aseprite VS phaser

Aseprite is free if you compile it yourself [0], and can still be used for commercial purposes if compiled this way [1]. But I recommend buying it anyway to support the project.

[0]: https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/

[1]: https://www.aseprite.org/faq/#can-i-sell-graphics-created-wi...

Nitpick: Aseprite is source-available, not open source by the Open Source Initiative's definition. From the Aseprite EULA [1]:

> (g) Source code.

> You may only compile and modify the source code of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT for your own personal purpose or to propose a contribution to the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

The OSI's definition of open source [2] requires distribution of unmodified and modified copies (with the exception of lone, unmodified copies; I read somewhere that writing a hello world program is a workaround):

> 1. Free Redistribution

> The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

...

> 3. Derived Works

> The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

"free software" is ambiguous to English speakers/writers, but "open source" is ambiguous in its own way.

[1] https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/blob/main/EULA.txt

[2] https://opensource.org/osd

That's not because you didn't know about it that it is a "new trend"

https://github.com/Poussinou/FLOSS-Games-on-Steam

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38475471-Libre-Open-S...

It's nothing new, and also exist in the tooling side of things

https://store.steampowered.com/app/431730/Aseprite/ - https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite

This is specifically targeted for Aseperite users, and also makes use of a great tool called TexturePacker by CodeAndWeb. Andreas from CodeAndWeb always helps me out when I email them, and the software itself is awesome, so I figured I'd give it a boost.

Are you on macOS? There is a known issue that we've just fixed and released a new version with the fix today as v1.3-rc7 (we're going to publish some release notes in the following days).

I'd never used Aseprite before, but it was luckily pretty straightforward to copy and paste and slightly edit the knight into a little spritesheet!

I modeled this simple computer in Blender and used the Pribambase plugin to create an animated texture for it with aseprite. I keyframed the animation in Blender and it works perfectly there.

One of my favorite "MS Paint" clones is KolourPaint[1]. I've been using it for over a decade (you have to search around to get it on non-linux platforms but I presently have it on MacOS). One of my favorite features is how it handles transparency, where it's just treated like another "color".

If anyone is heavy into pixel art, you may also be interested in Aseprite[2].

[1] http://www.kolourpaint.org/

[2] https://www.aseprite.org/

Gold : GitHub, Phaser Studio, Arcadia

Versatility: JavaScript is not limited to web browsers. It's used in a variety of environments, including mobile app development (using frameworks like React Native), game development (using libraries like Phaser), and even serverless computing (using platforms like AWS Lambda).

This reminds me of my first real dev job, 10y ago, making small facebook games with https://phaser.io it was actually kind of fun now that I think back.

Is it worth it? I think while attempting to create a game engine with the Canvas API and vanilla JavaScript. (I quickly ditched that idea and started using PhaserJS)

I didn't try to build anything with Phaser, but I evaluated it a bit when trying to pick a game engine for a 2D web game.

The tech didn't impress me that much, but it also seemed like the most mature 2D game engine available in JS.

Notably, Phaser 4 was announced ~four years ago and was an attempt to get the project written natively in TypeScript. It looks pretty dead in the water - https://github.com/phaserjs/phaser and having a "best effort" TypeScript experience layered onto Phaser 3 didn't excite me.

Additionally, with browsers gaining support for WebGPU, I expect any game engine worth their snuff to begin rapidly adopting support for WebGPU. As best I can tell, any hope of Phaser supporting WebGPU is lumped into Phaser 4, so... not much to say there.

Overall, it was a little tough for me to tell if I was being overly critical and viewing a mature product as a ghost town, but that's the impression I took away from it.

As far as I can tell, BabylonJS is king in town for a TypeScript game engine, but its focus is 3D experiences. I didn't find an especially compelling 2D game engine. I ended up making a prototype using React + PixiJS + React-Pixi, but that was hardly an engine and had significant performance issues.

Now I am building in Rust with Bevy. It's slow going, creating UI elements sucks right now, but the underlying tech is super solid and I feel good about what I write and what I learn even if I'm dismayed at the pace in which I am creating.