Phaser: Mouse Input

In this blog post, we will learn how to handle mouse input using Phaser. This is a part of our Phaser series, so if you haven’t already, make sure to check out the first post here.

To make any GameObject interactive, all we need to do is call the setInteractive() method on it. For example:

text = this.add.text(100, 100, 'test');
text.setInteractive();

Once a GameObject is interactive, we can start listening for events using the on() method. We pass an event name and a callback function that will be executed when the event occurs. For mouse events, we have a variety of options such as pointerdown, pointerup, pointermove, and more. Here’s an example of listening for the pointerup event:

text.on('pointerup', function() {
    // event handling logic
});

But that’s not all! Phaser provides us with many advanced mouse and touch event controls. Some commonly used mouse events include pointerdown, pointerup, pointermove, pointerover, pointerout, and wheel.

In addition to these specific events, there is also a more general event called gameobjectdown. This event is fired when any interactive element is clicked and is not associated with a specific object. Instead, it is triggered on this.input. Here’s an example:

this.input.on('gameobjectdown', () => {
    // event handling logic
});

This covers the basics of handling mouse input in Phaser. Stay tuned for more advanced topics in our Phaser series.

Tags: Phaser, Game Development, Mouse Input