Whilst Box Guy has only been in development for a fairly short amount of time, over the last weekend I’ve added something a little more. I received a few bits and pieces of feedback stating that whilst Box Guy was fun to play, there’s only so long you can amuse yourself for in a seven level techdemo. Not being one to just leave feedback unanswered, on Saturday I took up the task of designing something new for the next build!
Introducing BoxEd!
…which is what exactly? Well, BoxEd is a level editor. Of sorts. Following the game’s spirit of simplicity, instead of being a separate application, BoxEd is fully integrated into the game build itself and requires no extra installation. For those of you who are somewhat less interested in user-based content, fear not, because the editor takes up a minimal amount of space; we’re currently talking in the region of a few hundred kilobytes.
So what can do you do with BoxEd?
It’s rather basic at the moment. Hold the right mouse button down to rotate the camera, and use WASD to move whilst in edit mode. You can create geometry with the middle mouse button, and select existing geometry with the left mouse button. When geometry is selected, you’ll notice a few GUI options appear:
- Move: Movement on the 2D plane is controlled with the arrow keys and z/x are used for moving objects in and out of the 2D plane.
- Rotate: Three sliders can be used to control the three axes of rotation.
- Scale: Similar to rotation, ranges from 0 to 100 for each axis.
- Delete: Fairly self-explanatory
- Clone: Creates a copy of the object.
- Done Editing: Deselects the object. Will be removed in future for more user-friendly controls.
How can I play what I make?
In some game engines, testing what you’ve made requires lengthly compilation processes, even for simple geometry changes. Not so here. Hit “Enter Game” in the top left and you’ll instantly start testing your level! The orange shape signifies your spawn point; be sure not to delete it as the entity browser isn’t currently implemented… That aside, what you see is what you play!
Example Level Storage
Right now I’m storing levels into XML. For example, the level in the above screenshot would stored as follows:
<geom pos=”-1.393455,-9.4379,0″ rot=”0,0,0″ scl=”39.29787,0.4680851,7.382979″ </geom>
<geom pos=”14.41367,-7.387293,0″ rot=”0,0,0″ scl=”5.255319,100,5.255319″ </geom>
<geom pos=”-16.71642,-7.387293,0″ rot=”0,0,0″ scl=”5.255319,100,5.255319″ </geom>
<spawn pos=”0,0,0</spawn>
</level>
Gimme!
Not yet! I’m still finalising the loading and saving system for use on the web, but rest assured that this will be testable soon. Till then, check out the latest build (still on my personal site for the moment); to get the latest updates from the Ink dev team as they happen, be sure to follow us on Twitter and watch out for our upcoming Facebook page.
Cheers!
- Ruan
Looks awesome!
Good work!