Home-brew Tools

The nice thing about javascript, is you don’t need any development tools installed to use it. Basically all you need is a text editor and a browser and you can make something. Which is also probably why there is so much bad code out there. :wink:

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I wasn’t arguing against the use of js.

Yeah, except the browser. In times of universal internet access (and if you don’t have that, why would you have a browser?) you can get compilers and IDEs for many programming within less than an hour :wink:
Also: why do you think that bad code is the result of using text editor+browser only?

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They used Squirrel: http://squirrel-lang.org/

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Currently I rely on a libgdx method to “split” the Sprite sheet into a 2D array based on the number of columns/rows I provide to it, then hard-code the various animations based on that array.

This isn’t perfect in a lot of ways (especially because the 3rd row on my spritesheet “borrows” 1 pixel from the row above it on an even split), but if you were going to go this route you’d have some pretty stingy requirements on your spritesheets (always be X columns wide, walking left animations are always the first row, walking right the second, etc…)

Animation phase 2 will be meta-data driven. I’m thinking a structured data file to define everything that the engine reads and applies to the spritesheet to find the correct cells/animations.

I have no idea if that is “standard” for an engine, but I know that’s how I bleeping want it :ransome:

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I would much rather they keep it proprietary and continue to use it to create more games!

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Well, it opens it up to people with little or no experience in programming (both good and bad). I think bad code is often a result of copying from someone else’s page without fully understanding what you’re doing. ie: A site has a cool effect on an image that you like, so you view source, copy the js, and just replace the image source. That can be a useful way to learn, but eventually you’d hope to move past that and understand the logic behind the code.

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Or you can ask these guys to help you creating your own engine. They will be glad to assist you😱

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Who is that? o.O

Really? I just read about this phenomenon some days ago (copy+paste being common among js-developers). Never would have thought that people do this.
But aren’t many developers that use other languages also, hmm, inspired by code on stackoverflow answers?

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Wireframing is what they call the process of putting preliminary (= wireframe) art (simple shapes etc.) into the game and connecting them (exits) so they can be actually traversed.

This is then used to put additional logic (objects, NPCs, puzzles) into them to test if it will actually work out like intended. Only later when the game feels as it should final art assets will be created.

What they call wireframing is also often called whiteboxing.


Here is a blog post about sprite sheets: Slicy


Here you can see an early version of the editor used to define those rooms (background layers, placing objects, exits etc.): Wimpy

Ron uses a JSON-like syntax to store those assets as you can see in the same post (note that those posts are two years old so details have changed; but the principle hasn’t, actually it’s the same since SCUMM).

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I too am not that fond of JS, but I wouldn’t be so harsh. A friend of mine made his own adventure game engine in JS (actually, the scripting engine - the I/O base is in C++ on cocos2d) - Gauss by RumRogers - I don’t know how up to date the repository is, and how usable that engine is, however he made his own game with that and it was quite cool* :slight_smile:

Anyway:

I think that’s the most important thing. And the main reason I still refuse to work on AGS. I have MY own workflow for producing animations and having to save every frame separately, load them up on AGS and then setting up again all animations and durations is a pain in the *beep*.

*I don’t want to turn this forum into a spam factory - but I think it would be quite cool if we could make a topic where we share our own adventure games / demos / so on.

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Then just create one. :slight_smile:

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I would, but I don’t know what is the opinion of the admins about it.

I always feel that promoting your own product, even if it’s in a group of enthusiasts, is spam and is unpolite from a netiquette point of view.

I mean, if I link a game you might find interesting with which I have no relation whatsoever, then OK, but as soon as I get a direct advantage (purchases or even better store stats) from it I feel there’s some kind of conflict of interests.

Not to mention that we’re talking technically about “competitor products” for TWP :stuck_out_tongue:

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Do you want to post commercial or (free) homebrew games? I think in the latter case no one will complain about it. And if you have an interesting game, at least I would like to read about it. :slight_smile:

(And I personally think that one topic with adventure games doesn’t hurt. :slight_smile: )

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I’m thinking back to 10-15 years ago (gosh I feel old), when things like stackoverflow and Google didn’t quite have all the answers yet, and web developers were in high demand, and many were not all trained as programmers.

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I would welcome any posts for home-made games… if you were inspired by Thimbleweed Park I think it’s relevant.
I suppose the criteria would be it has to be free or demo versions. So you avoid shameless self-promotion :slight_smile:

I honestly don’t know if I’ll have time to make anything, but it would be nice to have a place to share with people if I complete something.

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Copying and modifying other people’s code is a pretty common habit among developers, even some experienced ones. This habit is not limited to JavaScript code but to anything that can be easily “borrowed” and modified freely, being it programming language code or markup language code.

Most experienced coders know how to analyze other people’s code to understand how it needs to be modified to fit their specific needs while less experienced coders adopt a trial-and-error modifying approach, until the output is acceptable to them. In both cases, the coder saves a lot of time.

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Well, in my case it’s a free game, but it has 1) ads 2) an in-app purchase that lets you add a new room with more puzzles, so… it is self promotion. But it’s not for my game, I’m curious about other fan’s games since I read in another topic that quite a few forum members had made their own small game or demo :smiley:

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For a first go-round at game design I’m writing and programming a text adventure with a close friend.

Difficulty: we’re going to run the entire thing on a Parallax Propeller with 32KB memory and build an arcade-style cabinet for it. I guess you could say I’m interested in doing it the way it was done before I was born (1986).

The VGA driver takes up about 1/3rd of the available memory, but we can probably get that down some more.

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For what it’s worth, Unity looks like the place to get started unless you’re Ron enough to build your own engine.

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Hi!

I started to develop an Adventure Engine 4 years ago: The Bladecoder Adventure Engine.

Last year I released the v1.0 (which is feature completed) with the release of my first commercial game: The Revenge of Johnny Bonasera created with this engine.

The engine is open source, so you can modify and adapt it to your needs although with the current state, you can create modern multiplatform adventure games inside the editor without coding.

Some Features

  • Multi platform support: Android, IOS and Desktop (Windows, OSX and Linux).
  • Multiple animation techniques: sprite/atlas animation, Spine (cutout) animation and 3d model animation.
  • Inkle Ink integration.
  • Fast setup and prototyping, no programming needed.
  • 3d character support.
  • Multiresolution to deal with different densities and screen sizes.
  • Multilanguage support.
  • And many more…

Regards,

Rafael.

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