Ruffle News - May 2023
We have some exciting Ruffle developments to share today!
Big improvements in ActionScript 3!
More fan-favorite games are finally playable again!
- Bloons Tower Defense 4
- Happy Wheels Demo (Note: low framerate; performance is not optimized yet)
- Kingdom Rush
- Dead Zed 2
Many graphics drawing methods have been implemented and fixed! These games are working now:
- VVVVVV Demo
- William and Sly 2
- Sweet Drmzzz
- Fault Line (requires the Ruffle browser extension)
XML support is progressing nicely! Thanks to the great work of @evilpie, these games have become playable in Ruffle:
@Aaron1011’s work on Stage3D continues! Many of the newer Fancy Pants games are now playable:
- The Fancy Pants Adventures: World 4 series: Part 1, Part 2
- The Cutie Pants Adventures
Note: Because Stage3D is graphically intensive, only the Ruffle desktop app can currently run these games well.
ActionScript 2 support is improving too!
@Toad06 has implemented some additional XML methods, making Mission in Snowdriftland playable in Ruffle! You can check it out on the Flashpoint testing site (forgive the goofy URL).
The Ruffle desktop app finally has a user inteface!
Thanks to the efforts of @mike and @Dinnerbone, the desktop app now has a menu bar and context menu! You can also open SWF files by dragging them into the Ruffle window.
Ruffle now has a built-in save manager!
Thanks to the work of @danielhjacobs, web builds of Ruffle allow you to back up and restore your progress for any game. Just right-click => Open Save Manager!
We’re looking for help localizing Ruffle to other languages!
If you’d like to help translate Ruffle into your language, please join our new CrowdIn project.
Ruffle finally supports copying and pasting text!
Thanks to the efforts of myself and @Toad06, editable text boxes in Ruffle now support cutting, copying and pasting. You can also press Ctrl-A to select all. Check out the demo below, where I create, copy and paste a level code in Super Mario Flash!
We have more awesome things coming up!
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Tonight’s Ruffle build will feature some major desktop interface improvements from @Dinnerbone!
- @kmeisthax is working on FLV support! Soon Ruffle will support Flash content with external video files. You can follow his progress here.
- @uqers is working on mixed AVM support! This will resolve crashes in ActionScript 2 games encrypted with MochiCrypt, along with other games and applications that mix ActionScript 2 and 3. You can follow his progress here.
- @Michiel is working on a fix for unclickable buttons in many AS2 games, such as Electricman 2 and Super Soldier. You can follow his progress here.
A post-mortem of Ruffle's removal from addons.mozilla.org
On December 11th, 2022, our extension submissions to Firefox’s extension repository, addons.mozilla.org (abbreviated as A.M.O), got stuck in review. This was shortly followed up with a far scarier notice a few days later on the 14th:
First post, progress report!
Get ready for the biggest Ruffle announcement yet! And the first one on the blog!
Huge improvements to Ruffle’s AVM1 engine accuracy!
Thanks to a massive code refactor by @CUB3D, dozens upon dozens of ActionScript 2 games have been fixed! Here are just a few of them:
- Chibi Knight
- Xeno Tactic 2
- Trojan War
- Frontline Defense
- Bubble Bobble: The Revival
- Cube Colossus
- Chronotron
- The Powerpuff Girls: Attack of the Puppybots
- Extreme Pamplona
Incredible progress in AVM2 (ActionScript 3) support!
- Our website now has a page listing exactly what ActionScript 3 APIs we have implemented, making it easy to follow our progress. It will be frequently updated!
- XML support is rapidly improving! ActionScript 3 games tend to use a wide variety of XML methods. As Ruffle gains support for these methods, games are springing to life!
- Several problems that caused unresponsive buttons and menus have been fixed. Unclickable buttons in ActionScript 3 games are (mostly) a thing of the past!
- Other major refactors are in progress to improve Ruffle’s compatibility with ActionScript 3 frameworks like Haxe.
- @Aaron1011 is working on Stage3D support! Thanks to his work, the gorgeous interstellar strategy game Solarmax 2 is now fully playable in Ruffle on the desktop player! Check out the video below.
Many of the fan-favorite Flipline games are now playable! Check them out:
- Papa’s Burgeria
- Jacksmith
- Papa’s Cheeseria (requires the Ruffle Chrome extension)
- Papa’s Bakeria (requires the Ruffle Chrome extension)
Here are just a few more of the many ActionScript 3 games that are playable today in Ruffle!
Last but not least, support for mobile devices is improving in a big way!
- Text input boxes are finally supported on mobile devices! Tapping on a text box within Flash content now brings up the soft keyboard, so you can type into it without using a bluetooth keyboard or other workarounds.
- The context menu finally works on iOS! It is activated by a long-press on the screen. To stop this behavior if needed, simply tap the “Hide this menu” option.
We have even more improvements coming very soon!
- The latest releases now have dynamic audio buffering, making audio playback in the most demanding content much smoother! (Thanks to @szőlő)
- A bug that causes some AVM2 games’ intro sounds to repeat over and over will soon be fixed. (Thanks to @Aaron1011)
- @Dinnerbone is working on improving drawing accuracy for thin/hairline strokes and scaled objects. You can follow his progress here.