12 April 2023 was the date that Phaser 3.60 was released, the tenth anniversary of its debut. I started developing Mr Football as a mobile game back in 2019 when the current version was 3.17, so I can’t say I have been there since the beginning, but I have watched it grow over time. Version 3.60 was supposed to be the final version before Richard Davey got to work on transitioning to the newer TypeScript standard, although I gather there is a 3.61 in the works with some last-minute bug fixes.
We just about have our gone-gold version of Phaser 3, nonetheless, which means it should be the gold standard for a few years while version 4.0 is cooking. One of the historical weaknesses of Phaser has been its amateurish level of developer onboarding. Documentation is often piecemeal and inscrutable to the uninitiated with tutorials often locked behind paywalls erected by those looking to monetise this weakness, making it difficult for newbies (like I was in 2019) to dip their toes, let alone jump in. Locking in 3.61 should make for a stable codebase around which a more robust set of tutorials and helper articles can be built. I can only hope to contribute my small efforts to cover a sorely-needed deficiency.
As 4.0 is being developed, no doubt there will be an urge by many a developer to follow Richard down the yellow-bricked TypeScript road. There are apparently still some developers clinging to Phaser 2, which is over five years old now. I, for one, will be sticking with version 3 for Mr Football with a view to releasing it before 4 is done in the oven.
I suspect there may be others like me out there who cut their teeth on JavaScript in the peak Web development hacking years, and are loath to learn TypeScript or anything else that is new-fangled. Enough with new syntaxes (syntii?), I just mastered the old ones! Sometimes you need to stow away your FOMO and just keep working. That is my plan, at least for my current development cycle.