Game Editor is a 2D game authoring package. It supports multi-platform development to
iPhone,
iPad
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...
,
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
,
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
(Windows 95-Windows 10),
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
,
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
, Windows Mobile-based
Smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s,
GP2X
The GP2X is a Linux-based handheld video game console and portable media player developed by South Korean company GamePark Holdings. It was released on November 10, 2005, in South Korea only.
The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as wel ...
, Pocket PCs, and
Handheld PC
A handheld personal computer (PC) is a miniature computer typically built around a clamshell form factor and is significantly smaller than any standard laptop computer, but based on the same principles. It is sometimes referred to as a ''palmt ...
s.
Compatibility with these platforms is mentioned on Game Discovery,
a popular site for game developers, among other software like
The 3D Gamemaker
The Game Creators Ltd (TGC; formerly Dark Basic Software Limited) is a British software house based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, which specialises in software for video game development, originally for the Microsoft Windows platform. Th ...
,
DarkBASIC, and
GameMaker
GameMaker (originally Animo, Game Maker ''(until 2011)'' and GameMaker Studio) is a series of cross-platform game engines created by Mark Overmars in 1999 and developed by YoYo Games since 2007. The latest iteration of ''GameMaker'' released ...
.
Game Editor was created by Makslane Rodrigues, who has been developing it since 2002. The current version is 1.4.0 from 2010, with the latest beta 1.4.1 being from 2013; it is still considered to be a work in progress. On February 2, 2021, work o
Game-Editor 2was announced, reimplementing it atop of
GTK
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and propriet ...
and
ORX
Orx is an open-source, portable, lightweight, plug-in-based, data-driven and easy to use 2D-oriented game engine written in C.
It runs on Windows (MinGW and Visual Studio versions), Linux, MacOS, iOS and Android.
General information
Orx ...
.
Features
Interface
The interface itself is relatively basic and is the same for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. Navigating the editor map (where the level is designed and executed) involves panning. The interface is composed of a main menu at the top, which shows the current position on the map, and icons indicating the mode(s) the user is in. The interface is window based. Each action and event has its own window, along with several settings windows.
Target platforms
Target platforms include Mac OS X,
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
,
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
, iPhone, iPad, Windows Mobile based
Smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s,
GP2X
The GP2X is a Linux-based handheld video game console and portable media player developed by South Korean company GamePark Holdings. It was released on November 10, 2005, in South Korea only.
The GP2X is designed for homebrew developers as wel ...
and
Handheld
A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
s. It is possible to make builds, or export game data only, so that designers can store the game or its parts in non-executable files. The editor itself runs on Mac OS X,
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
.
Scripting language
Game Editor uses a scripting language that bears similarities to the
C programming language
''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well as ...
. Scripts are created through the script editor, defined as an action triggered by an event.
The script editor window gives access to the built-in names of objects (actors), variables and functions. It is capable of
syntax coloring
Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...
to make code easier to distinguish.
Actor concept
The objects in Game Editor are known as actors. Notably, this doesn't mean every actor has to be a character. The user can add multiple
graphics
Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...
and
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
s to an actor from supported
formats (listed below).
Game Editor recognizes
alpha channel
In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate pas ...
s, to enable animation transparencies. In the case of all images, it recognizes the top-left pixel's color as the
transparent
Transparency, transparence or transparent most often refer to:
* Transparency (optics), the physical property of allowing the transmission of light through a material
They may also refer to:
Literal uses
* Transparency (photography), a still, ...
color, and finally, there's a user-modifiable transparency value, which sets literally how transparent the actor will be overall; this gives various possibilities for adding
visual effects
Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of
a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production.
The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...
to the game, such as fog.
Actors can have either
animation
Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
s or text, which is handy for help sections, menu descriptions, and
RPG RPG may refer to:
Military
* Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon
**''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...
talk. With actors, the developer can also play sounds,
sound effects
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
and add
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
to the game. Again there are several
file formats
A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free.
Some file formats ...
to choose from. The developer can check your actor's position by clicking on game mod.
A very important aspect of actors is that there are four types of them. The normal actor type is what the above talks about. The additional types of actors are Wire-frame, Filled Regions, and Canvas actors.
Wire Framed regions can serve as borders for some collision, but they're not visible in-game, and cannot receive mouse click events. Filled Regions are also invisible, the difference being they can receive actions from mouse clicks.
Canvas actors let the developer draw any line,
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
or other elements on them. Additionally, it allows the
rotation
Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...
and
scaling
Scaling may refer to:
Science and technology
Mathematics and physics
* Scaling (geometry), a linear transformation that enlarges or diminishes objects
* Scale invariance, a feature of objects or laws that do not change if scales of length, energ ...
of other images on other actors, as well as just a file on disk. Scripting knowledge is needed to perform these effects.
Events
The Game Editor engine is
event driven. For something to happen in the game, Game Editor handles events create by the developer using the interaction of actors, and other game elements, the mouse and the keyboard. The actions that are triggered by an event can be customized extensively.
Level creation
Game Editor provides two ways for dividing the levels of the game. One is creating separate files for each level, and then linking them with 1 or 2 functions. But if the levels are small anyway, and the developer doesn't want to separate them so much, all leverls can be stored into one file, and the levels can be surrounded with activation regions which define the surrounded part of the file loaded in and out of the memory together. This loads and unloads actors and regions depending on whether the activation region is touching the view. If the developer has already created a separate level file, then projects can be merged into one file, as long as the actor names merged are different.
Non-actor objects
Game Editor also allows the developer to create Paths, and activation events. Paths are marked as nodes in Game Editor interface, and can specify a route the actor will move on. The speed of the path can also be modified, and the path can be made up of Bézier curves and linear lines too.
Activation events are another important aspect. When one actor receives an event, then if there's an activation event on that actor for that event, then it triggers an activation event on the specified actor. Example:
If two cars crash, during game play and there's a hintbox actor which comments in-game events, and the developer wants the hintbox to say: "2 cars crashed" when they do, then an activation event one of the cars can be created, and the triggering event of a collision with another car actor can be made; then the activation event receiver can be set to Hintbox, and finally, an action can be created for the activation event on hintbox, which is a Set Text. Then the color and font of the displayed text can be specified.
File extension
Game Editor projects can be saved into .ged files before exporting/building into an executable. All versions of Game Editor are backwards compatible. Game Editor also adds a folder named "data" into the directory in which the user saved the .ged to store the related graphics, animations, sounds, and music files. A .ged.undo file is also created to store undo/redo possibilities.
Reference and help
When using game editor, a documentation is accessible reached from the main menu's Help section. This documentation explains the basics of the editor to the concept of individual script functions. The game editor website supports a forum that answers more complex questions involving game design and demos to experiment from. The editor forum also gives access to additional files for the amateur to use.
Game Editor source code
The source code of Game Editor was made available to the public in October 2008. It was subsequently dual-licensed as of October 2009 under the terms of the
GPL v3
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...
and a commercial license for use with proprietary projects.
The revenues are shared
with all developers that have accepted contributions. It is hoped this can help increase the rate of Game Editor's development.
References
5.
.{Video game engines
Video game development software
MacOS programming tools
Programming tools for Windows
Linux programming tools
Video game development software for Linux
Free game engines