl also allows you to code within the program, you are not limited to just the blocks they give you.

PS: Stencyl will be supporting native C++ apps in the future, too. 

I already know how to code :L
There is this great programming language called Scratch, it really got me on my way. Then after I figured i'd learned enough I decided to try learning something else. I found Stencyl, it looked interesting. I tried it for a week or so. I seemed to basically a limited version of scratch. It was just snaring me down. It totally wasn't helping me because I had already learned all the concepts in scratch. I moved onto Pascal.

@last line: How does that work?

amcerbu wrote:

I honestly don't think Stencyl is the best way to learn to program.  It locks you into thinking certain ways about solving problems, and doesn't teach you to build your own classes and methods.  Scratch is different - it's more like a challenge to write efficient, minimalist code.  I think that Scratchers are perfectly capable of jumping right into Python, Java, or C#.  The learning curve on those languages is no steeper than on Stencyl, and having any knowledge of an object-oriented programming language reinforces knowledge of others.  Not to mention that you can get a job writing Java applications.  If you're going to write apps, why not just learn Objective-C?

O:
You took the words out of my mouth. 

Last edited by slinger (2012-04-26 02:27:57)

jji7skyline wrote:

Death_Wish wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

You have to pay a crazy fee to publish to iOS as far as I know.

Scratch is open source and you can compile it into jar, app, exe etc.

Creativity? Can you make an OS simulation in Stencyl? Not likely. Can you make a calculator? Not very easy.

Stencyl is commercial. Commie.

OS simulation-Yep, although I never did it.
Calculator-Are you serious? 

Hmm, well, I've never seen a Scratch project anywhere (on the internet) other than the scratch website (Not counting embedding), so maybe you're right. I haven't been very active here for a while.

Crazy fee to publish to iOS-$150, not that much. I've seen pics of people that are people on stencyl who have made more than $1000 on the app store-Really, it's easy to get more than $150 on the app store. Anyways, if you want me to take out pay for the debate, you can publish to flash, something better than Scratch can do, and having a 2 second splash isn't as bad a restriction to only being able to put it on this site.

Scratch is a great program, but Stencyl's more advanced.

Stencyl is great for some things, not so much for others.
Why on earth would you want to say how heavy a button is? And whether or not you want it to collide with the desktop background?

Seriously?

That's there for other actors, like a player. It can't automatically find out if it's a button or not, and it'd be worse if it didn't have that just so a button isn't automatically like that. Usually, anyways, a scene with a button wouldn't have gravity.
It's great for many things, and if it's good or not for something depends on how you plan on programming things. It can just not be made for something, and require extra coding.

How long did you even use stencyl? You need to give it a while.

Dom818 wrote:

-GizzardGulp- wrote:

Is Stencyl paying you? You sound like an ad geez.

Like slinger said, after mastering Scratch you are ready for more advanced stuffs. I like Python.

No, Stencyl is not paying me to say any of this, sorry if I sould like an ad. I just like to let people know what Stencyl has and will have to offer.

I agree you should move on to more advanced things after Scratch, but for people who do not want to memorize or jump right into full coding, Stencyl may be a good choice. All in all, people have a choice on what they want to move on to, I am just stating another option.

It's definitely a good tool, Stencyl is, but I would consider it a step before Scratch rather than a step after.

Also, it doesn't really teach you much about real programming. I would consider it more like gamemaker than Scratch. 

jji7skyline wrote:

Dom818 wrote:

-GizzardGulp- wrote:

Is Stencyl paying you? You sound like an ad geez.

Like slinger said, after mastering Scratch you are ready for more advanced stuffs. I like Python.

No, Stencyl is not paying me to say any of this, sorry if I sould like an ad. I just like to let people know what Stencyl has and will have to offer.

I agree you should move on to more advanced things after Scratch, but for people who do not want to memorize or jump right into full coding, Stencyl may be a good choice. All in all, people have a choice on what they want to move on to, I am just stating another option.

It's definitely a good tool, Stencyl is, but I would consider it a step before Scratch rather than a step after.

Also, it doesn't really teach you much about real programming. I would consider it more like gamemaker than Scratch. 

Hmm. Well, I disagree, but I understand why you could think that. I'll stop debating about this, though, there's really no point-Post about this here, people will be on Scratch's side. Post about it on stencyl, people will be on stencyl's side. Post about it in gamemaker forums, people will just say both suck and gamemaker's good.

Well, actually, I'll just ask.
Why is stencyl a step before scratch, and in what way does scratch teach more about real programming than stencyl? In stencyl you can program with code and you can see the code you made with blocks (When I say code, I mean written code, not blocks).

Last edited by Death_Wish (2012-04-27 22:54:23)

I really would not like to contribute to this "debate" but I would just like to point out several things.

Stencyl and Scratch, although both are great for beginners to make games, aren't quite the same.

Scratch is for educational purposes, not for entertainment purposes. Even though the games you make and the process of scripting can be fun, it's not the main purpose. It's for learning how to create anything you want.

Stencyl, on the other hand, is for entertainment and commercial purposes. Pretend you're an adult, who is starting a gaming company business thingy, not a child, who has a limited budget and cannot invest and stuff. If you sold a game for 99 cents, and it was a good game because it's easier to make than other languages (although if you're really serious, you should go to other languages), you'd be able to pay back the $99 iOS dev fee, and the $100 or so Stencylworks fee. You should already have a mac if you're a designer or something like that. So if you made a true masterpiece, and sold just 1000 copies (maybe in the first month) you'd have $500 after the -30% and $200 fee. So it's not really for kids to be arguing about as they probably cannot afford all this, but adults, who can invest, will find it more useful.

Also, apple's high iOS dev fee has nothing to do with this, it may be high, but this topic is about stencyl.

I think it's kind of unreasonable that they want a yearly fee for the versions that can export more formats. If it was a one-time cost, OK, but making you pay every year to use the same thing is a blatant money-grab. Plus you know the software will be loaded with DRM to enforce those rules.

Death_Wish wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

Dom818 wrote:

No, Stencyl is not paying me to say any of this, sorry if I sould like an ad. I just like to let people know what Stencyl has and will have to offer.

I agree you should move on to more advanced things after Scratch, but for people who do not want to memorize or jump right into full coding, Stencyl may be a good choice. All in all, people have a choice on what they want to move on to, I am just stating another option.

It's definitely a good tool, Stencyl is, but I would consider it a step before Scratch rather than a step after.

Also, it doesn't really teach you much about real programming. I would consider it more like gamemaker than Scratch. 

Hmm. Well, I disagree, but I understand why you could think that. I'll stop debating about this, though, there's really no point-Post about this here, people will be on Scratch's side. Post about it on stencyl, people will be on stencyl's side. Post about it in gamemaker forums, people will just say both suck and gamemaker's good.

Well, actually, I'll just ask.
Why is stencyl a step before scratch, and in what way does scratch teach more about real programming than stencyl? In stencyl you can program with code and you can see the code you made with blocks (When I say code, I mean written code, not blocks).

Well, in real programming, you don't define the weight or anything, or collisions or anything. You just write it from bare code.

Stencyl tries to make stuff easier by making all this built in, but to me it's just more confusing, hard and down-right restrictive.

Scratch teaches you to program.

Stencyl licks your wallet.

Death_Wish wrote:

So, tell me-How does Scratch teach you how to program?

Funny, I learned how to program in C++ via Scratch.    My professor actually used Scratch to teach C++ and Java to her students. When she incorporated Scratch into the lesson, the students learned programming much more easily than when she didn't.

The way Scratch is designed gives a very basic view of how coding works. Usually, in most courses that use Scratch to teach programming, once students get the basics of how the blocks in Scratch work, it's usually easier for them to grasp certain things (such as designing outputs from if/else statements) in other programming languages.

-> On a side note, you actually can see a written code for Scratch by Shift-clicking the File menu and select the option to create a project summary file. There's been calls to have a text-based Scratch, although since I'm not on the development team I'm not sure how peachy keen the other ST members feel about the idea at this point.

Last edited by cheddargirl (2012-04-30 04:25:43)

LiquidMetal wrote:

Can you load from a project summary though?

I don't think so. The normal Scratch save file (.sb) is much different than the summary (.txt) file.

Death_Wish wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

Death_Wish wrote:

Hmm. Well, I disagree, but I understand why you could think that. I'll stop debating about this, though, there's really no point-Post about this here, people will be on Scratch's side. Post about it on stencyl, people will be on stencyl's side. Post about it in gamemaker forums, people will just say both suck and gamemaker's good.

Well, actually, I'll just ask.
Why is stencyl a step before scratch, and in what way does scratch teach more about real programming than stencyl? In stencyl you can program with code and you can see the code you made with blocks (When I say code, I mean written code, not blocks).

Well, in real programming, you don't define the weight or anything, or collisions or anything. You just write it from bare code.

Stencyl tries to make stuff easier by making all this built in, but to me it's just more confusing, hard and down-right restrictive.

Scratch teaches you to program.

Stencyl licks your wallet.

Ok, fine. Weight and those things, yeah. But you could program the weight and all that with code, also, it's just that it's there to help you make games easier.

Stencyl's more advanced with most things.

And Scratch doesn't teach you to program, man. How does it do that? You can't even see the code-If you go from Scratch to Python, C++ or any program like that, can you know anything about that program at all? With stencyl you can put blocks together and see the code, not in scratch.

Scratch may not have gravity built in, but it's easy to put it in, and if stencyl didn't have gravity built in, it'd also be easy to put it in.

So, tell me-How does Scratch teach you how to program?

+1 to Cheddargirl 

I would think twice about calling Stencyl a programming language. I would consider it more of a programming tool 

stencyl sound pretty COOL   

Hey is This How you make scratch blocks?

<when GF clicked>
<think Is this how you make scratch blocks? for 3 secs>

I bet i failed

Jem12 wrote:

yep I FAILED    lets try again

when GF clicked
think (BET I FAILED :()

Ok Stencyl Looks quite good but I'll stick with scratch for now
Buts thats only because I haven't mastered scratch YET! 

Good idea.