# Game Maker

A browser-based tool "one step before a game engine": create **assets** (scenes, cameras,
sprites), place them into scenes, tweak their properties in an inspector and press **Play** –
all in one program, all drawn inside a single WebGL canvas.

Live: <https://nockal.com/game-maker/> · Widget playground: <https://nockal.com/game-maker/?playground>

**The documentation is the wiki:** <https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki> – every concept,
node, tab and shortcut, plus the architecture and the development workflow. This file is the short
way in.

## In one screen

- An **asset** is a named, typed thing (scene, camera, sprite, text, behavior, collider, container,
  texture, animation, state machine) with properties and no position.
- A **scene object** places an asset: position, sparse **overrides** of its properties, an optional
  parent. Only what differs from the asset is stored; the inspector paints it gold and offers ↺ / ↑.
- A **container** is a reusable group edited once and placed many times; its content is resolved
  from the template on every read. A **screen** is a container switched on and off.
- A **behavior** is logic as a node graph, placed like anything else and parented to the object it
  acts on. Play has no built-in behaviour – everything that happens is a graph.
- **Play** runs a throwaway copy of the project; every panel stays usable and Stop brings back
  exactly what was saved.

## Quick start

Node 22 is required.

```bash
npm install
npm run dev          # http://localhost:5175/game-maker/dist/ – API calls are proxied to production
npm run check        # typecheck + lint + format:check + unit tests – the gate CI runs too
npm run build        # writes dist/ and regenerates index.html; the folder is what nginx serves
```

The browser suite and the three example games need a machine with a GPU:

```bash
node tools/seed-e2e.mjs && node tools/e2e.mjs      # the editor, 837 checks (GM_STEPS=20 for one step)
node tools/seed-jumprun.mjs && node tools/smoke-jumprun.mjs
node tools/seed-tetris.mjs && node tools/smoke-tetris.mjs
node tools/seed-actor.mjs && node tools/smoke-actor.mjs
```

Every push runs all of it on the Gitea runner, so locally take the gate plus the step your change
touches and leave the full run to CI. Details, the GPU requirement and the detached runner are in
[Development](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Development).

## Documentation

| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| [Concepts](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Concepts) | Assets, scene objects, overrides, play mode, the camera, the console |
| [Scene editing](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Scene-editing) | Placing, z-order, hierarchy, the editor offset |
| [Behaviors](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Behaviors) | Node graphs: variables, the node set, structs and lists, loops, nesting, editing |
| [Colliders](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Colliders) | Collision events and blocking movement |
| [Textures](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Textures) | Images, frames, the filter, upload limits |
| [Animations](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Animations) | Animation assets and the Animation tab |
| [State machines](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/State-machines) | The asset, `State branch` and `Set state` |
| [Containers](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Containers) | Templates, instances, screens |
| [Keyboard](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Keyboard) | Every shortcut |
| [Architecture](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Architecture) | Stack, source layout, the rules that keep it organised |
| [Development](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/Development) | Commands, the e2e suite, the example games, CI |
| [API](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki/API) | The PHP JSON API and the project document |

## Ideas, gaps and bugs

They live in the issue tracker: <https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/issues>. What is not
there yet is listed on the wiki's [Home](https://git.nockal.com/meleki/game-maker/wiki) page.