adminandClaude Opus 5.5
7979b8ff19
An object could only live in a dedicated object variable, kept in slots
beside the variable bag. Struct fields and list items could not hold
one, so a spawned object packed into a struct or list was lost. This
replaces the slots with one mechanism for all three places.
- "No object" has one resting form everywhere: {"$object": ""}. A
running game can tell an object slot from an empty text that way.
- During play the object handle lives directly in the value, also
nested in structs and lists. objectSlots.ts and the special paths for
Keep and Properties are gone.
- liveObjects.ts strips objects to (null) at every exit: overrides the
editor run writes back to the scene, saved values of persistent
Variables assets, live values in the inspector, and the world
snapshot of the test hooks (objects as names there).
- A destroyed object reads as (null) through isAlive, alone, in a
struct field or as a list item.
- "+ Field" and "+ Item" offer Object. The inspector and the list tab
show a fixed (null) row without input.
- Lists from Raycast all stay objects when written to a variable.
Before they turned into names.
- A struct that only changes by an object writes no override. A list
that grows by an object writes [(null)], its length really changed.
Found on the way: CI at 98211a8 failed only in e2e 21d. #237 added
asset to the field kinds without updating that fixed expectation. 21d
now expects ...,animation,asset,object,struct.
No project on the server has object variables, so no old data is
affected.
Tests:
- ./check.sh: 169 files, 2475 tests, CHECK EXIT 0.
- e2e 6, 21, 23, 32: ALL PASSED, 213 checks.
- object-variable.test.ts rewritten: variable, struct field and list
item over several frames, destroyed objects, nothing in scene, file
or save, editor run reload, Keep.
- New e2e 21d-ii adds an Object item by click. 21d and 23k updated.
- 7 counter-probes, each fails 1 to 9 tests. Originals back via cmp.
- Not tested on its own: stripping of inspector live values and the
names in the test snapshot, the "+ Field -> Object" menu by click.
- e2e check total 1407, only calculated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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, 1407 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 |
| 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 |
| 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.