Phaser is a fast, free and fun open source HTML5 game framework. It uses a custom build of [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, Android and desktop apps via 3rd party tools like Cocoon, Cordova and Electron.
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!
As always, keep you eyes on the Phaser web site, our weekly newsletter, or follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/photonstorm) for the latest updates.
We'd be extremely grateful if you could get involved with our [Phaser Patreon campaign](https://www.patreon.com/photonstorm). The uptake so far has been fantastic. Thank you to everyone who now supports Phaser development and shares our belief in the future of HTML5 gaming, and Phasers role in that.
Please help support the future development of Phaser / Lazer through our [Patreon campaign](https://www.patreon.com/photonstorm). We've some exciting plans and there's so much we'd like to do.
Every Friday we publish our newsletter: [Phaser World](http://phaser.io/community/newsletter). It's packed full of the latest Phaser games, tutorials, videos, meet-ups, conference talks and more. We also post regular development updates, and occasionally special offers.
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.
Want to try Phaser without downloading anything? The site [Koding](https://koding.com) offer a complete browser-based virtual machine to work in, allowing you to clone the Phaser repo and start work immediately.
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. Please start here no matter what your game-dev experience, before diving in to the API.
The single biggest Phaser resource is the [Phaser web site](http://phaser.io/news). It has hundreds of tutorials listed and fresh ones are added every week. 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.
Prefer **videos** to reading? Lynda.com have published a video based course: [HTML5 Game Development with Phaser](http://www.lynda.com/Phaser-tutorials/HTML5-Game-Development-Phaser/163641-2.html) (requires subscription)
With 400 pages of content you'll find detailed articles, game development "Making Of" guides and tutorials. All were written using the latest version of Phaser, so you won't be learning any out-dated tricks here.
[Phaser Editor](http://phasereditor.boniatillo.com/) is a brand new Eclipse based editor that offers lots of built-in tools specifically for Phaser developers. Handy features include Smart code auto-completion, built-in web server, documentation search, asset management, texture atlas creator, audio sprite creator, asset previews and lots more.
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.
Phaser includes a grunt based 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.
Phaser was never written to be modular. Everything exists under one single global namespace, and you cannot `require` selected parts of it into your builds. It expects 3 global vars to exist in order to work properly: `Phaser`, `PIXI` and `p2`. The following is one way of doing this:
We appreciate this is just a band-aid and not a proper use of modules, but please understand it was never built to be used this way. You're trying to fit a square peg in a round browserify-shaped hole, so compromises have to be made. Please don't open GitHub issues about it. We've no intention of changing Phaser at this stage of its life. Full module based development is being undertaken in Lazer.
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. Here is 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.
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+.
The majority of Phaser development is now taking place on the Lazer (Phaser 3) project. The Phaser 2 branch will still be supported and issues fixed, but roadmap features have been migrated over.
Lazer is the next generation of the Phaser game framework. Using a completely ES6 base it is renderer agnostic, allowing for DOM, SVG, Canvas and WebGL rendering, across desktop and mobile web browsers.
You can read all about the philosophy behind Lazer [here](http://phaser.io/news/2016/01/phaser-in-2015-and-beyond) or join the Google Groups [mailing list](https://groups.google.com/d/forum/phaser3-dev) where progress reports are posted on a regular basis.
* You can now access the intensity of the Camera shake effect via the getter / setter `Camera.shakeIntensity`. Useful if you wish to tween the intensity while running. (thanks @drhayes#2443)
Please note that Phaser uses a custom build of Pixi and always has done. The following changes have been made to our custom build, not to Pixi in general.
- 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).
