Phaser is a fast, free and fun open source game framework for making desktop and mobile browser HTML5 games. It uses [Pixi.js](https://github.com/GoodBoyDigital/pixi.js/) internally for fast 2D Canvas and WebGL rendering.
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Exactly 6 months ago we released Phaser 1.0 into the world. Suffice to say that since then we've been overwhelmed at the huge surge of developers taking to it! Our github repository is consistently in the top JavaScript lists, we've over 3200 stars at the time of writing, and a wonderful, vibrant and friendly community. Phaser 2 is a natural evolution of what we started. We've focused specifically on performance and expansion with this release. Lots of developers have already reported to us considerably speed increases just by swapping to Phaser 2 (reports of 200% faster speeds on mobile aren't unheard of!). There's also a full-body physics system available now, in the form of the excellent p2.js. The upgrade to Pixi 1.5 under the hood bought lots of new visual effects in, including blend modes and tints.
And we're also really pleased to have closed down over 550 issues reported on github. We literally went through every last bug reported to us, and fixed it. All kinds of little things that as a whole make the library that much more solid. With the 2.0 release we're now freezing the API. Before we have to admit that the API changed somewhat on a whim, and we moved things around and changed things without too much consideration for fellow developers. With 2.0 that stops - we've spent long enough on this release that we're now extremely happy with the organisation of classes and methods, and while we may still need to make small tweaks in the future, none of them will be API breaking without prior community approval first. This means if you're using Phaser to teach in classes, or writing a book / tutorials around it, this is the version to base off.
If you want to port a Phaser 1.x game over to 2 then please see our [Migration Guide](https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/blob/master/resources/Migration%20Guide.md) for help.
So what's next? We do have a roadmap (which you can find at the bottom of this document), but we're going to sit back and take stock for a while, building up the tutorials and sample games. We will of course jump on bug fixes quickly, and we appreciate that our TypeScript definitions are now slightly out of date again (an eternal quest we appear to be on!), but this is definitely the best release of Phaser ever. The most features, the fastest, the most stable and just generally the most fun to use.
We have a new [Getting Started Guide](http://phaser.io/getting-started-js.php) 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.
There is a comprehensive [How to Learn Phaser](http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/how-to-learn-the-phaser-html5-game-engine--gamedev-13643) guide on the GameDevTuts+ site which is a great place to learn where to find tutorials, examples and support.
There is also an [un-official Getting Started Guide](http://www.antonoffplus.com/coding-an-html5-game-for-30-minutes-or-an-introduction-to-the-phaser-framework).
* Tilemap.createFromObjects has a new parameter: adjustY, which is true by default. Because Tiled uses a bottom-left coordinate system Phaser used to set the Sprite anchor to 0,1 to compensate. If adjustY is true it now reduces the y value by the object height instead.
* ArcadePhysics.Body now checks the ArcadePhysics.World bounds, not the game bounds.
* ArcadePhysics.Body has reverted to the 1.1.3 method of preUpdate, so you can now position sprites with x/y, drag them, etc, regardless of the Body.moves flag (issue #606)
* ArcadePhysics.World now has setBounds and setBoundsToWorld methods, which are called automatically on world resizing.
* ArcadePhysics.Body no longer sets the offset to match the anchor.
There is an extensive [Migration Guide](https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser/blob/master/resources/Migration%20Guide.md) available. In the guide we detail the API breaking changes and approach to our new physics system. The following is a list of all the other new features, updates and bug fixes present in this release.
* Phaser.Image is a brand new display object perfect for logos, backgrounds, etc. You can scale, rotate, tint, blend an get input events from an Image, but it has no animation or physics body.
* You can now use the hitArea property on Sprites and Image objects. hitArea can be a geometry object (Rectangle, Circle, Polygon, Ellipse) and is used in pointerOver checks.
* Text.inputEnabled allows you to enable all input events over Text objects: dragging, clicking, etc - anything that works on a Sprite works on Text now too.
* Tilemap.createCollisionObjects will parse Tiled data for objectgroups and convert polyline instances into physics objects you can collide with in the world.
* Loader can now load JSON files specifically (game.load.json) and they are parsed and stored in the Game.Cache. Retrieve with game.cache.getJSON(key).
* Stage.smoothed allows you to set if sprites will be smoothed when rendered. Set to false if you're using pixel art in your game. Default is true. Works in Canvas and WebGL.
* Sprite.smoothed and Image.smoothed allows you to set per-Sprite smoothing, perfect if you just want to keep a few sprites smoothed (or not)
* StateManager.start can now have as many parameters as you like. The order is: start(key, clearWorld, clearCache, ...) - they are passed to State.init() (NOT create!)
* Phaser.Timer.stop has a new parameter: clearEvents (default true), if true all the events in Timer will be cleared, otherwise they will remain (fixes #383)
* All GameObjects now have a 'destroyChildren' boolean as a parameter to their destroy method. It's default is true and the value propogates down its children.
* Brand new Grunt task - creates each core library as its own file and a combined phaser.js.
* New build script now cleanly splits Phaser, Pixi and p2 so they are each UMD wrapped and each available in the global scope (now more requireJS friendly!).
* phaser-no-libs.js allows you to use your own version of p2.js or pixi.js with Phaser. Warning: This is totally unsupported. If you hit bugs, you fix them yourself.
* Game.add.renderTexture now has the addToCache parameter. If set the texture will be stored in Game.Cache and can be retrieved with Cache.getTexture(key).
* Game.add.bitmapData now has the addToCache parameter. If set the texture will be stored in Game.Cache and can be retrieved with Cache.getBitmapData(key).
* We now force IE11 into Canvas mode to avoid a Pixi bug with pre-multiplied alpha. Will remove once that is fixed, sorry, but it's better than no game at all, right? :(
* Loader.setPreloadSprite() will now set sprite.visible = true once the crop has been applied. Should help avoid issues (#430) on super-slow connections.
* Previously if you used Sprite.crop() it would crop all Sprites that shared the same base image. It now takes a local copy of the texture data and crops just that.
* Fixed bug in Math.angleBetween where it was using the coordinates in the wrong order.
* Previously using a Pixel Perfect check didn't work if the Sprite was rotated or had a non-zero anchor point, now works under all conditions + atlas frames.
* AnimationParser.spriteSheet wasn't taking the margin or spacing into account when calculating the numbers of sprites per row/column, nor was it allowing for extra power-of-two padding at the end (fix #482, thanks yig)
* AnimationManager.add documentation said that 'frames' could be null, but the code couldn't handle this so it defaults to an empty array if none given (thanks yig)
* Loader.replaceInFileList wouldn't over-write the previous entry correctly, which caused the Loader.image overwrite parameter to fail (thanks basoko, fixes #493)
* If the game was set to NO_SCALE and you swapped orientation, it would pause and resize, then fail to resize when you swapped back (thanks starnut, fixes #258)
* Changed the define function calls to use named modules, allows pixi, phaser and p2 to reside in 1 file and still be located by requirejs (thanks brejep, #531)
You can [][koding] and then start editing and previewing code right away using their web based VM development system.
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.
For developing with Phaser you can use either a plain-vanilla JavaScript approach or [TypeScript](https://typescript.codeplex.com/) using the provided TypeScript definitions file. We 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.
Ever since we started Phaser we've been growing and expanding our extensive set of Examples. Currently over 250 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.
Please go and checkout https://github.com/photonstorm/phaser-examples
Phaser comes with an ever growing suite of Examples. Personally I feel that we learn better by looking at small refined code examples, so we created over 250 of them and create new ones to test every new feature added. 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:
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`
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 <em>fast</em> and we stay on-top of the changing browser landscape.
[Nadion](https://github.com/jcd-as/nadion) is a set of powerful enhancements for Phaser that makes level building even easier. It includes features such as Trigger, Area, Alarms and Emitters, debug panels, state machines, parallax layer scrolling, 'developer mode' short-cuts and more.
- 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][forum] or email: rich@photonstorm.com
- Before submitting a Pull Request please run your code through [JSHint](http://www.jshint.com/) to check for stylistic or formatting errors. To use JSHint, first install it by running `npm install jshint`, then test your code by running `jshint src`. 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.
