- About
- What's New?
- Getting Started
- Change Log
- How to Build
- Koding
- Bower / NPM
- CDNJS
- Requirements
- Build Files
- Learn By Example
- Features
- Road Map
- Mighty Editor
- Contributing
- Bugs?
- License
Phaser is a fast, free and fun open source game framework for making desktop and mobile browser HTML5 games. It uses Pixi.js internally for fast 2D Canvas and WebGL rendering.
Version: 2.1.0 "Cairhien" - Released: 9th September 2014
By Richard Davey, Photon Storm
- View the Official Website
- Follow on Twitter
- Join the Forum
- StackOverflow tag: phaser-framework
- Source code for 320+ Phaser Examples or browse them online
- View the growing list of Phaser Plugins
- Read the documentation online
- Join our #phaserio IRC channel on freenode
- Subscribe to the Phaser Newsletter and we'll email you when new versions are released.
- Please help support our work via Gittip
Phaser 2.1 is a significant update, bringing literally hundreds of features, fixes and updates to the core framework. It's the result of months of hard work from both the Phaser team and the wonderful community on github and the forums.
We jumped to 2.1 because there are some API breaking changes from the 2.0.x range, especially with regard to P2 physics. P2 itself has undergone lots of changes recently, streamlining the API, adding enhancements like rotational springs and squashing bugs. This update of Phaser brings us fully up to date with P2.
We've also seen a shift in client requirements for truly responsive games. And that has lead to the introduction of a new Phaser scale mode: RESIZE. Combined with powerful new ways of setting game dimensions, and advanced parent container support, you can now have your Phaser game resize the actual renderer to fill the browser (or parent) and adjust accordingly as they resize. A new state level resize
function is called with every change, allowing you to easily re-position sprites that need to be locked into fixed locations, regardless of resolution. We'll be enhancing the reponsive features of Phaser over the coming versions, but the core ground-work is in place and useable today.
We also took the decision with 2.1 to remove Ninja Physics from the core build. We had hoped it would get more traction and support from contributors, but sadly that wasn't the case. In light of this it's no longer bundled into the main library, saving some space. You can however find a build of Phaser with it in the build\custom
folder called phaser-ninja-physics.js
.
We'll move back to point updates now, with 2.1.1 being the next - and will keep a close eye on github issues and the forum. If you want to contribute, be it code, examples or just ideas, please do so. Phaser was born from and thrives on its community, and we're always looking for new members.
Until then happy coding everyone! And we hope to see you on the forums.
We have a Getting Started Guide which covers all you need to begin developing games with Phaser. From setting up a web server to picking an IDE. If you're new to HTML5 game development, or are coming from another language like AS3, then we recommend starting there.
We wrote a comprehensive How to Learn Phaser guide for GameDevTuts+ which covers finding tutorials, examples and support.
The Game Mechanic Explorer is a great interactive way to learn how to develop specific game mechanics in Phaser. Well worth exploring once you've got your dev environment set-up.
Finally the list of community authored Phaser Tutorials is growing fast!
Version 2.1.0 - "Cairhien" - 9th September 2014
- Updated to p2.js 0.6.0 - this was an API breaking change, so please see the p2.js section of this change log specifically if you're using p2 in your game.
- If you are using CocoonJS, please set your game render type to CANVAS and not WEBGL or AUTO. You should also disable any of the ScaleManager screen resizing or margin setting code. By default in this mode CocoonJS will now set 'screencanvas=true' which helps with performance significantly.
- Ninja Physics is no longer included in the build files by default. Not enough people were using it, and not enough contributions were coming in to help polish it up, so we've saved the space and removed it. It's still available in the grunt build files if you require it, but we're deprecating it from the core library at this time. It will make a return in Phaser3 when we move to a modular class system.
- ScaleManager has a new scaleMode called
RESIZE
which will tell Phaser to track the size of the parent container (either a dom element or the browser window if none given) and set the canvas size to match it. If the parent changes size the canvas will resize as well, keeping a 1:1 pixel ratio. There is also a new ScaleManager.setResizeCallback method which will let you define your own function to handle resize events from the game, such as re-positioning sprites for a fluid responsive layout (#642) - The width and height given to the Phaser.Game constructor can now be numbers or strings in which case the value is treated as a percentage. For example a value of "100%" for the width and height will tell Phaser to size the game to match the parent container dimensions exactly (or the browser window if no parent is given). Equally a size of "50%" would tell it to be half the size of the parent. The values are retained even through resize events, allowing it to maintain a percentage size based on the parent even as it updates.
- Device will now detect for Kindle and PS Vita (thanks @lucbloom)
- Device will now detect for Cordova (thanks @videlais #1102)
- Arcade Physics Body.skipQuadTree is a new boolean that if set to
true
when you collide the Sprite against a Group it will tell Phaser to skip using a QuadTree for that collision. This is handy if this Body is especially large. - Arcade Physics World.skipQuadTree will disable the use of all QuadTrees in collision methods, which can help performance in tightly packed scenes.
- Cordova 'deviceready' event check added (thanks @videlais #1120)
- Loader.useXDomainRequest boolean added. If
true
(the default isfalse
, unless the browser is detected as being IE9 specifically) it will use XDomainRequest when loading JSON files instead of xhr. In rare IE edge-cases this may be required. You'll know if you need it (#1131 #1116) - Added support for Tiled objects type field (thanks @rex64 #1111)
- Tile properties are now copied from the Tiled JSON data to the Phaser.Tile objects when parsed (thanks @beeglebug #1126)
- All Images now have a frameData value, even if it's only one frame. This removes lots of engine code needed to check if images are sprite sheets or not, and simplifies game code too (thanks @lucbloom #1059)
- Added a new Phaser.Rope object. This allows for a series of 'chained' Sprites and extends the Rope support built into Pixi. Access it via game.add.rope (thanks @codevinsky #1030)
- Phaser.Device.isAndroidStockBrowser will inform you if your game is running in a stock Android browser (rather than Chrome) where you may wish to scale down effects, disable WebGL, etc (thanks @lucbloom #989)
- Phaser.Camera has a new property
position
which is a Point object that allows you to get or set the camera position without having to read both the x and y values (thanks @Zielak #1015) - TileSprite now has the
alive
property, which should help with some Group operations (thanks @jonkelling #1085) - Events.onDestroy is a new signal that is dispatched whenever the parent is being destroyed. It's dispatched at the start of the destroy process, allowing you to perform any additional house cleaning needed (thanks @jonkelling #1084)
- Group.onDestroy is a new signal that is dispatched whenever the Group is being destroyed. It's dispatched at the start of the destroy process, allowing you to perform any additional house cleaning needed (thanks @jonkelling #1084)
- ScaleManager.destroy now removes the window and document event listeners, which are no longer created anonymously (thanks @eguneys #1092)
- Input.Gamepad.destroy now destroys all connected SinglePads and clears event listeners.
- SinglePad.destroy now clears all associated GamepadButton objects and signals.
- Device.node and Device.nodeWebKit are two new properties (thanks @videlais #1129)
- P2.PointProxy.mx and my values are get and set in meters with no pixel conversion taking place.
- P2.InversePointProxy.mx and my values are get and set in meters with no pixel conversion taking place.
- Pointer.dirty is a new boolean that is set by the InputHandler. It tells the Pointer to re-check all interactive objects it may be over on the next update, regardless if it has moved position or not. This helps solve issues where you may have a Button that on click generates a pop-up window that now obscures the Button (thanks @jflowers45 #882)
- SoundManager.destroy is a new method that will destroy all current sounds and reset any callbacks.
- StateManager.clearCurrentState now handles the process of clearing down the current state and is now called if the Game is destroyed.
- Game.destroy now clears the current state, activating its shutdown callback if it had one. It also now destroys the SoundManager, stopping any currently running sounds (#1092)
- Animation.onUpdate is a new event that is dispatched each time the animation frame changes. Due to its intensive nature it is disabled by default. Enable it with
Animation.enableUpdate = true
(#902) - Device now has new features to support detection of running inside a CocoonJS.App (thanks @videlais #1150)
- Support for CocoonJS.App's 'onSuspended' and 'onActivated' events, making it so that the timers and sounds are stopped/started and muted/unmuted when the user swaps an app from the background to the fore or the reverse (thanks @videlais #1152)
- Canvas.removeFromDOM(canvas) will remove a canvas element from the DOM.
- Game.destroy now removes the games canvas element from the DOM.
- ScaleManager.setMinMax(minWidth, minHeight, maxWidth, maxHeight) is a handy function to allow you to set all the min/max dimensions in one call.
- ArcadePhysics.collide and overlap can now accept 2 Arrays of objects to be used in the collision checks (thanks @ctmartinez1992 #1158)
- RetroFont has a new property called frameData which contains the Frame objects for each of the letters in the font, which can be used by Sprites.
- Phaser.Canvas.setImageRenderingCrisp now sets
image-rendering: pixelated
, perfect for pixel art, which is now supported in Chrome 38. - Phaser.Mouse will now add a listener to the
window
to detectmouseup
events. This is used to detect if the player releases the mouse while outside of the game canvas. Previously Pointer objects incorrectly thought they were still pressed when you returned the mouse over the canvas (#1167) - Rectangle.centerOn(x,y) allows you to quickly center a Rectangle on the given coordinates.
- Group.addMultiple allows you to pass an array of game objects and they'll all be added to the Group in turn.
- The StateManager will now check if a State has a method called
resize
. If it does, and if the game is running in the RESIZE Scale Mode then this method will be called whenever the game resizes. It will be passed two parameters:width
andheight
that will match the games new dimensions. Resizing can happen as a result of either the parent container changing shape, or the browser window resizing. - Rectangle.topRight returns a Point object that represents the top-right coordinate of the Rectangle.
- The grunt script now builds a new version of Phaser without any physics (including Arcade Physics), Tilemaps or Particles. This build is called
phaser-no-physics.js
and works stand-alone. Please note that things like the GameObjectFactory aren't changed, so they will still try and create a Tilemap for example should you ask them to (thanks @eguneys #1172) - Camera.roundPx is a new boolean. If set to
true
it will callview.floor
as part of its update loop, keeping its boundary to integer values. Set tofalse
to disable this from happening (#1141) - Phaser.Easing.Default is a new property that is used when a specific type of ease isn't given. It defaults to Linear.None but can be overridden to anything (thanks @alvinsight)
- TypeScript definition updates to help fix for the
noimplicitany
option (thanks @Waog #1088) - TypeScript definitions fixes and updates (thanks @clark-stevenson @englercj @saikobee and @rhmoller)
- All of the Pixi geom classes have been removed from the build file as they aren't needed (the Phaser.Geom classes overwrite them), saving some space in the process.
- Improved consistency of clone methods on geometry classes (thanks @beeglebug #1130)
- Removed Cache.isSpriteSheet method as no longer required (see #1059)
- Added Cache.getFrameCount to return the number of frames in a FrameData.
- Input.setMoveCallback has been removed due to deprecation.
- BitmapData.refreshBuffer has been removed and replaced with BitmapData.update.
- BitmapData.drawSprite has been removed due to deprecation. Use BitmapData.draw instead.
- Pointer.moveCallback has been removed due to deprecation.
- SinglePad.addButton has been removed due to deprecation.
- P2.Body.loadData has been removed due to deprecation.
- P2.World.defaultFriction and defaultRestitution have been removed due to deprecation.
- Canvas.create noCocoon parameter has been removed due to deprecation.
- Color.getColorInfo, RGBtoHexstring, RGBtoWebstring and colorToHexstring has been removed due to deprecation.
- P2.PointProxy.x and y values are now returned in pixels (previously they were returned in meters). See PointProxy.mx/my for meter values.
- P2.InversePointProxy.x and y values are now returned in pixels (previously they were returned in meters). See PointProxy.mx/my for meter values.
- Arcade.overlap and collide are now more consistent about allowing a Group vs. Group or Group vs. Array of Groups set (thanks @pyromanfo #877 #1147)
- The Pointer move callbacks are now sent an extra parameter:
fromClick
allowing your callbacks to distinguish between the Pointer just moving, or moving as a result of being pressed down (thanks @iforce2d #1055) - GamePad and SinglePad onAxisCallback parameters have changed. You are now sent: this (a reference to the SinglePad that caused the callback), the axis index and the axis value in that order.
- If Time.elapsed was > Time.timeCap it would reset the elapsed value to be 1 / 60. It's now set to Time.timeCap and Time.timeCap defaults to
1 / 60 * 1000
as it's a ms value (thanks @casensiom #899) - Tiled polylines are now imported into the map objects property as well as map collision (#1117)
- Tile.setCollision now adjusts the tiles interesting faces list as well, this allows you to create one-way jump tiles without using custom callbacks on a specific tile basis (thanks @RafaelOliveira #886)
- Stage.offset has been moved to ScaleManager.offset
- Stage.bounds has been removed, you can access it via Stage.getBounds.
- Stage.checkOffsetInterval has been moved to ScaleManager.trackParentInterval
- ScaleManager.hasResized signal has been removed. Use ScaleManager.setResizeCallback instead.
- The World bounds can now be set to any size, including smaller than the game dimensions. Before it was locked to a minimum size of the game canvas, but it can now be anything.
- ScaleManager.orientationSprite has been removed because it never displayed correctly anyway (it would be distorted by the game scale), it will be bought back in a future version by way of a custom orientation state.
- ArcadePhysics.overlap has been updated so that the Body.overlapX/Y properties are set to the amount the two bodies overlapped by. Previously they were zero and only populated during the separation phase, but now the data is available for just overlap checks as well. You can then use these values in your ovrelap callback as required - note that they are changed for every check, so a Sprite overlap tested against 10 other sprites will have the overlapX/Y values updated 10 times in a single collision pass, so you can only safely use the values in the callback (#641)
- Cache.getImage now returns
null
if the requested image wasn't found. - BitmapData now returns a reference to itself from all of its drawing related methods, allowing for easy function chaining.
- The default size of a BitmapData if no width/height is given has been changed from 100x100 to 256x256.
- Phaser.Text.destroy will now destroy the base texture by default (#1162)
- BitmapData.copyPixels is now called BitmapData.copyRect and the method signature has changed.
- BitmapData.draw method signature has changed significantly.
- Phaser.Canvas.getSmoothingEnabled will return
true
if the given context has image smoothing enabled, otherwisefalse
. - Math.numberArrayStep is a new method that allows you to return an array of numbers from
min
tomax
including an optionalstep
parameter (thanks @codevinsky #1170) - Removed redundant
if
check from StateManager.preUpdate (thanks @FedeOmoto #1173)
- Remove escaping backslashes from RetroFont text set documentation (thanks @jackrugile #1051)
- Phaser.Loader was incorrectly getting the responseText from _xhr instead of _ajax on IE9 xDomainRequests (thanks @lardratboy #1050)
- Phaser.Physics.P2.addPolygon now takes a nested array again (thanks @wayfu #1060)
- Fix for previous PR #1028 where the P2.setBoundsToWorld call was overriding setBoundsToWorld in the P2 constructor (thanks @Dumtard #1028)
- Fix for scale issues in CocoonJS using webgl renderer and screencanvas (thanks @txusinho #1064)
- Resolves issue with pixel perfect click / over detection on Sprites that used trimmed image atlases for animations or frames > 0.
- Group.swap() updates the Z index values properly (thanks @Blank101 #1090)
- Device now recognises ChromeOS as a desktop (thanks @alvinsight @hilts-vaughan #1091)
- Fixed Point.rotate bug (thanks @gamedolphin #1107)
- InputHandler.checkBoundsRect was incorrectly assigning a property in Sprites fixed to the camera being dragged left (thanks @CraigBeswetherick #1093)
- Swapped argument order of Rectangle.containsRect (thanks @beeglebug #1095 #1125)
- The Game configuration object "renderer" property was being wrongly assigned to Game.renderer instead of renderType (thanks @FedeOmoto #1127)
- Fixed Group.removeBetweens default endIndex (thanks @darfux #1142)
- Debug.cameraInfo no longer crashes if the camera bounds are nulled (thanks @wayfu #1143)
- Camera.setBoundsToWorld no longer crashes if the camera bounds are nulled (thanks @wayfu #1143)
- Fixed the resolution uniform type in the SampleFilter (thanks @VictoryRice #1137)
- Calling P2.Body.destroy or ArcadePhysics.Body.destroy wouldn't null the parent sprite body, causing it to error in the next update (thanks @jonathanhooker #1077)
- BitmapFonts are now correctly added to the Cache._bitmapFont array and returned via Cache.getBitmapFont (thanks @prudolfs #1076)
- InputHandler docs updated to avoid Pointer data-type confusion (#1097)
- If you used a single Game configuration object and didn't specify the enableDebug property it would crash on Debug.preUpdate (thanks @luizbills #1053)
- The P2.World.postBroadphaseHandler now checks if the returned pairs array is empty or not before processing it (thanks @wayfu #934)
- Tilemap.hasTile now checks the Tile.index value and will return false if the index is -1 (i.e. a non-active tile) (thanks @elgansayer #859)
- Sound.restart used to cause the Sound to double-up if it was already playing when called. Now correctly stops the sound before restarting it (thanks @wombatbuddy #1136)
- GamePad axis detection now works again properly in Firefox (#1035)
- GamepadButton.justPressed and justReleased now correctly report if the button has just been pressed or released (thanks @padpadpad #1019)
- TilemapParser.getEmptyData now correct adds an empty bodies array into layers. This fixes an issue where p2 couldn't convert a csv map into collision tiles (thanks @sru #845)
- CocoonJS doesn't support mouse wheel events so they've been moved into a conditional check (thanks @videlais #1151)
- ScaleManager window.resize handler would constantly dispatch enterPortrait and enterLandscape events on window resizing, regardless if it actually entered that orientation or not.
- Added Sound._muteVolume which stops Firefox and IE9 crashing if you try to unmute a sound that hasn't yet been muted, which can also happen as a result of a game visibility change (thanks @osmanzeki #1108 #1123)
- P2.World.getSprings used to return an empty array, but now returns all the Springs in the world (#1134)
- Tween.generateData would skip the end values in the data array. They are now included as the object in the final array element.
- Rectangle.bottom setter swapped the order of the calculation (thanks @JakeCoxon #1165)
- Phaser.Text wouldn't render the text to its local canvas if you passed the text on the constructor and didn't add it to the display list. If a string is given it now updates the local canvas on creation.
- Signal.removeAll would ignore the context parameter and remove all bindings regardless (thanks @alect #1168)
- P2.Body.addCapsule didn't use to pass the radius value through pxm, but now does so you have to specify it in pixels, not meters.
- The Debug canvas is now cleared on State swap.
- DistanceConstraint signature changed to take the new localAnchors.
- World.createDistanceConstraint signature changed to include new local anchors (thanks @rhmoller #1169)
- RevoluteConstraint signature changed to include worldPivot.
- P2.Body now uses the new Body.type value instead of Body.motionState, however as P2.Body already have a property called
type
we have left themotionState
getter/setter in for now. - World.enableBodySleeping has been removed and replaced with World.sleepMode.
- Phaser P2.Springs are now LinearSprings by default.
- World.createRotationalSpring will now let you create rotational springs.
- Renamed property .motionState to .type in class Body.
- Changed constructor of RevoluteConstraint. Now the local pivots are passed as options instead of direct arguments. See the constraints demo.
- Removed World.prototype.toJSON and .fromJSON.
- Removed properties .enableBodySleeping and .enableIslandSleeping from World instances. The enum .sleepMode can be used instead. See the sleep demo.
- Converted Spring to a base class for the new LinearSpring and RotationalSpring classes. LinearSpring can be used as the old Spring.
- Utils.ARRAY_TYPE can now be overridden by injecting a global called P2_ARRAY_TYPE. Support for GLMAT_ARRAY_TYPE has been removed.
- Added flag .enableFrictionReduction to Narrowphase.
- Added RevoluteConstraint.prototype.setLimits.
- Added PrismaticConstraint.prototype.setLimits.
- LockConstraint, DistanceConstraint, and GearConstraint can now be constructed from current body transforms.
- RevoluteConstraint can now be constructed from the current body transforms and a world point.
- Material id can now be passed via constructor.
- ContactMaterial instances now have a property .contactSkinSize.
- Added method Body.prototype.getAABB.
- Limits for DistanceConstraint. See the DistanceConstraint demo.
- Added Body.prototype.overlaps.
- Added class OverlapKeeper.
- If substepping is used in World.prototype.step, the substeps are aborted if slower than real time.
- Added Heightfield/Convex and Heightfield/Circle collision support.
- Added property .overlapKeeper to World.
- EventEmitter.prototype.has can now check if any listeners were added to a given topic.
- Added Utils.defaults.
For details about changes made in previous versions of Phaser see the full Change Log at https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
We provide a fully compiled version of Phaser in the build
folder, in both plain and minified formats.
You will also find custom builds in the build\custom
folder, that split phaser up into components.
We also provide a Grunt script that will build Phaser from source.
Run grunt
to perform a default build to the dist
folder.
If you replace Pixi or p2 then run grunt replace
to patch their UMD strings so they work properly with Phaser and requireJS.
Note: Some of you may not be aware, but the phaser.min.js
file in the build folder contains all 3 physics systems bundled in. If you only need Arcade Physics then you can use build\custom\phaser-arcade-physics.min.js
instead. This will save you 180KB from the minified file size.
You can clone the Phaser repo in Koding and then start editing and previewing code right away using their web based VM development system.
If you use bower you can install phaser with:
bower install phaser
If you use NPM you can install phaser with:
npm install phaser
Nice and easy :)
Phaser is now available on CDNJS. You can include the following in your html:
http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/phaser/2.1.0/phaser.min.js
Or if you prefer you can leave the protocol off, so it works via http and https:
//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/phaser/2.1.0/phaser.min.js
Games created with Phaser require a modern web browser that supports the canvas tag. This includes Internet Explorer 9+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. It also works on mobile web browsers including stock Android 2.x browser and above and iOS5 Mobile Safari and above. But as always be aware of browser limitations. Not all features of Phaser work on all browsers.
If you need to support IE9 or Android 2.x and want to use P2 physics then you must use the polyfill found in the resources/IE9 Polyfill
folder. If you don't require P2 Physics (or don't care about IE9!) then you don't need this polyfill.
Phaser is developed in JavaScript. We've made no assumptions about how you like to code your games, and were careful not to impose any form of class / inheritance / structure upon you. So you won't find it split into require modules or pull in 3rd party npm packages for example. That doesn't mean you can't, it just means we don't force you to do so. If you're a requireJS user you'll find a new template in the resources\Project Templates
folder just for you.
If you code with TypeScript you'll find a comprehensive definitions file inside the build
folder and tutorials on getting started.
The build
folder contains the pre-built packaged versions of Phaser.
Phaser is 143 KB gzipped (675 KB minified) when including both Arcade Physics and the full P2 Physics engine.
If you don't require P2 you can save yourself nearly 200 KB from the minified size and instead use the phaser-arcade-physics.min.js
file found inside the build/custom
folder. This version is only 109 KB gzipped (504 KB minified).
If you don't need any physics system at all, or are implementing your own, there is an even smaller build: phaser-no-physics.min.js
in the custom
folder that is only 95 KB gzipped (443 KB minified). Please note that this build doesn't include Tilemaps or Particle Emitter support either, as both rely on Arcade Physics.
You can create your own custom build of Phaser by looking at the grunt options and manifests in the tasks folder.
Ever since we started Phaser we've been growing and expanding our extensive set of Examples. Currently over 320 of them!
They used to be bundled in the main Phaser repo, but because they got so large and in order to help with versioning we've moved them to their own repo.
So please checkout https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser-examples
Here you'll find an ever growing suite of Examples. Personally I feel that developers tend to learn better by looking at small refined code examples, so we created hundreds of them, and create new ones to test new features and updates. Inside the examples
repo you'll find the current set. If you write a particularly good example then please send it to us.
The examples need to be run through a local web server (in order to avoid file access permission errors from your browser). You can use your own web server, or start the included web server using grunt.
Using a locally installed web server browse to the examples folder:
examples/index.html
Alternatively in order to start the included web server, after you've cloned the repo, run npm install
to install all dependencies, then grunt connect
to start a local server. After running this command you should be able to access your local webserver at http://127.0.0.1:8000
. Then browse to the examples folder: http://127.0.0.1:8000/examples/index.html
There is a 'Side View' example viewer as well. This loads all the examples into a left-hand frame for faster navigation. And if you've got php installed into your web server you may want to try debug.php
, which provides a minimal examples list and debug interface.
You can also browse all Phaser Examples online.
WebGL & Canvas
Phaser uses both a Canvas and WebGL renderer internally and can automatically swap between them based on browser support. This allows for lightning fast rendering across Desktop and Mobile. When running under WebGL Phaser now supports shaders, allowing for some incredible in-game effects. Phaser uses and contributes towards the excellent Pixi.js library for rendering.
Preloader
We've made the loading of assets as simple as one line of code. Images, Sounds, Sprite Sheets, Tilemaps, JSON data, XML and JavaScript files - all parsed and handled automatically, ready for use in game and stored in a global Cache for Sprites to share.
Physics
Phaser ships with our Arcade Physics system, Ninja Physics and P2.JS - a full body physics system. Arcade Physics is for high-speed AABB collision only. Ninja Physics allows for complex tiles and slopes, perfect for level scenery, and P2.JS is a full-body physics system, with constraints, springs, polygon support and more.
Sprites
Sprites are the life-blood of your game. Position them, tween them, rotate them, scale them, animate them, collide them, paint them onto custom textures and so much more! Sprites also have full Input support: click them, touch them, drag them around, snap them - even pixel perfect click detection if needed.
Groups
Group bundles of Sprites together for easy pooling and recycling, avoiding constant object creation. Groups can also be collided: for example a "Bullets" group checking for collision against the "Aliens" group, with a custom collision callback to handle the outcome.
Animation
Phaser supports classic Sprite Sheets with a fixed frame size, Texture Packer and Flash CS6/CC JSON files (both Hash and Array formats) and Starling XML files. All of these can be used to easily create animation for Sprites.
Particles
An Arcade Particle system is built-in, which allows you to create fun particle effects easily. Create explosions or constant streams for effects like rain or fire. Or attach the Emitter to a Sprite for a jet trail.
Camera
Phaser has a built-in Game World. Objects can be placed anywhere within the world and you've got access to a powerful Camera to look into that world. Pan around and follow Sprites with ease.
Input
Talk to a Phaser.Pointer and it doesn't matter if the input came from a touch-screen or mouse, it can even change mid-game without dropping a beat. Multi-touch, Mouse, Keyboard and lots of useful functions allow you to code custom gesture recognition.
Sound
Phaser supports both Web Audio and legacy HTML Audio. It automatically handles mobile device locking, easy Audio Sprite creation, looping, streaming and volume. We know how much of a pain dealing with audio on mobile is, so we did our best to resolve that!
Tilemaps
Phaser can load, render and collide with a tilemap with just a couple of lines of code. We support CSV and Tiled map data formats with multiple tile layers. There are lots of powerful tile manipulation functions: swap tiles, replace them, delete them, add them and update the map in realtime.
Device Scaling
Phaser has a built-in Scale Manager which allows you to scale your game to fit any size screen. Control aspect ratios, minimum and maximum scales and full-screen support.
Plugin system
We are trying hard to keep the core of Phaser limited to only essential classes, so we built a smart Plugin system to handle everything else. Create your own plugins easily and share them with the community.
Mobile Browser
Phaser was built specifically for Mobile web browsers. Of course it works blazingly fast on Desktop too, but unlike lots of frameworks mobile was our main focus. If it doesn't perform well on mobile then we don't add it into the Core.
Developer Support
We use Phaser every day on our many client projects. As a result it's constantly evolving and improving and we jump on bugs and pull requests quickly. This is a living, breathing framework maintained by a commercial company with custom feature development and support packages available. We live and breathe HTML5 games.
Battle Tested
Phaser has been used to create hundreds of games, which receive millions of plays per month. We're not saying it is 100% bug free, but we use it for our client work every day, so issues get resolved fast and we stay on-top of the changing browser landscape.
Here are some of the features planned for future releases:
- Look at HiDPI Canvas settings.
- Enhance the State Management, so you can perform non-destructive State swaps and persistence.
- Scene Manager - json scene parser.
- Adjust how Pointers and Interactive Objects work. Allow an IO to be flagged as "on click only", so it doesn't ever get processed during normal Pointer move events (unless being dragged)
- Allow multiple drag items - no longer bind just 1 to a Pointer
- Allow Groups to have Priority IDs too and input disable entire Groups and all children (let it flow down the chain)
- Allow Groups to be InputEnabled? Dragging a Group would be really useful.
- Ability to control DOM elements from the core game and layer them into the game.
- Touch Gestures.
- Optimised global Animation manager to cut down on object creation.
- Swapping to using a RenderTexture for the Tilemaps and implementing Tilemap slicing.
- Look carefully at the internal structure of Phaser to avoid method repetition (such as Sprite.crop and Image.crop), investigate using mixins to help reduce overall codebase size.
- Flash CC HTML5 export integration.
- Massively enhance the audio side of Phaser. Take more advantage of Web Audio: echo effects, positional sound, etc.
- Comprehensive testing across Firefox OS devices, CocoonJS and Ejecta.
- Support for parallel asset loading.
- DragonBones support.
- Integration with third party services like Google Play Game Services and Amazon JS SDK.
- Test out packaging with Node-webkit.
- Game parameters stored in Google Docs.
- Multiple Camera support.
- Cache to localStorage using If-Modified-Since. See github request
- Allow for complex assets like Bitmap Fonts to be stored within a texture atlas.
Phaser 3 has entered the planning stages. Development will not begin until early 2015, but we are already asking for suggestions and feedback in this forum thread. We are currently experimenting with a fully ES6 based module system and we're keen for Phaser 3 to use as many native ES6 features as possible and where sensible. It will be a significant refactoring of the code base, but not at the expense of features or ease-of-use.
MightyEditor is a browser-based visual Phaser game editor. Create your maps with ease, position objects and share them in seconds. It also exports to native Phaser code. Excellent for quickly setting-up levels and scenes.
We now have a full Contributors Guide which goes into the process in more detail, but here are the headlines:
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If you find a bug then please report it on GitHub Issues or our Support Forum.
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If you have a feature request, or have written a game or demo that shows Phaser in use, then please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you! Either post to our forum or email: rich@photonstorm.com
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If you issue a Pull Request for Phaser, please only do so againt the
dev
branch and not against themaster
branch. -
Before submitting a Pull Request please run your code through JSHint to check for stylistic or formatting errors. To use JSHint, run
grunt jshint
. This isn't a strict requirement and we are happy to receive Pull Requests that haven't been JSHinted, so don't let it put you off contributing, but do know that we'll reformat your source before going live with it.
Please add them to the Issue Tracker with as much info as possible, especially source code demonstrating the issue.
"Being negative is not how we make progress" - Larry Page, Google
Phaser is released under the MIT License.