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SGreth

Shared on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 08:29
In yesterday's post I talked about possibly starting up a 2D game creation tool. I spent last night mulling over the major features and boiled them down into a high-level product overview. Note the key word: high-level.

Now I need feedback from the dev's on this site as well as the non-devs who even have the most remote of interests in making games.

What do I need from you? Feedback. If you have even the most remote of interests in making games then I'm soliciting your opinion. Even if you have no formal development training.

What, on this list, is missing, could be done away with, or needs more clarification?

Without further adieu...

Kyrite Game Studio

Overview
The Kyrite Game Studio is a 2D game creation tool. By providing an easy to use editor along with a flexible scripting interface you'll be able to create exciting games for the Microsoft Windows and XBox 360 platforms. For the price of a commercial game you can have all the tools needed to bring your vision to life!

Key Features

No code compilation is required - All coding by the end-user is done via a scripting language.

External debugging facilities for quicker script bug resolution.

Fully integrated networking (Available only on Windows until networking is offered as part of the XNA framework)

Full Newtonian physics model

Per-pixel (using collision bit-masks) and polygon-based (convex and concave) collision detection.

Scriptable GUI elements along with a built-in GUI designer

Integrated Level Editor and Asset management

Built-In AI framework - Layer your own specific logic on top of base NPC behavior models

High performance sprite rendering system including animation and support for texture shaders

Integrated particle effect editor

3D Sound (well, this is better described as "positional audio" since the engine is only 2D)

Keyboard / Joystick / Controller input

Excellent documentation - I'm talking about top-notch here. Examples, in-depth descriptions, quick-starts, the whole ball of wax.

Comments

SirPoonga's picture
Submitted by SirPoonga on Fri, 02/09/2007 - 09:49
That's why the menu system has to be flexible. Your audio and video options will pretty much be the same across games, PC or console. Look at the 360 games. Most have the same audio and video options since there isn't much you can do (basically just volumes and brightness). If those could be templates and skinned it will make life easier. But make the menu system flexible enough to add more items. The only reason I brought that up is that is one thing I don't like doing by hand with my DS homebrew. And when looking at other people's menus everyone seems to do them the same way. So I figure some type of interface could be made so menus are easy add-ins. I'm not fond of wiki either. But sometimes it is the right tool for the job.
Falelorn's picture
Submitted by Falelorn on Fri, 02/09/2007 - 10:15
you should have TONS of examples that are fully documented with images. the tool project I worked on things which everyone thought were so simple (changing the textures for a sky) were straight forward and simple, but confused people. Things we thought would be a major pain (changing the background model in a set.. no one asked about for a long time.. like Sir said.. a Wiki is good, but might not be enough (depends on how things go of course)
Falelorn's picture
Submitted by Falelorn on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 08:37
Sorry to say but Ill stick with XNA and X-Torque with TGB for 2D games.. creating a tool like this will take a very long time and even with possible future XNA support we can use XNA now and in days or even a day come up with a quick 2D prototype. So it does not make sense to jump up with a new system, unless you know for sure you can fully compete against and surpass TGB features and future development plans.
SGreth's picture
Submitted by SGreth on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 08:46
My experience with TGB has been nothing short of horrible, hence my desire to create my own toolset. I was kind of hoping people (yourself included) would throw out some ideas for additional features you'd like to see. I was asking for input, not a commitment to buy something :)
Falelorn's picture
Submitted by Falelorn on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 09:03
ok WELLL.......... * First off have a built in editor for everything from GUI, Particles, Physics, Collisions, Scripting and more. People will use it if it is easy and with those who have no coding experience will pick it up * Use LUA for your scripting, even no coders know it basically if they have edited their WoW or EQ2 front ends, and it really is easy to use but powerful and advanced scripting. Not sure if you were going to create your own, but the big companies use LUA for a reason, its free, open source and not limited usually like scripting that is created by hand, it sounds fun, but in the end not worth it. * Have a controller tweak utility so it does not need to be directly done in code, but with a GUI. Something people can tweak out themselves, different settings. It can sit over the game and you can test the game as you tweak. * I wouldnt worry at all about Networking in a few months we should have the networking side of things. Worry about other things, dont reinvent the wheel when the other cavemen are building a SUV * Built in Project Management or the ability to link into a 3rd part PM ** working with teams that are all over the world this would be key and SOOOOOO nice because you could have a team manager, media system, FTP, messaging etc.. in a central location.. this drastically helps teams * Auto back up system (everyone forgets, jumps forward with out saving and some where between 0.0.138 and 0.0.165 they broke some code and cant go back and WTF why is it broken.. that is off the top of my head... but as people use it more things will come to mind.. My last job, part of it was a community testing game tools and 90% sounds great on paper but never works the way it was supposed to and the community knows this.. which is why I prefered just making the game
SGreth's picture
Submitted by SGreth on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 09:10
Bingo...exactly what I was looking for :) 1 - everything will have an integrated editor. I hate trial & error coding :) 2 - Yup, LUA was the scripting language I was going to roll with. I've used it before and I love it. 3 - Are you talking about controller bindings? 4 - You're right, networking will not be a high priority in terms of tasks because there is plenty other framework stuff to get working. Hopefully XNA 2 will be rolled out by this summer with the networking functionality we're all praying for. 5 - I dig the PM idea. Adding that to the list, thanks. Your auto-backup idea fits in perfectly with this too. I don't want to re-write CVS or subversion, but a basic framework would be nice.
Falelorn's picture
Submitted by Falelorn on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 09:15
re 3 - bindings but also speed of movement, etc by the sticks, buttons, triggers etc.. (the analog/digital thing (brain is fried still this AM) with multiple settings possible it will be nice to tweak on the fly Left Stick is to fast.. click click.. ok works ** see what I mean?
SGreth's picture
Submitted by SGreth on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 09:19
Yup, gotcha. That's easy enough to toss in and would definitely save more time by avoiding the trial & error type testing.
Falelorn's picture
Submitted by Falelorn on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 11:33
"5 - I dig the PM idea. Adding that to the list, thanks. Your auto-backup idea fits in perfectly with this too. I don't want to re-write CVS or subversion, but a basic framework would be nice." ya and CVS and subversion are really overkill for 1 coder.. and I hate CVS.. -- there is a great project manager, open source as well, called Dot Project, I use it on everything, it doesnt have the overkill factor that MS Project has for small project and is really quick and easy to install. Maybe (depending on your php ninja skills) hooking up with that or a different PM would be doable.. it is really sad that so many IDE systems NEVER do a real PM or even think of it..
SirPoonga's picture
Submitted by SirPoonga on Thu, 02/08/2007 - 17:51
"Full Newtonian physics model" I have yet to see a good 2D engine with this that is easy to use :) And amazingly there is little info on this that is free. I've been trying to make a physics engine for a simple DS game. It's easy to find collision detection stuff. It's collision reaction that is tough to find resources for. You don't need to do CVS. Check out Google Docs. Not sure what the back end is like but it auto-saves. My guess is they just save a diff. Are you planning on having the tools built on top of C# like XNA is? I'm asking this because what type of editors would need to be made that XNA, C#, and Microsoft already don't have something for? Would you think about having the docs as a Wiki? To me that helps get top notch docs. Lately the wiki for PALib (homebrew nds lib) has had many user entries with examples on how to use parts. In fact, I am reworking the built in A* function to use less memory and easier to use. I will be making a wiki entry for it after I am done. With the scripted GUI elements and designer include some templates like for video and audio options, nested menues, toggles, etc... It would be awesome to have a menu template that has all the basics covered. (I like how you can add the standard toolbar buttons in C#)
SGreth's picture
Submitted by SGreth on Fri, 02/09/2007 - 07:24
Physics *shouldn't* be too much of a big deal to get working in a 2D simulator. The bulk of the work (I think at least...) will be in getting accurate time-stepping and penetration response. The collision detection part of it will just be a simple quad-tree. Google Docs is pretty sweet :) I've been using it to jot down all my notes on. The "engine" and editor will be built with XNA (using C#). XNA doesn't ship with a level editor, particle simulator, menu editor, tile-editor, etc... I'm talking about much higher level stuff (think Torque Game Builder....) A Wiki is a good idea. I personally don't like the format but I know that the bulk of developers out there do. Good idea for the menu template. I too really like how you click one button and *bam* you get your default menu template :) The only problem there is that there are so many different game types, trying to come up with a generic menu is going to be tough. Thanks for the Wiki suggestion - that's going in the to-do list :)
kyoryu's picture
Submitted by kyoryu on Fri, 02/16/2007 - 15:35
Personally, if I was going that route, I'd use C# or VB.NET for the 'scripting' language. Lua may be simpler, but the toolset for working with C#, even for free, beats the snot out of lua. Not to mention how much easier debugging is when staying within .NET-land. Additionally, it saves you the hassle of having to write and maintain the lua/.NET layer, as .NET takes care of most of that for you. There's some good examples out there on using .NET as a scripting language, that get down to deciding what methods/objects you want accessible from script as well. I'll see if I can dig them up.

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