I’ve been a bit busy these past few months, so I haven’t had much of an opportunity to keep this blog going. The Easter holiday has given me a bit of respite, so I’m able to catch up on the state of the game making tools field. There have been quite a few developments since my last post on the subject.

• Construct - my favourite little tool has been updated to version 0.99.84, and like most Construct updates these days it has fixed some bugs while opening a few new ones. Don’t let the ‘unstable’ tag scare you - all versions should be considered beta. Fingers crossed, they may get version 1.0 out by the end of the year.
• GameMaker - although this is very old news, it’s still worth mentioning that GameMaker has been updated to version 8. New additions include alpha transparency for sprites and a ‘trigger’ system that give a few more options for events.
• Stencyl - the stealthiest game creator ever is getting close to release, with the owners finally letting people see what it looks like. I got access to the beta back in February and I have to say it’s looking rather nice. There’s a heavy emphasis on collaboration and sharing, with the aim of becoming sort of a game developer’s YouTube.
• Flixel - Adam Saltsman has completely overhauled his fabulous Flash game framework, with an entirely new object management system and collision method. I haven’t had a chance to try the new version yet, but the updates from @flixation sound fantastic.

That just about covers the 2D developments of interest to me. The third dimension will come in a future post. Do you know of any other significant software that should be mentioned?