GE Report #1

[nz17]

I have been using Game Editor for about the past week, and have decided that on occasion I will release a GE Report. What is this? A report will be a listing of bugs, errors, and suggestions for the improvement of our friendly neighborhood game creation program.

Here in this first report, I make mention of some spelling errors and a large list of suggestions for the UI as well as improvements in general. Hopefully we will see at least five of these make it into the next version.

Bugs:
(None found)

Spelling/Grammer:
_Section Script Function_
-"diretional_velocity" should be "directional_velocity" (missing "c")

_Section Conditional Action_
-"equal" should be "is equal to"
-"smaller than" should be "is lesser than"
-"greater or equal than" should be "is greater than or equal to"
-"smaller or equal than" should be "is lesser than or equal to"

Suggestions:
-Give numerical values for Transparency and Z Depth
-Support clipboard and copyboard into Script Editor and other text boxes
-Add boolean integer type
-Add five-layer undo function
-Edit "Immediate Action" on Events
-Edit key on "Key down" and "Key up"
-Add/Edit/Remove variables dialogue
-Automatic indentation of script in Script Editor
-Automatic backup save every ten minutes
-Different types of files are broken into different categories under data
directory
-Pressing "g" at the main window (with no dialogue boxes) enters "Game Mode"
-Change "Add Actor" to Actors; Actors would list "New Actor" at top,
followed by a list of available actors
-List actor events on side of Actor Control dialogue with "Add," "Edit,"
and "Remove" beneath
-Make backgrounds a special type of actor with appropriate attributes
-Option to make backgrounds a single solid color
-Make events name-able and actor-independent so that multiple actors can share
the same event (i.e. the same explosion can be had by multiple enemies without
the need to recreate it each time)
-Particle effects (i.e. fireworks, blood drops, rain, shattering glass, etc.)
-TCP/IP for networked gaming
-MacOS X version (OSX is based off FreeBSD, so if you can compile it for
FreeBSD it should work on Macintosh)
-Include supported graphics and audio formats in a separate page in
the documentation
-Integrate support for various video formats (MPEG, DivX, etc.)

Thanks for the consideration and excellent program.

[makslane]

Thank you very much for your excellent report.
Be sure that I will look your suggestions carefully.

Can you explain more, about:

-Change "Add Actor" to Actors; Actors would list "New Actor" at top,
followed by a list of available actors

[nz17]

Rather than explain totally with words, here I will explain with prototype graphics (excuse the crudity).





Clicking on "Actor" would pop-up a list of current actors, as well as allow the option of creating a new actor as the top option.

Below are some more quick suggestions:
-Text boxes to enter exact x, y coordinates for actors
-Multiple "pages" for multiple levels instead of one big field
-Rename actors
-"Title actors" for title screens, menus, etc.
-Load/save current game state (to resume later)

Thanks again for the great product. My professional registration comes soon![img]

[nz17]

It should be noted that several of my suggestions come from the use of the DigiPen Institute of Technology's learning tool "Project Fun," which is a graphical approach to game construction using a backend engine, much like Game Editor, Click-and-Play, or Game Maker.

However, I am certainly not suggesting that GE should become a clone of Fun; Project Fun needs much improvement itself. I would like to see a quality product taking the best from both programs, though.

DigiPen's Project fun can be found here.