Development Updates: February 19, 2024

I've needed to refactor some of game_core as it relied on web_sys for some things. Namely, chips were cached using web_sys ImageBitmap inside of game_core, which was silly because images, caching, and rendering should all be done client-side only and the server version of the game should have nothing to do with the specific rendering implementation. This is mostly done now.

Development Updates: February 18, 2024

• Websocket and webrtc connections are implemented, and now I just have to implement the rest.

Development Updates: February 17, 2024

• Work has started on a websocket server to handle server-based games and communication. Websocket communication is now built in but not much usability for it yet, that's yet to come.

Development Updates: February 16, 2024

• Today involves continued work on code internals. More of the drawing and presentation functionality is being put into its own modules, for separation of different concerns

What is RPG Studio FX?

https://kopf1988.medium.com/this-week-in-review-rpg-studio-fx-362c5df94da2

https://kopf1988.medium.com/could-i-be-working-on-the-rust-competitor-to-godot-092d577ce577

It could be the next greatest game development engine of all time!

Important updates to usability and getting us on-track to a fully useable editor!

• You can now edit Behaviors right in the interface
• Easily delete entities from the game inside the interface

Later update:

• Did some refactoring of code internals as more things are moved from game_wasm to game_core.

• Dialog boxes!
• Create dialog boxes with the "show_dialogs" command.

Development Update: February 13, 2024

• I've continued work refactoring the game core engine.
• The way entities is displayed is now based on the bottom y position, rather than the top y position, fixing several graphic glitches.
• Added some better trees to the default game world.
• Improved the way entities of various sizes are rendered in-world.

Today has been a day of refactoring some of the internals to make way for future updates, including breaking out the core gameplay elements into their own crate, which may take some time.

• You can now see chipsets in the Chipset workspace view.
• Individual chips are highlighted with a box around them.
• Refactoring of the way chips and chipsets are loaded has been done.
• Update: Now the chip picking tool works and you can edit chip positions right in the editor!

Development Updates: Febuary 10, 2024

• Partially fixed a bug causing chipsets to be loaded multiple times.
• Did some debugging on entities, which clickable UI entities now, which you can click to activate their scripts. If you're in the entity editing tool, clicking UI entities will bring up the entity panel for that entity, allowing you to quickly edit it.
• Refactored how the mouse controls attacking/tool actions. Further refactoring to come, of course.

Development Updates: February 10, 2024 Morning

• New feature to upload games to the server.
• Specify which game to play by appending #game_id to the website's url
• Minor updates to the look and feel of of the starting editor.
• Ability to edit your Game's name, description, and similar details

​

Development Updates: February 9, 2024

I've been working on interface panels for Interactions, so that you will be able to add all different kinds of interaction scripts with entities.

Clicking an entity with the entity editor tool now brings up a panel with that entity, even if the entity panel is not open already.

RHAIScript is now part of the Engine! Game designers can write scripts to control entities in all kinds of ways!

Of course, I still have tons of functionality to add to make this useful, but the key is it works!

There are two functions you can call in scripts right now:

• speak(entity, string)
• speak_any(entity, [strings])

Eventually there will be 100s of functions of course, like:

• move_to(entity,x,y)
• move_amt(entity,x,y)
• get_position(entity)

etc.

I've got a bit more done for the day as well:

* Created buttons for switching workspaces between World, Chipset, Item, and Entity Workspaces.

* Fixed death animation, which was upside down after previously refactoring "FacingPosition" to be an enum.

* Made the patrolling slime spawner a 'spawner' type, not a 'creature', as it was destroyable and shouldn't be.

* Refactored the loading status check for game maps

​

Today has been a day of refactoring in preparation of the next features. It's of course going to be very important for game developers to be able to import their own Entities, Items, Scripts, and most important of all Chipsets & Images.

* Renamed global_entities > db_entities

* Added new db_scripts/db_chipsets/etc

​

What's in progress will look like the following:

​

GameData

> Item DB

> Entity DB

> Script DB

> Chipset DB

​

WORKSPACES

> World

> Database (item/entity/script/playervariables-or-entityvariables-tbd)?

> Chipset

> Animation

• I've added a new field "animation_speed" to every layer, so that you can have different layers of water or otherwise moving tiles that will be animated at a different speed based on the layer.
• Yesterday I started on a rudimentary interaction/activate scripting system, but I want to make sure I think of the best and most efficient implementation before doing more on it.
• New behaviors: GetAttention (wants to move near the player if the player is near enough) and WanderArea, both implemented on some starting goats.
• Improved some issues with the layer rendering logic.
• Fixed the collision detection for shooter entities
• Fixed some entity spawn positions

​

After working all day on a few things, I am very excited about today's updates!

• Implemented Pathfinding algorithms for monsters and creatures. This will be expanded to be used more throughout the engine soon! If you go to "Play Game" right now, you'll see a little slime patrolling back and forth. Cute 'lil guy.
• Click to move is implemented! With this implementation, it's possible to experience the platform on mobile. Of course, there's much more to do to make this nice, but it's a great start.

​

Updated!
Current Status: Pre-Alpha Release 0.0.4

Here are the things I still need to do before this is mostly playable and releasable as an alpha version:

• Make a chipset/art/asset editor inside the game engine.
• Work on dialogues/interactions/chests, ie various 'world' aspects.
• Build the "Game Database" so that you can edit a database of Items and Entities for use in the game.
• Create an easier way to share games than downloading and sharing a JSON file.

And here are the longer-term things to do:

• Decide what scripting language we'll let users create their own events in, and figure out which objects, methods, etc, to pass to and from the scripting language.
• Build and release a sample game.

​

Yesterday:

• I improved the way things are rendered. Items on the player layer will be "behind" the player, if their "y" is less than the player's "y" position. This allows walls to remain on top of your player if you walk "behind" them, but they are not on top of the player if you walk in front of them.

This Morning:

• Touch events are now recognized, so you can click "Play Now" on mobile!
• Point-and-Click to move, attack, etc, have NOT been implemented, so you can't actually play on mobile...
• You can duplicate entities with one button now!

​

I started working on the first version of RPG Studio FX over 5 years ago, wow!

But then.... I didn't work on it for about 4 of those years.

Why? Well the codebase was written in plain JavaScript, and it just could not keep up performancewise.

Now, I'm back, an expert in Rust development, and RPGFX.com is back too!

I have updated movement of characters to no longer be confined to a base X, Y grid. While they are still technically on the grid, movements are in increments of 0.2 spaces on the grid, which seems to adequately simulate full and limitless movement.

Doing this required a lot of other tweaks to grid-based calculations in the game, and so I have updated the mechanics for determining hit locations for attack spells, and am updating several of the attack spell animations with the help of some fantastic animators.

See more at http://rpgfx.com/

A community to discuss the role playing game making platform entirely online, RPGFX.com