RAD Game Development Tool - update April 6th

[Josepho]

Hello, i recently purchased Purebasic to create some tools to use it in my own games and after i finish them I decided to start a new huge project with the idea of having fun, learn and maybe some time release it for sale.

The initial idea is to build a tool based on RPG Maker but with their own unique features. I always seen as a downside for the new versions of this program that it looks restricted to high definition pixel art instead of letting the users decide their own game definition. So this program will allow the users to select that.

Also another downside of RPG Maker is that the list of events its messy so I want to create a visual language editor similar to Unreal Kismet, I would probably use a canvas gadget for this ;P

The runner will be the LUA game engine Love2D or Javascript based on Pixi.js, I didnt decide it but for the moment the Love2D option looks more interesting. I dont wantt to create the runner in PB cause it wouldnt have compatibility with mobile devices.

For the moment i have just an initial layout of the program, nothing working, just the idea and ilusion to do it


I thought it would be interesting to have feedback, thoughts, etc
Ah also this project will probably take a lot to be completed

[Josepho]

I have the first big feature implemented, its the first version of map editor, here you can see it working

Behold the autotile positioning
- From 12 tiles it generates 36 tile variations
- This variations are automatically placed in the editor according to the place you are drawing



Right now it still uses RMK2K tilesets so its coded in order to use that kind of tilesets but in the future it will allow the user to set the tilesets as they want.

Im wondering if i post in the wrong forum, should i post this on showcase forum? if some administrator wants to move it please do it

Update November 24 - 2020
Now it supports animated tiles, clever animated tiles and groups of clever tiles


The next thing i will work it will be a several map manager and the tilemanagement

[BarryG]

Looks good, although I'm not really a gamer anymore. Keep at it because it still looks impressive to me anyway!

[Drone]

Nice !

[Mijikai]

Nice

[SPH]

Very cooool

[Tenaja]

Looks good, although I'm not really a gamer anymore. Keep at it because it still looks impressive to me anyway!

+1

[jamirokwai]

Hey Josepho,

that looks very promising. Great work!

I'd suggest using Phaser.io as a framework for the player. It relies on pixi.js and has many great features - I already created some interactive experiences with phaser for customers. Can't show things, because they are internal projects, but they work very well on all platforms!

Cheers
J.

[Josepho]

Many thanks for the replies!

@jamirokwai

As far as I know phaser 3 and newer version dont rely on Pixi.js anymore, the 2.5 CE version is the one that still uses this engine as the visual renderer. Anyway, now you say this, Phaser would probably be a better decision than using pixi.js cause of its popularity. The idea of using a well stablished engine was to make the runner have a long amount of capable coders to be able to create new extensions to the program.

The issue about pixi, and phaser, its the javascript itself, looks like you need to rely on electron for the mobile exports but also for the window versions of the game which kind of adds a complexity layer to make standalone versions easily to share it with friends. Love would be just add the lua code to the runner, it would be a complexity layer too to make mobile versions but im my experience for this kind of rad tools mobile versions are not the main target of the users but a wannable option. Another cool thing of love is that there is a very recent loveJs runner so games would be available on the web easily.

I love to have this debate as its the thing i have less clear in my mind about the tool, what tech use in the runner, so please if im wrong on my thoughts please tell me.

[Josepho]

New update!

Drawing tools!
- The user can select a tile and draw a rectangle area of it
- The user can select a tile and draw a circle area of it
- The user can use the bulk tool to fill connected areas

And... all of the previous things works if you select several tiles instead of one, so instead of drawing an area composed of a tile you can draw areas composed by several tiles, this is useful when you have several tile that compose a bigger drawing

All of the previous systems are retrocompatible, so clever tiles, animated tiles, etc are being able to be used with the drawing tools



Next stuff will be to allow the user to select areas of the already drawed tiles and copy paste thems and several layers

[langinagel]

Hi Josepho,

this looks great.
For Game-Level building, or interiuer design or maybe 2D simulations setups.
Greetings
LN

[jamirokwai]

@jamirokwai

The issue about pixi, and phaser, its the javascript itself, looks like you need to rely on electron for the mobile exports but also for the window versions of the game which kind of adds a complexity layer to make standalone versions easily to share it with friends.

Dont't laugh, but this is enough for showing Phaser in a window. Shame, we can't use fullscreen-windows atm

Code: Select all

OpenWindow(0,0,0,1280,720,"Phaser-Test")
WebGadget(0,0,0,1280,720,"/path/to/your/index.html")
Repeat
WaitWindowEvent(100) 
ForEver

No need for overblown Electron and the likes. Tested on macOS and Windows. If you prefer fullscreen, you can get the same thing with minimal afford on macOS with Xcode and Swift in about 50 lines of code. On Windows, there should be an easy option as well.

I abandoned the idea of a container app a few weeks ago, as I am using Unity for our games for years now. Hopefully, their "Project Tiny" will be polished soon enough to export to WebGL. The Unity binary is way to big for my taste.

[Josepho]

@jamirokwai

See, in 5 minutes you have found the first problem by using javascript as the runner
Now imagine for doing things like make creations steamworks compatible, or inapp purchases!
Anyway i didnt drop the idea of using phaser as the runner yet, but i will probably start using love2d first and check how its going. Also love2d has javascript bindings so browser games would be possible too

And today i have new updates!


In the gif you can see now the following improvements
- Switching between layers right now there is a floor and a top one
- Zoom of the tile pallete
- Zoom of the map
- Map area selection and ability to move a copy of it
- Copy+paste with shortcouts of map area selections

After this update i almost consider the tilemapper done so i will take a moment to work on other projects but i will come back to this development in a couple of months with more exciting things . This is not only a tilemapper but a game editor, so there is still plenty of work to be done.

[fluent]

@jamirokwai

The issue about pixi, and phaser, its the javascript itself, looks like you need to rely on electron for the mobile exports but also for the window versions of the game which kind of adds a complexity layer to make standalone versions easily to share it with friends.

Dont't laugh, but this is enough for showing Phaser in a window. Shame, we can't use fullscreen-windows atm

Code: Select all

OpenWindow(0,0,0,1280,720,"Phaser-Test")
WebGadget(0,0,0,1280,720,"/path/to/your/index.html")
Repeat
WaitWindowEvent(100) 
ForEver

No need for overblown Electron and the likes. Tested on macOS and Windows. If you prefer fullscreen, you can get the same thing with minimal afford on macOS with Xcode and Swift in about 50 lines of code. On Windows, there should be an easy option as well.

I abandoned the idea of a container app a few weeks ago, as I am using Unity for our games for years now. Hopefully, their "Project Tiny" will be polished soon enough to export to WebGL. The Unity binary is way to big for my taste.

Does Phaser really work in a webgadget? I just tried some of the examples on their website, and they are not loading here. (Windows 10)

@Josepho: nice work! Will keep watching as it evolves

[jamirokwai]

@jamirokwai

The issue about pixi, and phaser, its the javascript itself, looks like you need to rely on electron for the mobile exports but also for the window versions of the game which kind of adds a complexity layer to make standalone versions easily to share it with friends.

Dont't laugh, but this is enough for showing Phaser in a window. Shame, we can't use fullscreen-windows atm

Code: Select all

OpenWindow(0,0,0,1280,720,"Phaser-Test")
WebGadget(0,0,0,1280,720,"/path/to/your/index.html")
Repeat
WaitWindowEvent(100) 
ForEver

No need for overblown Electron and the likes. Tested on macOS and Windows. If you prefer fullscreen, you can get the same thing with minimal afford on macOS with Xcode and Swift in about 50 lines of code. On Windows, there should be an easy option as well.

I abandoned the idea of a container app a few weeks ago, as I am using Unity for our games for years now. Hopefully, their "Project Tiny" will be polished soon enough to export to WebGL. The Unity binary is way to big for my taste.

Does Phaser really work in a webgadget? I just tried some of the examples on their website, and they are not loading here. (Windows 10)

@Josepho: nice work! Will keep watching as it evolves

Hi Fluent,

Just wanted to point out, that for many smaller projects, you won't need Electron with its 100 mb+ runtime. In Purebasic, a simple viewer would weight about 200 kb

It worked on my machine (MacBook Pro i5 on Catalina), yes, with a bit of manual corrections first. But Josepho is of course right. If you need In-App-Purchases and such, there would be too much work to be done with Purebasic intercepting the Webgadget. In my quest for Phaser in an iOS-App, I tested some things with Swift and the integrated Wkwebviewer. That went very well.

As I said, I abandoned the idea, but nonetheless, some people may be successful using it.