Monday 26 April 2010

Awakener: Reloaded

With the recent release of Silverlight v4, Awakener has received a small but much-needed update:
  • Right Mouse Button support - One long-running gripe with Flash is that any right click will open a context menu that usually can't be disposed of without selecting an item or, if you're determined not to let the pesky menu win, alt-tabbing your way out of it. It is a relief that Microsoft has opted to allow developers to override the existing right mouse button events to their own ends. No more awkward CTRL + LMB needed.
  • Full Screen Mode - Awakener can now be scaled up and down at runtime (previously just down due to a SilverSprite bug). This means we can now use Silverlight's Full Screen mode, as XAGE will scale the game up depending on the user's resolution.
  • Performance improvements - As mentioned recently, load times in particular are more brisk, although this perhaps isn't as noticeable given Awakener's small size.
These few changes make Awakener feel less like a clunky web app and more like the original AGS incarnation. I'd argue that it's even more intuitive as you don't have to worry about installations etc. Judge for yourself:
I've got a few more ideas for optimisations specifically for Silverlight but for now it's back to adding new functionality. Next up: Expressions.

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