Phaser is a fast, free and fun open source HTML5 game framework. It uses [Pixi.js](https://github.com/GoodBoyDigital/pixi.js/) for WebGL and Canvas rendering across desktop and mobile web browsers. Games can be compiled to iOS and Android apps via 3rd party tools.
Along with the fantastic open source community Phaser is actively developed and maintained by [Photon Storm Limited](http://www.photonstorm.com). As a result of rapid support and a developer friendly API Phaser is currently one of the [most starred](https://github.com/showcases/javascript-game-engines) game frameworks on Github.
Thousands of developers worldwide use it. From indies and multi-national digital agencies to schools and Universities. Each creating their own incredible games. Grab the source and join in the fun!
* **Be awesome:** Support the future of Phaser on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/photonstorm) or by buying our [books](http://phaser.io/shop/books) and [plugins](http://phaser.io/shop/plugins)
Phaser 2.4 is another huge update. We had to bump the version number from 2.3 directly to 2.4 because of some API adjustments, all of which are fully detailed in the [Change Log](#change-log). While it's true we could have released it over a few smaller point releases, that just isn't how the cookie crumbled this time. _Be sure to pay attention to the previous deprecated API calls that have been removed in 2.4._
So although you had to wait for it a couple months more than usual, Phaser 2.4 is quite simply an **epic release** - there is no two ways about it! Brand new video component? Check. Support for fully boned Creature animations? Check. Brand new Cache and Loader updates? Check. Dynamic sprite and gradient generator? Check. Literally hundreds of updates, enhancements and fixes across the entire codebase? Yup, those too! The Change Log seems to scroll on forever, yet the overall package size continues to come down as we optimise and streamline our code too (this release actually builds smaller than 2.3 did, just 80KB min + gz)
Make sure you check out the Phaser web site. We are going to be adding in stacks of new examples and features in the coming weeks.
Also we'd be extremely grateful if you could get involved with our [Patreon campaign](https://www.patreon.com/photonstorm). We've got some really ambitious plans for how we'd like to see Phaser evolve in the future. Hopefully together we can reach that goal faster.
But that's all for now. I hope you enjoy Phaser 2.4.
Please help support the future development of Phaser through our [Patreon campaign](https://www.patreon.com/photonstorm). We've some exciting plans and there's so much we'd like to do - let's see if we can all work together to make this possible.
If you'd like to try coding in Phaser right now, with nothing more than your web browser then you can head over to the [Phaser Sandbox](http://phaser.io/sandbox). You'll find Quick Start templates and a user-friendly editor filled with handy code-completion features.
### Koding
Want to try Phaser without downloading anything? [Clone Phaser in Koding](https://koding.com/Teamwork?import=https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/archive/master.zip&c=git1) and start working right away in their web based development system.
### License
Phaser is released under the [MIT License](http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).
We have a [Getting Started Guide](http://phaser.io/tutorials/getting-started) which covers all you need to begin developing games with Phaser. From setting up a web server, to picking an IDE and coding your first game.
Prefer **videos** to reading? Lynda.com have published a free course: [HTML5 Game Development with Phaser](http://www.lynda.com/Phaser-tutorials/HTML5-Game-Development-Phaser/163641-2.html)
The single biggest Phaser resource is the new [Phaser web site](http://phaser.io/news). It has hundreds of tutorials listed and fresh ones are added every week, so keep coming back to see what's new!
Using Phaser with **TypeScript**? Check out this great series of [Game From Scratch](http://www.gamefromscratch.com/page/Adventures-in-Phaser-with-TypeScript-tutorial-series.aspx) tutorials.
We've been busy writing books about Phaser. Available now:
* [A Guide to the Phaser Tween Manager](https://leanpub.com/phasertweenmanager) Book + Code Bundle
* [A Guide to the Phaser Scale Manager](https://leanpub.com/phaserscalemanager)
With more on the way. [Vote on the next title](http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/10962-which-phaser-book-would-you-like-to-see-next/) to be written.
### Game Mechanic Explorer
The [Game Mechanic Explorer](http://gamemechanicexplorer.com) 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.
### Mighty Editor - Visual Game Editor
[MightyEditor](http://mightyfingers.com/) 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.
Phaser is provided ready compiled in the `build` folder of the repository. There are both plain and minified versions. The plain version is for use during development and the minified version for production.
Starting from Phaser 2.3.0 we now include a brand new build system which allows you to strip out lots of additional features you may not require, saving hundreds of KB in the process. Don't use any Sound in your game? Then you can now exclude the entire sound system. Don't need Keyboard support? That can be stripped out too.
See the [Creating a Custom Phaser Build](http://phaser.io/tutorials/creating-custom-phaser-builds) tutorial for details.
### Building from source
Should you wish to build Phaser from source you can take advantage of the provided [Grunt](http://gruntjs.com/) scripts. Ensure you have the required packages by running `npm install` first.
Run `grunt` to perform a default build to the `dist` folder.
Thousands of games have been made in Phaser. From game jam entries to titles by some of the largest entertainment brands in the world. This is just a tiny sample:
Phaser requires a web browser that supports the [canvas tag](http://caniuse.com/#feat=canvas). This includes Internet Explorer 9+, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera on desktop. iOS Safari, Android Browser and Chrome for Android are supported on mobile.
While Phaser does its best to ensure a consistent cross-platform experience always be aware of browser and device limitations. This is especially important with regard to memory and GPU limitations on mobile, and legacy browser HTML5 compatibility.
### IE9
If you need to support IE9 / Android 2.x **and** use P2 physics then you must use the polyfill in the `resources/IE9 Polyfill` folder. If you don't use P2 (or don't care about IE9!) you can skip this.
### JavaScript and TypeScript
Phaser is developed in JavaScript. We've made no assumptions about how you like to code and were careful not to impose a strict structure upon you. You won't find Phaser split into modules, requiring a build step, or making you use a class / inheritance OOP approach. That doesn't mean you can't do so, it just means we don't *force* you to. It's your choice.
If you code with [TypeScript](http://www.typescriptlang.org/) there are comprehensive definition files in the `typescript` folder. They are for TypeScript 1.4+.
All Phaser development is now taking place on the Phaser 3 project. The Phaser 2 branch will still be supported and issues fixed, but roadmap features have been migrated over to Phaser 3.
We're now a good way in to development of Phaser 3. We've been working hard on creating a brand new and extremely powerful renderer. Progress reports are posted to the [web site](http://phaser.io/labs) and [Phaser 3 repo](https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser3).
There is still plenty of time to add your suggestions and feedback in [this forum thread](http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/7949-the-phaser-3-wishlist-thread/).
If you are an exceptional JavaScript developer and would like to join the Phaser 3 development team then let us know. We have a limited budget available to pay towards your time.
* Loader.images is a new method that allows you to pass an array of image keys, and optionally the urls, to the Loader and have them all added to the load queue in one go.
* Tween.frameBased allows you to control if a Tween updates based on the physics step (i.e. frame based) or the system clock (time based). A frame based tween will use the physics elapsed timer when updating. This means it will retain the same consistent frame rate, regardless of the speed of the device. The duration value given should be given in frames. If the Tween uses a time based update (which is the default) then the duration is given in milliseconds. In this situation a 2000ms tween will last exactly 2 seconds, regardless of the device and how many visual updates the tween has actually been through.
* BitmapText.smoothed is a new boolean property that allows you to set texture smoothing on a bitmap font or not. By default smoothing is always on, but you can turn it off which helps for bitmap fonts created from pixel art style character sets.
* Text.addFontStyle and Text.addFontWeight allow you to apply font weights and styles to specific characters in a Text object. For example you can now include bold or italics within single Text objects (thanks @jdnichollsc#1950)
* PIXI.CanvasPool is a new static global created to deal with the issue of resource leaks and continuous DOM node build-up when creating lots of Text or BitmapData objects, or when calling `generateTexture` on any display object. The CanvasPool will do its best to re-use out dated canvas elements rather than filling up the DOM with new ones.
* Sprite.setTexture has a new `destroyBase` parameter - set this to `true` if you know the base used a generated texture that isn't being used by any other sprites. This will free-up the canvas for further re-use by other calls to generateTexture or Text objects.
* Line.rotate used a calculation method which resulted in the line growing (or shrinking) in length over time, the more it was rotated. The new method never changes the lines length.
- Before submitting a Pull Request run your code through [JSHint](http://www.jshint.com/) using our [config](https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/blob/master/.jshintrc).
