Edit October 26th: Submissions are closed! Over the next couple days I will try to get all pending entries (including all “Halloween” submissions in general) uploaded to the website, and the winners will be announced on October 31st!

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Alright let’s do it again.

Want money? Installed Stick Nodes? Have basic motor functions?

Well do I have some news for you…

The Rules

• Make a “Halloween” background. Spooky, funny, memetic, whatever – it just has to easily be understood to be of the “Halloween”/scary theme. Note this is only a background contest. A background is considered to be a setting/location, not just props. However you may include props and layers to your background when you submit it (as a pack). Do not include characters/people.
• Due date (date to have submission sent) is October 25th. Absolutely no extensions. When it becomes October 26th, you lose.
• Submit the stickfigure/pack like normal and include #Halloween2021 hashtag.
• Custom thumbnails are allowed, and encouraged, however it has to accurately portray the background. Don’t go too heavy on extras or filters.
• Up to two entries per person.
• Cash prizes of $50 for first place, $25 for second, and runners-up prizes of $10 for the honorable mentions.
• Judged by drunk Ralph, winners announced on Halloween.

Protips

• Protip #1: Make the background large. Do not make it just barely the size of the stage area. Horizontally longer is better.
• Protip #2: Layers are always good. What point is having an open window if you can’t place a stickfigure dude behind it.
• Protip #3: Extra interactive objects are neat, same with props – like tombstones for a graveyard, allowing the animator to customize it a bit.

Oh yeah and I guess there will also be a website badge awarded to the top 3 winners or something maybe.

 

Just acknowledge the fact right now there are kids who use Stick Nodes who are younger than the app itself. Now who’s feeling old?

Stick Nodes Birthday

August 19th, 2014 – Stick Nodes moved out of it’s month-long BETA period and entered onto the Google Play store. It came to the iOS App Store later in the year.

As is tradition, let’s look back on the original release post of Stick Nodes, back on my development blog. It was originally intended to be a small, quick project – much like many of my past games. Something to toss on my portfolio and move on – boy did that backfire.

Seven years later the app has grown to something I couldn’t imagine. Not only the app itself (lmao I added movieclips) but the community as well. I never imagined having to babysit a giant community of petulant toddlers manage a wonderful community of so many passionate users of some app I created. And the fact that so many of you guys stick around while barely even using the app just goes to show we must be doing something right. Sure there are some, um, dark marks on our history here and there, but what community doesn’t have that?

Anyway. This is where I’d post interesting statistics and facts, if I had them.

I don’t…because recently I’ve moved, and for the past month or so my life has been flipped turned upside down. As a result, my free time is a bit non-existent. Yeah that’s an excuse but deal with it.

Regardless I’ve just recently begun work on 3.3.0, which will introduce bug fixes and a couple small new features (including something many of you have been up my ass about for years). That should be out soon-ish.

And no, I haven’t forgotten about my promise about bringing “sprites” (images) to Stick Nodes, that will be coming later in the year!

Edit May 17: Version 3.2.3 has been released for Android and iOS.

Edit May 12: Version 3.2.2 has been released for Android and iOS.

Edit April 18: Version 3.2.1 has been released for iOS.

Edit April 16: Version 3.2.1 has been released for Android, coming to iOS tomorrow. See the changelog below.

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So a little over six months later, new update!

Sorry, I forgot my App Store and Google Play password.

Known Bugs

• (Not actually a “bug”) Polyfills don’t really play nice with curved segments. This is by design, in a future update this might change. Also, smart-stretch kinda does play nice with curved segments, as long as you don’t change the curve radius (just stretch the limb). This too may change to better work with curves in a future update.
• As of 3.2.2 – “Split segment” doesn’t play nice with elliptical (big) curved segments. This is likely how it will have to be, as oblong/ellipse-style curves can’t really be split into 2 segments and mimic the visual appearance in the same manner.

Changelog 3.2.3

• Bug fix: Using the “rotate” knob on the “Quick Resize Tools” now registers as an undo/redo event for stickfigure (not just node) rotations.
• Bug fix: “Quick Resize Tools” were accessible during polyfill creation, causing potential crashes if you were to delete a node.

Changelog 3.2.2

• Bug fix: Using the “rotate” knob on the “Quick Resize Tools” now registers as an undo/redo event.
• Bug fix: Using “increment frame” with “trace frame” wasn’t working properly.
• Bug fix: Stickfigures locked to the camera would cause “Quick Resize Tools” to disappear.
• Bug fix: A large amount of files in the import lists would take a very long time to open, this has been optimized.
• New: Tapping the “rotate” knob on the “Quick Resize Tools” will snap the rotation to 0, 90, 180, or 270 degrees.
• New: Splitting a curved segment (in Creation Mode) will apply the split along the curve as expected.
• New: Added node copy/paste/delete buttons to the “Quick Resize Tools” (in Creation Mode).

Changelog 3.2.1

• Segments of 0-length are no longer invisible.
• Improved curved-segment smoothness of small curves.
• Bug fix: App would crash when pasting a Movieclip that would exceed the frame node limit.
• Bug fix: Fixed a rare crash when pressing stretchy/static/lock-node buttons in the menu.

Changelog 3.2.0

• Segments can now be curved.
• Added “Quick Resize Tools” that show when selecting a figure/textfield. Can be disabled in “View Options”.
• Zoom increased to maximum of 5,000%.
• (Android) The app will no longer automatically scan the /downloads/ folder for SN files. Anything you download will have to be opened directly (Open with > Stick Nodes) for it to be moved into the proper folder.
• (Android) The app starts a notification-bar service upon app launch to attempt to prevent the app from being reset if backgrounded. Works in some cases but is not a perfect solution – save frequently, save often!
• Bug fix: “Paste with layering” would select the wrong figure after pasting.
• Bug fix: Panning would move locked textfields via Arrows Window.
• Bug fix: Deleting a stickfigure from the library would sometimes crash the app if the figure was locked to the camera in the project.
• Bug fix: Undoing certain smart-stretch setups would result in weird behavior.
• Bug fix: Pasting/typing in a locked textfield wouldn’t update its position.
• Bug fix: Selecting a draw tool would sometimes not work.
• Bug fix: Editing an MC while using “trace frame” would sometimes result in undesirable results if the MC was in the frame being traced.
• Bug fix: MC “increment frame” when using “trace frame” would not act properly in some situations.
• Bug fix: Undoing a frame deletion would cause a delayed crash under certain MC usage situations.
• Bug fix: Import menu sorting performance increased.

Mr Onyx created a short and sweet video tutorial showing a quick overview of these new features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0npV7Yqa3vc

Also, DZcon made a pretty slick video about 3.2.0 as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cyOWP4qLGg

So lots of bug fixes and behind-the-scenes updates of libraries and frameworks, overall just a nice stability-improving update (I hope). But the two main additions that I think are pretty neat are curved segments and the new “Quick Resize Tools”.

Curved Segments

Not much to say. Segments, and rounded segments, can now be curved. Should allow for some creative new designs (or at least, make certain structures easier to build) as well as allow for some interesting animation mechanics.

Quick Resize Tools

Also pictured above you can see the new “Quick Resize Tools”. A few buttons will pop up around the selection of a stickfigure, movieclip, node, or textfield. The buttons allow for quick access to commonly-used properties like scale, rotation, and, as you can see, curve radius. While useful in Animation Mode, it should speed up the stickfigure-building process in Creation Mode as well (quick access to stretchiness, thickness, and staticness).

Website Redesign

Oh yeah, a big reason for the delay of this update was the fact I spent a good few months redesigning the Activity section of the site. Big visual improvement, and a few new community features. If you don’t have an account you’re actually dead to me.

What’s next? Some smaller SN updates, to keep the quick and more frequent – building up to bigger updates in a few months (sprites Soon™).

Look, I’m just glad the Christmas 2020 post isn’t the top news post anymore…