Recurring cleanup round over the code since round 6 (056a622), 105
commits. Behaviour is unchanged. Duplicated code in src went from 29
clones with 229 lines (0.32 %) to 14 clones with 109 lines (0.15 %),
measured with jscpd and the same settings as round 6.
- BehaviorSystem.ts shrinks from 941 to 589 lines. Collecting the
pulses (keys, timers, collisions, animations) moved to
behaviorPulses.ts. The NodeContext the nodes receive moved to
behaviorContext.ts. Imports from outside stay the same, TimeScaled
is still exported from BehaviorSystem.ts.
- PointKindButton and drawPointGrip replace the "Point:" button with
its menu and the point and handle drawing that the curve and the
vector art tab each had on their own.
- lerpVec, cubicAt and splitCubic in src/core/util/vec.ts replace four
copies of the cubic curve and two de Casteljau splits.
- mapNested in Properties.ts is the one walk over lists and structs
that liveObjects and objectRefs did separately. withFieldRenamed
and withoutField replace three copies of renaming a struct field
and two of removing one.
- jsonBody and staleRevision build the JSON body and turn a 409 into
StaleRevisionError for all stores. The auth store turns a 401 into
its error in one place.
- Smaller helpers: structAssetFrom for the two "Make struct type"
commands, shownObject in the inspector, selectedItem for the size
gizmo and the polygon corners, solidTiles in the tilemap collision,
requireVariablesAsset and requireBehaviorVariable.
- Left as is on purpose: the plain forwarding from the collision and
physics systems to Solids, the pointer wiring of the canvases and
the identical last lines of the two make commands.
- Removed unused code: tilemapTileIds and tilemapsUsing were never
called since #128 and #131. EditorState.runtimeProject became unused
with GameRun in #266. The assetId getter of the make commands was
read only by a test.
- 60 values used only in their own file lost their export. The shader
and particle node catalogues stay exported as in round 6.
- Five comments that told history now describe the current state. The
doc comment of BehaviorSystem sits on the class again.
- README lists the struct, clip area and curve assets and mentions the
game link from #266.
Findings:
- Deleting a tile that is painted on a tilemap leaves its cells in
place, and they draw nothing. The delete dialog does not mention the
tilemaps. That was probably the job of the unused tilemapsUsing.
Left as is, because fixing it changes behaviour.
- The solid filter for tile surfaces was untested. A bent filter
stayed green. A new test in tests/core/surface.test.ts now fails
against it.
Tests:
- ./check.sh: 195 files, 2815 tests, exit 0 (one test removed with
tilemapsUsing, one added for tile surfaces).
- Full e2e run: ALL PASSED, 1580 checks.
- Smokes jumprun, tetris, actor: 24, 19 and 21 checks, all passed.
The example project files were restored byte for byte afterwards.
- Counter-checks, 12, all fail as expected: 10 in unit tests (among
them mapNested, splitCubic, cubicAt, staleRevision, the stay pulse,
the late timer and the time scale), 2 in the browser (Point button
always enabled fails 47, selectedItem without a hit fails 29).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
6.8 KiB
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, variables, struct, collider, rigidbody, container, clip area, texture, vector art, pixel art, palette, animation, curve, tile, tilemap, state machine, shader, font, sound, particles) 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. Release… shares a link that plays the saved game on its own, without the editor and without signing in.
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, 1580 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.
