feuerwerk

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Table of Contents

Using the editor
Working on the code
Ideas, gaps and bugs
Not yet

Feuerwerk (called Game Maker until October 2026) is 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. The old address nockal.com/game-maker/ leads here, and old play links still work.

Live: https://nockal.com/feuerwerk/ · Widget playground: https://nockal.com/feuerwerk/?playground · Code: https://git.nockal.com/meleki/feuerwerk

Using the editor

Page	What it covers
Concepts	Assets, scene objects, overrides, containers, play mode, the camera, the console, editing while playing, running without Play
Accounts	Signing in and out, roles and the accounts, who a project belongs to, how a session outlives a deployment
Scenes	The active scene and the start scene, the switch next to Play, `Load scene` and what a swap keeps
Scene editing	Placing by drag, editor symbols, z-order, hierarchy and parenting, the editor offset
Behaviors	Node graphs: variables and properties, Variables assets, the node set, structs and lists, loops, behaviors as nodes, editing the graph, the live view
Structs	Struct assets: a named shape that struct variables, fields and `Pack`/`Expand` follow
Colliders	Collider assets, collision events, blocking movement
Physics	Rigidbodies, the collider material, gravity and units, the fixed step, the contact on `On collision enter`, joints
Textures	Getting images in, where they go, tinting, the filter, frames, nine-slice, upload limits
Vector art	The vector art asset, canvas and shapes, the Pen and Select tools, the shape list, how a drawing is worn
Pixel art	The pixel art asset and its palette, the tools, layers and frames, onion skin and the preview, resizing, how frames are worn and where the pixels are stored
Fonts	Uploading a typeface, what a text wears, what the editor falls back to
Sounds	Uploading a sound, what the asset says, its tab, the cut and clips, `Play sound` and `Stop sound`, buses, the master and the Master routing, sound FX and their nodes (filters, EQs, delay, reverb, dynamics, modulation, Bitcrusher) and how long a voice rings on, what a pause and a stop do to a voice
Instruments	The instrument asset: Notes, Sample, Parameters, Sound FX, Envelope, Chip, Acid and Output, triggers, zones and layers, the keys of the Instrument tab, `Play note`
Patterns	The pattern asset and its piano roll: drawing, moving and sizing notes, the grid, the ruler with start and loop, velocities, playing it in a loop
Songs	The song asset: tracks with volume, pan, mute and solo, pattern and sound items laid out, moved, cut and split, its routing, recording a take, embedded assets, playing it in a loop and from a game
Videos	Getting a video in and converted, the Video tab and its clips, wearing one on a sprite, an animation driving it, recording the game view and the whole editor
Animations	Animation assets, the Animation tab, how they run
Curves	Easings drawn by hand, the Curve tab, using one on a key or a `Lerp`
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
State machines	The state machine asset, its scope, named transitions, the start state, `State branch` and its `else`, `Set state`, `Set state by name`, `State transition`, the two state events and the live highlight
Shaders	The shader asset, the Shader tab, the node set, the Adjust colors recipe, passes, shader functions, wearing a shader on a sprite, a text, a particle field or a camera
Particles	The particles asset, a particle as a formula of its age, the source's rows, the Particles tab
Containers	Editing a template, instances and their edits, screens without scene switching
Compositions	Objects laid out in time: tracks, items and animation clips, the Composition tab, video items and Fit to media, playing one in a game
Keyboard	Every shortcut

Working on the code

Page	What it covers
Architecture	The stack, the source layout, the rules that keep it organised
Development	Commands, the GPU requirement, the e2e suite, the three example games, continuous integration
API	The PHP JSON API and the project document
Plugins	Extending the editor: the plugin file, how it is loaded, switching one on and off, API v1, the demo plugin

Ideas, gaps and bugs

They live in the issue tracker of the Gitea repo: https://git.nockal.com/meleki/feuerwerk/issues. The folder todo-notes/ that held them as files until 2026-09-12 is gone; all 50 notes were moved into issues #1-#50, closed ones included, each carrying the commits it was filed and finished with.

Not yet

A touch-optimised layout. A voice that is already playing has no volume of its own to change: Set bus volume turns a whole bus up or down (see Sounds). Animations have no events on the timeline and no preview in the Scene tab. Slicing cuts a regular grid only — no detection of where the sprites actually sit on the sheet. Unreferenced image files are never collected by themselves — deliberately, since the image picker offers them again; a file goes only when its owner (or an administrator) presses Delete in the picker and no project uses it.

Using the editor

Working on the code