The first large public update to FlashPunk has been released, only two weeks since its initial announcement. Weighing in at a hefty 73.8KB, version 0.8 features a wealth of changes. The foremost modifications are as follows:
- Collision amendments – Pixel-perfect Entity collisions are now improved for bitmap masks. Collision-related functions have been slightly altered for more simplicity and logicality.
- More Entity functions – getNearestClass(), getNearestType() and distanceTo() have been added to the Entity class. This will simplify the implementation of these calculations tenfold. Entity recycling functions are also now integrated.
- Enhanced Tilemaps – As well as the possibility of being much larger, Tilemap classes now have a variety of bitmap loading functions.
- Camera class – The camera (or ‘view’) is now a class of its own with movement and boundary functions.
- Font embedding – The text-related classes now use embedded fonts, while functionality with bitmap fonts have been suspended. This should make it easier for fonts to be used, customised and adapted.much
- Colour functions – Functions have been added so that colours can be created from RGB values, which is viewed as amore simple interpretation of colours.
- Better documentation – A docs page has been added to the website, where online ASDoc documentation is stored. This is much cleaner, organised and better commented. It can also be downloaded for offline reference.
Supplementary with the new version is a games page on the website showcasing most games which have already been created utilising the library. However, Chevy promises that the page is not fully finished and that he will update it when new games made with FlashPunk are released.
There are many more useful additions which you will no doubt find, making this a must-download for FlashPunk users. Chevy’s great efforts in bringing us more goodness should certainly be commended. We now look forward to more developments and to games utilising the new features found in version 0.8.
Jack Brockley 
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