adminandClaude Opus 5.5
d9c6bbfa4d
The issue asked for Set render layer, Set sees and Render layer of. As with #211, a probe showed that writing already works. A Properties node of the object's type writes Render layer during a run, Inherit included, and one of type Camera writes Sees. The next picture follows both. As agreed, only Render layer of is built, and writing stays with Properties. - Render layer of is a data node with the input object and the outputs name and number. It answers the layer that holds, so an object without a choice of its own names its parent's. - NodeContext.renderLayerOf answers the number with the same rule the drawing uses (renderLayerAlong). The new field renderLayers on GraphLookup brings the names to the node. - hasRenderLayer in PropertySchema says which types are drawn. - Decided here: for an object that is not drawn (a camera, a behavior, a collider) the name is empty and the number -1, as Layer of does without a collider. Changing the render layer or Sees during a run had no test so far. Three unit tests now hold the proof from the issue. Tests: - Gate: 231 files, 3534 tests (3526 + 8), exit 0 - e2e 6: 149 checks passed, e2e 63: 13 checks passed (+1) - Unit: the coin moves into the overlay with Set and back with Inherit, a HUD container takes its sprite along, the main camera sees a second layer once its Sees is set, and Render layer of names the inherited layer, and none for a behavior - Node catalog: four cases for Render layer of - 63c3 moves a sprite onto UI in a Play run: the main camera no longer draws it, and the log reads "UI" and "1" - Three counter-probes fail 1, 1 and 2 tests: without inheriting in the node, without the check for a drawn type, and without inheriting in the drawing - "layer of" in the palette still finds Layer of first (6z-x) - The e2e sum is 1731 (1730 plus 1) 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, variables, struct, collider, rigidbody, joint, container, clip area, texture, vector art, pixel art, palette, animation, curve, tile, tilemap, state machine, shader, shader function, 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, 1731 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 runners – 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, joints |
| 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 that sprites, texts, particle fields and cameras wear, their node set, passes, shader functions |
| 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.