A struct used to declare its fields wherever it stood. The same shape in two variables meant typing it twice, and Pack/Expand copied it once without staying in sync. A Struct asset now holds the shape in one place, and every struct that picks it as its type follows it. - New asset type "Struct" (not placeable, group Structs, own icon). The inspector shows its fields with name, kind and default value, and "Open" shows them in the variables tab. - Struct variables and struct fields get a Type row: own fields, any Struct asset, or "Make struct type". With a type the fields come from the asset and cannot be added, renamed or removed there. The values stay per variable, overrides on placed objects still work. - Pack and Expand get the setting Type. With a type their ports are the fields of the asset and read-only in the inspector. - A change to the asset reaches every typed place in one undo step (syncStructTypes). A new field arrives with its default. A removed field goes along with its port, edge and typed value. A renamed field keeps its value in variables, overrides and on ports with edges, also through nested types. - Undo for these edits records plain assignments (Recorder), because the reach of a change is not known in advance. - Cycles such as Loot in Loot, also through another type, are refused and not offered in the picker. - Deleting the asset names how many places use it. Afterwards each place keeps its fields as its own. - Loading reshapes a stale copy in a project file to its type. - "Make struct type" creates an asset from an existing struct and links the place to it. Differs from the plan: - A changed default value applies to new fields and newly typed places only. Existing values stay. - Removing a single field shows no warning. Undo brings it back. Typed lists are left for #254. Lists stay dynamic for now. Found by e2e: after deleting or renaming the type the inspector did not rebuild and kept showing the old name. Fixed, the check was red before. Tests: - ./check.sh: 182 files, 2661 tests, CHECK EXIT 0 - GM_STEPS=1,4,21,22,54: ALL PASSED, 176 checks - 14 unit tests in tests/core/struct-types.test.ts - New e2e module 54 with 14 checks, real mouse. Module 04 counts 23 asset types. - Counter-probes: without the rename pass 4 unit tests fail, without reshaping values 8, without the cycle rule 1. In the browser, without spreading changes and with + Field despite a type, 3 checks fail. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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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, rigidbody, container, texture, vector art, pixel art, palette, font, sound, animation, state machine, shader, particles, variables, tile, tilemap) 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.
- An account owns projects: the editor asks for a user name and a password first, and each account sees only its own projects. The Account menu at the far right of the toolbar changes the password and signs out.
- 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.
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:
node tools/seed-e2e.mjs && node tools/e2e.mjs # the editor, 1500 checks (GM_STEPS=20 for one step)
# every tool signs in first – see the Accounts page
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 – the gate as one job, build and suite as another beside it – 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.
Documentation
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Concepts | Assets, scene objects, overrides, play mode, the camera, the console |
| Accounts | Signing in and out, the accounts, who a project belongs to, what the check tools need |
| Scenes | The edited scene, the start scene, and switching scenes from a graph |
| Scene editing | Placing, z-order, hierarchy, the editor offset |
| Behaviors | Node graphs: variables, the node set, structs and lists, loops, nesting, editing |
| Structs | Struct assets: a named shape that struct variables, fields and Pack/Expand follow |
| Colliders | Shapes (box, circle, capsule, polygon), collision events, blocking movement, one-way colliders and raycasts |
| Physics | Rigidbodies, the collider material, gravity, the fixed step |
| Textures | Images, frames, nine-slice, the filter, upload limits |
| Vector art | Pictures drawn from shapes: the pen, curves, gradients and texture fills, combining shapes |
| Pixel art | Pictures painted pixel by pixel: the palette, the tools, layers and frames |
| Fonts | Font assets, the picker, what a text falls back to |
| Sounds | Sound assets and Play sound |
| Animations | Animation assets and the Animation tab |
| Curves | Easings drawn by hand, the Curve tab, using one on a key or a Lerp |
| Shaders | Shader graphs a sprite wears, their node set, the properties they declare |
| Particles | Particle graphs: a particle as a function of its age |
| State machines | The asset, named transitions, State branch, Set state and State transition |
| Containers | Templates, instances, screens |
| Tiles | The tile asset, plain tiles and the two autotile kinds, the pictures as animation steps, the Tile tab |
| Tilemaps | The tilemap asset, painting in the scene view, layers, what it looks like in the game |
| Plugins | Extending the editor: the plugin file, how it is loaded, switching one on and off, API v1 |
| Keyboard | Every shortcut |
| Architecture | Stack, source layout, the rules that keep it organised |
| Development | Commands, the e2e suite, the example games, CI |
| 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 page.
