Should I use Phaser 3?

[Kevin84]

I just started game dev and want to make a simple 2D browser-based game.

I tried using Phaser 3 but it is getting very frustrating due to lack of examples and documentation. All good examples I find seem to be for Phaser 2.

Should I just use Phaser 2 then?

[pixelhijack]

@Kevin84 Phaser 3 is so hot, it has just been out recently, it is a result of months of hard work, documentation is on the way, but you need to be patient, or contribute with examples Yes, I would advice to start to use Phaser 2 until then, which has a very good documentation, and once you will comfortable using Phaser 2 you will find there are a lot of overlapping with Phaser 3 i guess. 

[AdamRyanGameDev]

Good evening!
Are you learning gamedev or just phaser?
How long is your project timeline?
Are you able to leave gaps for later phases, awaiting more info?
Are you optimistic about what Phaser3 could achieve?

 

[lavista]

I'm in the same boat as this guy. I'm a practiced JavaScript developer, but this would be my first game. Phaser 3 looks promising, but I have to turn out a project in a month. Is phaser 3 intuitive enough that I should just power through it using the examples, or just work with phaser 2 for now?

[PBMCube]

On 3/1/2018 at 10:43 AM, pixelhijack said:

@Kevin84 Phaser 3 is so hot, it has just been out recently, it is a result of months of hard work, documentation is on the way, but you need to be patient, or contribute with examples Yes, I would advice to start to use Phaser 2 until then, which has a very good documentation, and once you will comfortable using Phaser 2 you will find there are a lot of overlapping with Phaser 3 i guess. 

Poor project management demonstrated by severe deadlines and funding constraints. Phaser3 is really still in a "marketing 'release"  Phaser 3 is beginning it's documentation phase ... in the industry this is still considered a "release candidate"

 

[samme]

@Kevin84 did you do https://phaser.io/tutorials/getting-started-phaser3?

[AdamRyanGameDev]

7 hours ago, PBMCube said:

Phaser 3 is beginning it's documentation phase ... in the industry this is still considered a "release candidate"

 

A "release candidate" by who has succesfully produced a html gamedev industry standard more or less with Phaser2.

I come here skipping phaser2 but its mere existence separates Phaser3 from being a possibility into a probability.

Once I have been able to incorporate my dev flow into it succesfully I will be Paetron-izing, and I am sure as it gains traction more new Paetrons will come on board.

[nkholski]

If your deadline is one month away and you're new to phaser and game development in general I would suggest Phaser 2.

Otherwise I would really recommend Phaser 3. The claim that the industry would consider it a "release candidate" juat isn't true. It is a proper release and there is no reason "the industry" would call it something else. Anyone with such professional experience can easily pick up phaser 3 and create a game today based on examples and peeking in the source code now and then, and I think that goes for a lot of amateurs too.

[Doug]

I've been using Phaser 3 for a few weeks now (having never used Phaser 2).  It's super easy to use, there is enough documentation to get started, and it isn't buggy.

I'm even teaching it to my 7 and 9 year olds at the moment.  They understand it (mostly).

So I would say, go for Phaser 3.  It's verrrry nice.

[phaserlover]

I love phaser, I used phaser 2, 3 years ago and docs were bad. Not sure how it is now.

Phaser 3 has really bad docs, almost all examples are for phaser 2, and has quite a lot of bugs that shouldn't really be bugs (a lot of hit area bugs for example, if you have a different resolution, change the rotation, put in a container, pan or zoom the camera, hit area gets messed up) at this point.

In terms of being intuitive, I think is not, but you will get used pretty quickly to it. I've been doing js for more than 10 years, so is not intuitive. Even d3, rxjs, redux-observable is more intuitive than phaser tbh.

About docs, the best thing is to read the random release newsletters. They are more important than the docs themselves! I used to discard the newsletters as I thought was just marketing, but they are the most useful thing I saw about phaser for free. I think you can buy some books/videos if you need better docs.

[phaserlover]

On 3/6/2018 at 1:57 PM, Doug said:

I've been using Phaser 3 for a few weeks now (having never used Phaser 2).  It's super easy to use, there is enough documentation to get started, and it isn't buggy.

I'm even teaching it to my 7 and 9 year olds at the moment.  They understand it (mostly).

So I would say, go for Phaser 3.  It's verrrry nice.

I don't want to be picky, but I didn't really believed the part "super easy to use". So I looked at your history quickly and seems that in sept 2017 you were asking something about phaser 3. So seems like you used more than "a few weeks", is half a year.

 

[samme]

Apart from the API docs and the hundreds of Phaser 3 examples and the Dev Logs, who is supposed to make these docs for you for free, and how?

I've spent at least 100 hours writing docs and examples for Phaser 2 and 3. It's not easy.

[phaserlover]

13 hours ago, samme said:

Apart from the API docs and the hundreds of Phaser 3 examples and the Dev Logs, who is supposed to make these docs for you for free, and how?

I've spent at least 100 hours writing docs and examples for Phaser 2 and 3. It's not easy.

I didn't say somebody should do. I just said that the docs are quite poor and the example are mostly in phaser 2. I don't remember finding any example in phaser 3 in the example folder. I just find them in the newsletters from the author.

I think is fair to mention this to newcomers, maybe they expect some more docs and better api details.

[nkholski]

@phaserlover I think you might have missed http://labs.phaser.io/index.html

[phaserlover]

9 hours ago, nkholski said:

@phaserlover I think you might have missed http://labs.phaser.io/index.html

Thanks looks good. The only problem is that most of the examples that appear from google search are for phaser 2. 

[marcaaron]

I'm diving straight into Phaser 3. Yes, the docs are incomplete or by some standards maybe considered non-existent? Typing your problem into google will probably give you a Phaser 2 example from somewhere. But hey, that's part of the fun!  If I was approaching this topic as a less experienced JS developer I would probably have given up very very quickly.

[rgk]

@marcaaron the docs do in fact exist https://photonstorm.github.io/phaser3-docs

[rex]

@phaserlover

Yes, I also spent half of year to write some notes of phaser3, when I surveyed source code and examples.

[luotuo]

21 hours ago, rex said:

@phaserlover

Yes, I also spent half of year to write some notes of phaser3, when I surveyed source code and examples.

Is very useful, chanks you.

[j.c]

Quote

due to lack of examples and documentation. 

Phaser3 provides so many examples that covers almost all of its classes, check this out:

https://labs.phaser.io/

 

[phaserlover]

On 8/20/2018 at 1:13 PM, rex said:

@phaserlover

Yes, I also spent half of year to write some notes of phaser3, when I surveyed source code and examples.

That looks pretty well. Congrats on the great work! I think would be nice to add an overview for each "class". Like why do I need that, what it does, some use cases... etc.

[Voxin]

Hi there, 

I am just assessing which platform should I use for creating some new games.
I saw there has been a lot of improvement over the last 6 months.
There is already documentations, examples and new tutorials.

There has been 2 versions since 3.1 and 3.11

My studio already has a few games written in phaser 2 the question is weather to move for phaser 3 currently.
I would love to hear some advice from developers currently using the platform regarding Performance, Community Knowledge, Bugs, Ease of Use.

What is your current opinion about moving to the new platform?