Vorge - HTML5 Game Engine

[Chief 30]

Hey everyone, I recently started development of an HTML5, 2D game engine. It will (hopefully) have similar functionality to RPG Maker, but both the games, and the editing suite will run on any operating system (even mobile!).

 

There's not a lot done yet, but I wanna show what I've got so far!

 

Here's the map editor, much like the initial screen that you see when you load up RM:

[Polraudio 122]

Thats a neat idea. Cant wait to see more :D

[Marked 197]

So cool D: I hope you keep developing it! Being able to run in the browser is great. I can foresee a future where more is done through a browser than software downloaded to the computer. We just need to get everyone on ultra fast broadband. Keep us updated :)

[Chief 30]

Progress!

 

I had to set up a server, as Chrome has an odd bug when trying to use getImageData(), so I finally got something working, with Node.js

 

I was then, finally, able to continue progress on the actual project. Now, the map editor actually grabs the tiles from the tileset, and places them on the map. Before now, it could only hold a single tile image, and paint that on. Now it's dynamic, and works beautifully!

 

[Marked 197]

Ehh you're learning node? Are you running it on your own server? (obviously you are). I heard digital ocean is a really good hosting service for node. I wish the regular old hosting services had support for node :( If I had been born 1 or 2 years later and chosen a different path in life, I would definitely be codin' some node.js stuff :)

[Chief 30]

I've barely touched any Node.js at all, so far. I really only needed it for the server. My goal, is to make the editing suite utilize node.js features, but I want to try and make it so the actual game engine won't require any node so that you can then host the game on any website, and it will work just fine. I have more updates, but I'm about to rewrite a large chunk of code, so I'll post a screenshot afterwards. I'm also about to set up a devblog for Vorge on my website.

[Chief 30]

Alright, NOW there's progress. I had to rewrite what data each tile stores, as I was storing each pixel value, but that ended up in hundreds of thousands of lines, which was terrible.

 

Here's a new screeny of the editor:

 

Now, here's a great example of what your map saves to:

http://pastebin.com/iRJBn2JH -- that's the JSON output of the map in the above screenshot. It saves the map-specific data at the top of the JSON object, then it goes into each tile, individually. It store's their coordinates on the map, and the coordinates of the chosen tile, from the tileset. It's pretty awesome so far, lol

 

Oh, forgot to mention: The icons in the toolbar, and the grid lines on the map are all SVG elements, so the only images on the page are the logo, and the tileset (and I'll even remake the logo in svg). I want to maximise efficiency wherever I can.

Edited January 27, 2014 by Chief

[Marked 197]

Those tiles are pretty good. SVG is good, its the filetype of the future -nods- You could even make them scalable but I imagine that's quite difficult.

 

I found something like this once, but it was for developers so there was no editor. Check this out: http://www.gdunlimited.net/forums/topic/8269-gdu-online-rpg/ Try the domain there of that link, duno if it's still there (i wish I had a backup... maybe try the web archive).

 

It's looking really good so far. I'm sure the UI will come out great knowing you, I just hope the performance is equally as good.

 

Looking at that ouput. Obvious it's massive and you need all those vars for every single tile. You can cut that down but more than 1/2 if you use a simpler json output.

            "x": 512,

            "y": 384,
            "img": {
                "x": 32,
                "y": 800,
                "w": 32,
                "h": 32
            }

Becomes

 

{512,384,32,800,32,32}

So then you're just all

 

var x = json[0],y=json[1],imgx=json[2]

I duno if that's even practical, just an idea to cut down the size of the output.

 

From the link above, the way he did it is similar to you so hopefully its still around.

[Chief 30]

Update! I did  a heck of a lot today. Each of the 4 tile layers now work, and I am working on the event layer currently. I've also trimmed up the JSON output of the map, but not including empty tiles. I had to rewrite a lot of it, but now it works beautifully where it doesn't track tiles until you actually paint one on. This way, you don;t get the hundreds of empty tiles, especially since there are 4 map layers.

 

Also, just for the heck of it, you can also toggle the visibility of the grid. I hated how in RM, the grid was always visible when working on the events layer.

 

No new screenshots, today. Most of the work I did only touched functionality, not aesthetics.

[Chief 30]

Here's more progress! I've been working on the eventing system, although it's still not very far:

 

Don't be intimidated by the code editor! Although you will be allowed to type code directly in, it will be like in RM, where a popup will contain button options, and it will generate the code for you, then place it in the editor.

 

Some other things I've done: made click+drag tile painting work, worked a bit more on the JSON output, and started autotiles:

 

That's right, autotiles--whoo! Except it's difficult... lol. I've had to pause autotiles for now, and revisit it later. The logic for them is long, and complicated, and I'm a bit stuck on it right now, but it's still a planned feature (using the XP layout, not VX).

 

Also, I'll just throw this out there; this is the early-dev blog for Vorge: http://vorge.nickdugger.com/

[Polraudio 122]

Now thats awesome. using code for events is an awesome idea. opens up so much stuff you can do.

[zahraa 26]

looks nice.Can we import any data from RMXP to it?

[Chief 30]

As cool as an idea as that would be, I'm really not sure yet. I'd have to study the RMXP files, and determine if it's worth the time. I'll add it to my list of suggestions, though!

[Chief 30]

Here's a quick 5 minute "vlog" I created for Vorge. It basically just touches base on what everyone already knows, but now you actually get to see it in action! http://www.screenr.com/wu7N

[Chief 30]

Alright, time for another screencast! http://www.screenr.com/xnHN

 

I am finally back on track, and this time saving files all works, beautifully! The interface colours and icons are all temporary, though, so don't worry that it looks ugly.

[FleshRenderStudios 3]

well that looks pretty damn epic :oO I saw something slightly similar that allows you to build a HTML5 game and allows importing on rmxpstuff but I forget what it was called now :s

[#ku 0]

I found this, might come in helpful but something tells me you're too far in to make any use of this: http://codepen.io/caiochagas/pen/alAkm

[FleshRenderStudios 3]

Hey chief have any updates for us on vorge?

[Chief 30]

Vorge is currently getting a rewrite. Still using node as my back end, but I've also added a layer between called Sails. Now I can have a fully functioning MVC architecture. Sails also uses socket.io which means it may be really easy to make vorge have multiplayer options. More to come soon!