[Horsepoo!!!]

Bill Appleton, author of what was probably the coolest software on Macintosh back in the days.

The father of an app called World Builder (World Builder (I can't understand why but there are no screenshots of World Builder or World Builder-created games on the internet. The internet sucks) and of Wolves in the Woods which was an amazing side-scroller that would run on the oldest Macs...he's worked on other games after founding a company called Cyberflix but World Builder is the one that I remember the most.

World Builder sparked a whole community of game builders. I remember downloading World Builder games off BBS' and sharing some of my creations with the world 15 years ago.

The app was very simple to use, you had your sound library, your monster library, your object (weapons) library, and your room library. Each of these libraries had a separate window displayed as list views. Rooms were linked together using a simple interface. This allowed for north, south, east, west movements. Left alone, the game would randomize monsters appearance and objects appearance...but World Builder would also allow massive scripting...making monsters only appear at specific rooms, objects in specific rooms, movement into rooms beyond the 'north, south, east, west' linking interface. It was truly a little kid's dream come true.

I think I was 8 or 9 when I started making really cool games with World Builder. I learned the scripting through delving into other people's game's code. And creating the graphics using MacDraw-style vector shapes was a breeze.

Anyways...this is a plea. A plea to Bill Appleton. If you're out there (I know you are, I sent you an e-mail last year and asked for a port of World Builder to OS X), OS X technologies such as Quartz could be the foundation of the in-app, vector-based graphic toolset (as well as any image file format), QT/CoreAudio could be the foundation for sound and music and animation (QT) perhaps...the larger problem would be bringing the scripting engine in World Builder over to OS X. Maybe it would necessitate a rewrite but that could allow for an even more powerful scripting engine.

If Bill isn't willing to give this a try, I'm sending the plea out to current OS X developers. Check out World Builder and give it some thought. I think Mac OS X offers enough frameworks to take care of a lot of the elements that had to be hand-coded back in the day when Bill Appleton created World Builder.

edit:

Perhaps 10.4's CoreImage, CoreVideo could create some nice transition effects for moving from room to room, and monsters/characters fading in, and water ripple effects on textures, and gaussian blurs slowly clearing up as though the main player is waking up after being knocked unconscious.

I'd pay for a native OS X World Builder-like app.

[CharlesS]

Yeah, WB was a great program. I've thought about it too, but sadly I don't think there's a market for it anymore. I do remember a program called StoryMaker that was a dead ringer for World Builder back in the OS 8 days. It did the same thing, but supported color, QuickTime movies, the works. And the thing is, almost no one used it. I don't remember a single game made with StoryMaker.

[dfiler]

I too remember world builder. I must have started and never finished quite a few creations.

Perhaps the modern equivalent are map building utilities etc, that are shipped with many high budget games.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by dfiler:
I too remember world builder. I must have started and never finished quite a few creations.

Perhaps the modern equivalent are map building utilities etc, that are shipped with many high budget games.

Those are still way too complex.

World Builder was super easy to use. The beauty of it is that anyone could create a game by slapping together a few rooms, objects, and monsters. World Builder would take care of the rest. But it scaled beyond that and allowed people to script behaviors and actions.

Not too sure what StoryMaker was but I'll check it out. I can't fathom it was as good as World Builder was.

There were tons of distributed World Builder games and probably tons more that were just never uploaded to any BBS or internet server. I'm sure the market is still there...it's just that there isn't anyone out there ready to use the current technology and make it into an appealing product.

There are tons of people that want to make games but don't have the programming skills or time to delve into complex programming languages, OpenGL concepts, AI concepts, etc.

edit: I can't find *anything* on StoryMaker on the internet. I'll download it from the underdogs and try it out later, but, like I said, I can't possibly imagine that it was as good or easy to use as World Builder or it probably would have become popular.

I just remembered that Beenox's Coldstone Engine is a neat game creator but it's another style and still way too complex and time consuming. Haven't seen many games created with the Coldstone engine.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Back in 1986, you were limited to the tools World Builder gave you because there was hardly any integration between apps. Most couldn't hook a microphone up to their computer and didn't have the programs to convert existing sounds into the format World Builder could understand. Most people had to rely on a small library of pre-recorded sounds that came with World Builder or steal sounds from other games. It was also very difficult to come across good/powerful painting tools or image files to enhance the graphical detail of the game.

But today, anyone can get a microphone to create their own sounds, GarageBand can be used to create music, anyone can get digital cameras and create vivid room backgrounds, scanners to scan hand drawings.

If all of these hardware and software technologies were integrated in a World Builder-like app...you'd have one killer product.

Nothing would stop you from going around town and snapping a few hundred pictures and making a game out of them. Then launch GarageBand for some home-made looping music (perfect for games), and use your microphone or a quick search on the internet for royalty-free sounds.

It really would be cooler than people think.

[Chuckit]

I actually contemplated this idea for a while. World Builder was really cool, and could make some cool games for its time, but I don't think anybody would really be interested in that type of game anymore. People nowadays want fancy 3D animation and detailed environments and all that, not a GUI on a text adventure game. The closest equivalents to World Builder nowadays, I think, are scenario editors for existing games. I don't think making a basic map for Marathon: Aleph One is all that much more "pro" than making a basic world in World Builder.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I actually contemplated this idea for a while. World Builder was really cool, and could make some cool games for its time, but I don't think anybody would really be interested in that type of game anymore. People nowadays want fancy 3D animation and detailed environments and all that, not a GUI on a text adventure game. The closest equivalents to World Builder nowadays, I think, are scenario editors for existing games. I don't think making a basic map for Marathon: Aleph One is all that much more "pro" than making a basic world in World Builder.

Are you kidding me? They're two different ballparks in terms of development difficulty. Sure, Marathon was an early 3D game and the complexities developping a map were tiny compared to the 3D modelling needed for today's games. But I'm telling you right now, if World Builder X (let's call it that for now) integrated with GarageBand, iPhoto, CoreImage/CoreVideo it would be much more powerful and easier to use than Marathon's map-making tools.

People are interested in making their own games rapidly and efficiently. Hardly anyone wants or has the talent to to create 8 different angles of monster sprites, or a 1000+ polygon 3D model, or fiddle with arcane physics parameters.

3D made a big splash when 3D videocards hit the market because it was brand new to people. But it's been overdone. Old skool gamers still like 2D games and new gamers would too but have no choice but to eat what developers feed them. Developers are scared of going back to 2D because they gamers would reject these games.

The fact is, it's still way too difficult to build a full fledged 3D game...and may always be unless we start seeing innovation in 3D modelling tools.

If a little 8 year old kid could create his own World Builder games, A 5 year old kid could create his own 'World Builder X' game.

These homemade games aren't meant to compete with commercial 3D games. They're just supposed to be shared inside a community of gamers that like RPGs or text-based games. Yes, there are people out there that like these games over the 3D fluff covering lame games.

Just like there's a community of people creating small and easy to develop Konfabulator widgets, there will be a community of people creating Dashboard gadgets and a community of people creating World Builder X games.

[Horsepoo!!!]

There are two importnat things that I want and that's missing in Mac OS X. A World Builder app and a HyperCard app: game developement for the masses and an all-purpose GUI scripting environment for the masses.

Everything else just takes too much time to learn and isn't suited as development tools for the general public.

If you're saying the world has moved on to bigger better things like 3D and there's no more place for the common folks to develop their own apps because 'nobody likes 2D graphical games based on text adventures', then it seems like we're going to have to keep relying on the big companies to bring us our gaming experience.

When iD Software starts licensing the Doom 3 engine...it'll be the end of yet another era of complex game engines. The Doom 3 engine is powerful and scalable but no one person will be able to create a game using the tools provided by iD even with all the graphics, AI scripts, 3D models handed to them on a silver platter.

I'd be much happier if I could come home from work, easily import or drag and drop into World Builder X's room editor photos I took of some park, hooked them together into a little map, drop Uncle Fred's picture into the monster editor, draw a baseball bat in his hands, called him "park mugger", set his weapon as "baseball", verb "swing", compose a quick eerie tune in GarageBand, added it to room behaviors, I'd have a cute little game right there. And it would have taken less than 5 minutes of my time.

I'd get to walk around in a park and fight a guy (that looks like Uncle Fred) trying to swing a baseball bat at me. Sure the game's lame because I spent less than 5 minutes on it. But I could spend 30 minutes everyday and have a really good game at the end of 2 weeks.

[CharlesS]

I agree with both you and Chuckit. This would be a cool app, but no one would use it. Sadly, Chuckit is right - the adventure game as a genre is dead. This is a shame, because it was the genre of game that always captivated my imagination. But c'est la vie - I thought about doing this once, but decided that I don't really have enough time to write apps that no one will use.

Really, the problem with World Builder was that you had to illustrate every scene, every object, and every character. This meant that an 8-year-old could make a not-so-good game, but to really make a good game, you had to not only dream up a universe, write dialogue, plot, and game logic, but you also had to draw a billion pictures. It was a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, there were a few games that were excellent, but I can count them on one hand. The majority of World Builder games were pretty poor.

StoryMaker did everything that World Builder did except for the monster fights, which were always annoying anyway, and no one used it. That was back in the OS 8 days, and no one used it. Sadly, the world has changed, and games are no longer simple and fun like they used to be. Either that, or we've outgrown computer games as we've become older and are just getting nostalgic for the games we grew up with. Which is it? I don't really know.

As for HyperCard, type "HyperCard" into SourceForge, and you'll find a whole lot of open-source clones of HyperCard. Unfortunately, they are mostly in the planning stage. However, perhaps you could join one of the projects and help it get off the ground...

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
I agree with both you and Chuckit. This would be a cool app, but no one would use it. Sadly, Chuckit is right - the adventure game as a genre is dead. This is a shame, because it was the genre of game that always captivated my imagination. But c'est la vie - I thought about doing this once, but decided that I don't really have enough time to write apps that no one will use.

Really, the problem with World Builder was that you had to illustrate every scene, every object, and every character. This meant that an 8-year-old could make a not-so-good game, but to really make a good game, you had to not only dream up a universe, write dialogue, plot, and game logic, but you also had to draw a billion pictures. It was a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, there were a few games that were excellent, but I can count them on one hand. The majority of World Builder games were pretty poor.

StoryMaker did everything that World Builder did except for the monster fights, which were always annoying anyway, and no one used it. That was back in the OS 8 days, and no one used it. Sadly, the world has changed, and games are no longer simple and fun like they used to be. Either that, or we've outgrown computer games as we've become older and are just getting nostalgic for the games we grew up with. Which is it? I don't really know.

I disagree with almost everything you said. As with any game, you have to come up with a universe, dialogue, plot and game logic. And yes, back in the days you had to draw pictures because you weren't flooded with picture files like you are now. Today, anyone can take photos or grab royalty free pictures off the internet. Hardly any drawing involved of one chooses not to draw.

But the beauty of it all is the community that is will to share. The gaming community will share graphics and sounds they made. I'm sure some guy will share all of his 'object' graphics and his 'monster' graphics with others.

You say the majority of WB games were poor? The majority of games in general are poor and I can count the good ones one hand. Why should World Builder games be any different?

Monster fights were never used? Are you kidding me? They were used in every single World Builder game I played...and I've played a few dozens.

There is a market for this. I'm not saying everyone will jump on this product. There is no product everyone jumps on. But I'm sure there are several hundred people interested in something like this. You say the adventure games genre is dead but it's the only genre that most people can create.

Hardly anyone has the ressources or time to create moving sprites for an action side-scroller game or tiles for a top down RPG game, yet alone textures and 3D models for a first person shooter...you're telling me there isn't a market for this?

There is even less of a market for any other game tools unless absolutely everything is given with the tools...graphics, models, etc.

If there isn't a market for amateur 2D graphics + text adventure games creation tools, there is no market at all for amateur game creation since everything else is out of reach for most because of the difficulty involved with the newer genres.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Anyways...I guess it probably is too far-fetched. Nobody wants to even give it a try. Can't say I didn't try.

[Forte]

Sadly, Chuckit is right - the adventure game as a genre is dead. This is a shame, because it was the genre of game that always captivated my imagination. But c'est la vie - I thought about doing this once, but decided that I don't really have enough time to write apps that no one will use.

No-one can use it if it isn't there...
And then people say the market for such things is dead, because the apps aren't there, and therefore no-one is using them...
Yet, people want them, and can't get them, because people say the market is dead and refuse to make them...
But no-one can use it if it isn't there...
Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's a vicious cycle. Make no mistake, there are plenty of folks out there who would check such things out, if and when such things are there.

I guess it probably is too far-fetched. Nobody wants to even give it a try. Can't say I didn't try.

I've been following the thread for a little while, and I have to admit, you've gotten my interest. I have ideas that I want to bring to life, but there are hardly any apps that can accomodate that in an easy and accessible way (I don't have enough time, at least currently, to learn a programming language or anything, unfortunately), when there *REALLY* should be - after all, we have programs for making music, images, sound, etcetera, at our fingertips. So why not something to make games? ;P

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Forte:

I've been following the thread for a little while, and I have to admit, you've gotten my interest. I have ideas that I want to bring to life, but there are hardly any apps that can accomodate that in an easy and accessible way, when there *REALLY* should be - after all, we have programs for making music, images, sound, etcetera, at our fingertips. So why not something to make games? ;P

Finally...someone who sees things my way.

Well I haven't done a market study or anything but, I know this app will have a decent community of game developers. There are tons of people 'living in the past' when it comes to gaming, ready to jump start this community. Emulators weren't created for nothing. Nor were game interpreters such as FreeSCI and ScummVM.

You don't even need to be a gamer to create games. Some people just enjoy creating stories. I don't play games much anymore (maybe 'cuz I don't have enough time, maybe 'cuz I hate the new genres, who knows) but I've got tons of dormant ideas that I'd love to bring to life but can't 'cuz I don't have the time or ressources to code a full fledged commercial game.

Nobody knew there was a market making an app that allowed easily creatable widgets. But if we take a look at Konfabulator's site...there are tons of 'em.

Build it, and they will come.

[Forte]

Finally...someone who sees things my way.

Well I haven't done a market study or anything but, I know this app will have a decent community of people.

Nobody knew there was a market making an app that allowed easily creatable widgets. But if we take a look at Konfabulator's site...there are tons of 'em.

I have to agree. I already know plenty of people who'd love to have a 'World Builder X' type app, as you've proposed it. There really is nothing out there quite like that.

I really don't know much about the original World Builder, however (I'm really only a recent 'switcher' to the Mac side), so pardon how stupid this next question sounds; Would it be possible to make a 2D side-scrolling platform game with such an app? (I ask, because that happens to be my favourite genre, and I have plenty of ideas I want to play with. ^^;; )

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Monster fights were never used? Are you kidding me? They were used in every single World Builder game I played...and I've played a few dozens.

Argh, that was a misplaced pronoun on my part. The 'it' referred to StoryMaker, with which almost no games were ever created and released. The monster fights were indeed *over*used, and this made them annoying. Especially when they were set to pop up in random scenes - you'd constantly get interrupted from trying to figure out a puzzle by having to fight the same monster over and over and over again...

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Forte:
I have to agree. I already know plenty of people who'd love to have a 'World Builder X' type app, as you've proposed it. There really is nothing out there quite like that.

I really don't know much about the original World Builder, however (I'm really only a recent 'switcher' to the Mac side), so pardon how stupid this next question sounds; Would it be possible to make a 2D side-scrolling platform game with such an app? (I ask, because that happens to be my favourite genre, and I have plenty of ideas I want to play with. ^^;; )

Nope, World Builder was for really simple text adventures with graphics in them. And it was a really, really fun app at the time. I considered doing something like this once. The reason I haven't is because some guy did it in the OS 8 days, and the community barely even yawned at it.

Don't get me wrong, it would be a great bit of nostalgic fun if such an app were created. But I'm not sure that it's going to happen...

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Forte:
I have to agree. I already know plenty of people who'd love to have a 'World Builder X' type app, as you've proposed it. There really is nothing out there quite like that.

I really don't know much about the original World Builder, however (I'm really only a recent 'switcher' to the Mac side), so pardon how stupid this next question sounds; Would it be possible to make a 2D side-scrolling platform game with such an app? (I ask, because that happens to be my favourite genre, and I have plenty of ideas I want to play with. ^^;; )

Well...World Builder was a really old program and was more of a graphical text adventure (the emphasis was more on graphics). Back then it was hard to get lots of animated sprites on the screen so there were next to no sidescroller games.

But I don't see why another game building tool that takes advantage of OpenGL layering, Mac OS X's Quartz engine, couldn't spark some game development tools for that kind of game genre.

Again, if someone wants to create a game development toolset that hits it big, you gotta put yourself in the non-techie's shoes. There is no way my sister will ever be able to produce a nice full fledged 3D first person shooter game from scratch nor does she like first person shooters. The market is saturated with FPS' anyways.

It *IS* possible to create simple adventure games from scratch. Especially with today's hardware and OS. It could be simple to create a 2D side-scrolling but it demands some very creative tools...probably more work than a simple World Builder X adventure game maker. But if someone is daring enough, who knows.

I ask for a World Builder-type app because I don't think it would be insanely difficult make with the frameworks and APIs that are popping up in OS X. With very little code, you can get a decent vector drawing engine going inside an app. With very little code, you can tap into the iPhoto library. With very little code, you'll be able to tap into CoreImage/CoreVideo to bring some really amazing visual effects that will rival even the best 3D games.

Bill Appleton coded World Builder himself with very little development tools back in 1986. I don't know how long it took him but it should probably take half that time on OS X today...if someone is as talented as Mr. Appleton. Back then I suppose developers were more talented.

If you're looking for a 'side-scroller'-ish engine that will be customizable, Return to Dark Castle is in development (although I warn you, I've been waiting for this for 6 years now and who knows if it'll ever be released)...Dark Castle was a Silicon Beach Software game created by Mark Pierce and Jonathan Gay (World Builder was also published by Silicon Beach Software). It was a really cool game back in the days. I'm glad to see that it's going to make a comeback in this crazy world of 3D games...and that you'll be able to create your own levels. But it still won't beat creating a full game from scratch.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Nope, World Builder was for really simple text adventures with graphics in them. And it was a really, really fun app at the time. I considered doing something like this once. The reason I haven't is because some guy did it in the OS 8 days, and the community barely even yawned at it.

Don't get me wrong, it would be a great bit of nostalgic fun if such an app were created. But I'm not sure that it's going to happen...

Haha...I just gave StoryMaker a try and it is *nothing* compared to World Builder. In terms of flexibility and strength StoryMaker was seems to be an insult. No wonder people didn't even bother to even yawn.


THIS:



is what I'm talking about. A list of monsters, objects, rooms. You could double-click on an item in the list to pop a window up that allowed easy and fun graphics editing tools. You then had a list of characteristics/options for monsters, objects, rooms...they allowed to set weapon strengths, monster strengths, room sounds...all sorts of stuff.

Allowed for games like Radical Castle:


(I particularly remember the Vorpal Bunny at the beginning of this game which I then realized was heavily influenced by Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)

Karth of the Jungle 1, 2 and 3:


(This game was awesome...I **** you not.)

Enchanted Scepters:



Swamp Witch:


(Some decent scanned art in that game.)

Hotel Caper:


There are tons of other games...even pornographic ones which I'd hide from my parents. I bet someone would have a field day grabbing naked chick pictures from the internet and making a game with them.

[Horsepoo!!!]

If a World Builder X was created and only 10 awesome games came out of it...I think your job would be done. How many good games came out of the Quake 3 engine? Not that many.

You can't expect that all games will be published or shared or not suck. But you can't expect that nobody will try making a good game and have fun trying. That alone is what will make 'World Builder X' a success...not necessarily the games that come out of it.


StoryMaker was nothing like World Builder.

[Horsepoo!!!]

And check it out: these guys aren't afraid to make top down 2D games and Might and Magic style dungeon games. These aren't anything but old skool style games. There *is* a market.

http://www.aescapia.com/

The Hallow Ground editor is nice and Myth of the Whyrm + editor looks cool too and I'm grateful that there are still companies out there that make this stuff possible...but I still think these tool require too much work for most people to get a game going.

[angelmb]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:These aren't anything but old skool style games. There *is* a market.

So true, I love my 2D GameBoy Advance games

[smeger]

I'd like to see a detailed description of how one would go about designing a scene (a room), and how one would link scenes together to form a complete game.

This is something I've always been interested in, too.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by smeger:
I'd like to see a detailed description of how one would go about designing a scene (a room), and how one would link scenes together to form a complete game.

This is something I've always been interested in, too.

Give me a day...by this time tomorrow I'll have a description and screenshots. I've just recently re-downloaded Mini vMac and after my night shift (ugh ) I'll start taking screenshots of World Builder and posting them in this thread.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
And check it out: these guys aren't afraid to make top down 2D games and Might and Magic style dungeon games. These aren't anything but old skool style games.

Yes, but they aren't adventure games. I was specifically saying that adventure games like Zork and Enchanted Scepters are no longer cool. You'll notice that even Forte had aspirations that are beyond World Builder's scope -- like animation and scrolling. That's what everybody wants to see, it seems. I have a feeling many people would download World Builder X thinking, "Cool, I can make my own games!" Then they'd realize the limitations of the genre and walk away with two rooms completed.

Originally posted by smeger:
I'd like to see a detailed description of how one would go about designing a scene (a room), and how one would link scenes together to form a complete game.

You can download World Builder and see. Basically, there are several different editors in the program. The map editor allows you to create the layout of the rooms — how many rooms there are, which room is north from which room, etc. Each room can then be edited. You either draw or paste a B&W picture into the editor. There are object, sound and character editors, and (if I remember correctly) you can use those to give an initial location to your creations. There is also a scripting language that you can use to give your world more specialization than is included in the basic World Builder game engine. Scripts apply either to a specific room or to the whole world.

There's actually even a little more to it than that, but that should give you a pretty good idea what's involved.

[smeger]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Give me a day...by this time tomorrow I'll have a description and screenshots. I've just recently re-downloaded Mini vMac and after my night shift (ugh ) I'll start taking screenshots of World Builder and posting them in this thread.

Rockin. I'd also like to hear a description of how you'd envision this working from other people who'd be interested in creating games. so start talking!

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Then they'd realize the limitations of the genre and walk away with two rooms completed.

What limitations? If you mean limitation by imagination then, yes, people with no imagination will walk away with two rooms completed.

[Forte]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
You'll notice that even Forte had aspirations that are beyond World Builder's scope -- like animation and scrolling.

That's not to say I wouldn't be interested in what World Builder X could do, though. I enjoy writing a heck of a lot, too, so I'd still use it for something in the graphical-text-adventure genre (another of my favourites, might I add ). ;P
I was just curious as to how many genres such a package could cater to. ^^;;

[smeger]

Sorry, I wasn't being clear. I'd like to hear how people would like to go about building games in a hypothetical new product. I'd like to see some brainstorming on features and implementation ideas.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by smeger:
Sorry, I wasn't being clear. I'd like to hear how people would like to go about building games in a hypothetical new product. I'd like to see some brainstorming on features and implementation ideas.

Well, if you wanted to be true to the way World Builder worked, you'd want to make the game file be an .app bundle. Some things you'd want to do:

1. Make the user either specify a special file extension for the save files or a creator code. This way, you would avoid the problem WB had where they all had the same creator and saved game files would rarely open with the game you wanted.

2. Store all graphics as .tiff files inside the app bundle, and sounds as .aiff files. There could be an option to convert all the sound and graphics files into compressed formats to save space, but you wouldn't want to do this until you were done with the whole game and ready to distribute. It should also be possible to embed .mov files, so that you could have animation in a game (which was one nice thing about StoryMaker back in the day).

3. Scenes, objects, etc. could be implemented as XML files, and I think this would be pretty self-explanatory.

4. The tricky part to write would be the code parsing engine. On one hand, the WB parser was really simple, but on the other hand, you'd probably want something better than the WB parser as it was pretty weak. You would probably store all the scene code in a separate file. Putting it in the XML file could make the XML file bloated if a scene's code was long. You would definitely want to have a way for the user to encrypt the code for the final, distributable product, so that users can't cheat by opening up the bundle and reading the scene code (as was way too easy to do with World Builder). This could be done with Apple's CDSA framework.

[Horsepoo!!!]

I thought about it a lot at work last night and came up with tons of wicked ideas. But then I had thought up too many complexities. The rule of thumb here is to keep the development interface really simple...and eventually add a scripting engine (JavaScript perhaps? Or HyperScript? ) for those that want to go above and beyond the basic options. But if someone really wanted to go all out, a visual scripting engine ala Automator would be even better.

First of all, the drawing capabilities would have to match those of what I've seen in OmniGraffle or Sketch.app (if you've ever played with it...the source code is available on earlier Apple dev packages.) If someone can draw this, it means the drawing tools are good enough.

If you've played with OmniGraffle, you'll quickly notice it can do almost any vector art you want PLUS you can drag and drop pretty much any image file format into the window.

The vector drawing tools would have to be composed of at least a few things: oval shape, polygon, rectangle shape, freehand shape, group, ungroup, lock, unlock, text, font, color. (This is what I've come up with so far...there might be room for other vector drawing tools.) Menu items to flip horizontal, vertical, and key-combos to rotate (like the way OmniGraffle and Keynote does it) should be in there too.

There probably shouldn't be any bitmap drawing tools as bitmap pictures require much more skill than what the average person can muster. People that do want to do this kind of stuff should probably just get Photoshop or something. Programatically, bitmap drawing tools would probably take way too much effort...but if someone can do it, why not.

This still doesn't stop people from finding high-quality royalty-free images from wherever and using it in the game.

OmniGraffle also has 'Actions' which allow for behaviors when an shape/object element is clicked. If we extended that to 'World Builder X', we could have 'Hotspot' objects which could be invisible and overlaid on top of the Scene/Room graphics as a mean to navigate from room to room or to produce a certain action. OmniGraffle allows you to jump elsewhere in the .graffle document (World Builder X, in comparison, would send the player character to another room), or run a script (WBX would also allow a script to be run...or offer a bunch of hardcoded options.)

Note that the 'North, East, West, South, Up, Down' directional movements should and would still exist (in fact, we could even extend it and add North West, North East, etc.) And the hotspots would just allow you to extend beyond the traditional cardinal points as well as bring scripted actions (such as opening a door, or pull a rug to discover a key underneath it.)

I've though of a whole bunch of other things but I gotta sleep. I'll have those WB screenshots up soon.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Oh, one more thing.

Vector graphics will help keep games at a respectable size. The possibility of using 32-bit color capable bitmap art such as .tiffs will remain, but like CharlesS said, these and uncompressed sound formats will probably have to be compressed or people will have to suffer through painfully long downloads. Even if you only have 32 800x600 rooms with a .tiff backdrop and 10 .tiff objects and 4 .tiff characters, you're looking at HUGE!!!

Vector graphics are cheesy...I won't deny it. Most of the games will have the same visual quality as those old B&W World Builder games (but with color and transparencies)...yes, most games will look like total crap. But that's the nature of the app. You can't expect people to spend weeks or months on a game...most people will get bored fast and the project will never see the light of day.

There have been many game development tools and engines in the past. I think of Cythera's engine, the Coldstone engine, Marathon map-making tools and physics editor tools. Sure people can create a level or two using the default textures, tiles, sprites. But never will most people be able to write a full fledged game from scratch with these tools. They require way too many man hours and ressources. Due to the animated nature of these games, it requires that people to draw hundreds upon hundreds of sprite animation. Total conversions are rare...and when they happen, they're the result of weeks or months or even years of team effort.

2D animation and 3D stuff is a big *no*, if 'World Builder X' wants to hit it big. So people can either pretend like the genre and simplistic nature of adventure games is dead and therefore game development tools for average Joe can't possibly exist since simple stories and adventure games are the only genres that average Joe can build...*or* the genre is simply dormant because no big game developer want to touch it but average Joe still loves stories and adventures, especially when he can write his own.

[Millennium]

The biggest game-development engine of this type would be RPG Maker 2000, and indeed, it kicks large amounts of butt. One of my old college roommates did some cool stuff with it a while back. Unfortunately, there is no Mac port. Granted, this is not an adventure-game engine (the combat resembled the Phantasy Star series more than anything else, not that this is a Bad Thing), but it shows promise. Older versions of this engine were even ported to several consoles.

The closest thing I could think of to this would be the Sphere RPG Engine. Again, there is no Mac port, but it doesn't look like porting would be too terribly difficult, as it seems to use a lot of stuff that's already been ported (SDL, SpiderMonkey -yes, it uses JavaScript- and so forth).

I've often wondered about doing an RPG engine based on Python or some other suitably simple programming language: a step up from JavaScript or the mutant BASIC used in RPGMaker but still simple to learn. The question is, how deep into the OS to integrate? On one hand, integrating tightly into OSX would allow for some incredibly cool effects. On the other hand, one of the biggest problems with today's RPG engines is that there aren't very many portable ones.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Ok, here goes.

Scene Map Window
Scene Map window allows you to create scenes with the click of a button, and move the Scene objects around to easily build a map.

Double-clicking a Scene or Object or Character object from the Scene Map, Objects and Character windows shows the Design window for that element. The drawing tools are in the 'Tool' menu. Fill and Pen allowed to select patterns/textures (old day equivalents to modern day colors I suppose) for the shapes.

Very basic bitmap editing tools were available if you wanted to create fine details on characters, objects or scenes.

The Scene Data window allows you to block exits (in the Scene Map window, the edges of a blocked exit would be bolded to represent that you couldn't go through to the other room) as well as add a comment to explain why you can't go into the blocked direction. You could add a looping sound effect by adjusting the frequency of a sound being played (ex. river water). Or simply make it random (ex. a wild monkey scream if you're in a jungle, or birds chirping).

The Character Data window allowed you to set an initial scene (first time encounter of the character.) The word 'STORAGE@' meant that the character (or object) would not appear. 'STORAGE@' is a built-in way of storing objects or characters that you did not want to use or use right away without some kind of script. Sending the player character to 'STORAGE@' (used often in Scene code scripts when you walked into a room and fell to your doom into a pit full of spikes) meant the player was dead.

You could pick the character gender. If his name is a proper noun. If he is the player character (note that you could only have one player character...allowing this as an option on every character data window was a blunder on Bill Appleton's part, IMO.) The number of objects the character can carry (enemy characters could pick up objects...this added spice to the game as you absolutely had to kill that enemy to get the object back.) And then you could choose to send the monster to storage (kill it for good, only to return if you used some kind of script), a random scene (meaning you could encounter the monster anywhere at anytime in the game), or back at the initial scene.

The next set of options for characters allowed you to set the strength (determined how much damage it would deal without a weapon), hit points (how much of a beating it could take), natural armor (how much resistance it has to a beating without an armor), physical accuracy (how often it would hit or miss you), spiritual strength (same as strength but on a mental level), spiritual hit points, resistance to magic (like natural armor but for mental attacks), spiritual accuracy.

More character data options. Running speed (to be honest, I don't remember what this did but I think it was a measure of how easily it could flee/escape when it was badly wounded...or how far it could flee (lower running speed made them flee only a scene away?), reject offer (you could actually bribe other characters with objects...objects have a certain value, the higher the value, the easier it was to bribe a monster into letting you live, unless of course 'reject offer' was really high), follows opponent (if you fled, there was a chance monster would follow you and attack you in the next scene depending on how high this was set. Sounds to the character's actions (self explanatory).

Character data attack options allowed two natural attacks weapons per character. Name and operative verb were used for the text engine that accompanied the game. "Joe swings his fist at you."

Character behaviors. I can't really remember what this did. Sorry.

Characters could talk. Initial comment was what the character said when it first encounters the player character. Scores a hit was used when the character hit the play character. Receives a hit, when it got hit by the player character. Makes an offer, when it was badly wounded and wanted the player character to spare his/her/its life (it could offer you an object.) Rejects an offer, what the character would say when it rejected a player character's offer. Accept an offer, when it accepts an offer. Dying words (self explanatory.)

Object Data window. Again, allowed you to set initial scene where it is found. If the name was singular or plural. The value of the object (used by the bribing engine), and the type of object. Regular, throwing and magical are essentially the same...magical doing spiritual damage). Helmet, Shield, Chest armor, magical armor were essentially the same...just different parts of the body (since characters would either land hits to the head or the chest)...magical shields from spiritual attacks. Mobile object was an object that was neither an armor or weapon but could be carried (used by scripts, if player carries a mobile object called 'cupboard key' they could potentially open a cupboard.) Immobile objects were objects that couldn't be carried but reacted when clicked (used mostly for scripts, such a clicking a cupboard door to open the cupboard. You could move a 'cupboard door closed' graphic to storage and replaced it with a 'cupboard door open' for some neat visual effects.)

Weapon data, number of times it could be used before it depleted (or unlimited use), returning the object to a random scene or gone forever (storage) unless brought back through scripts. Damage of the weapon, accuracy of the weapon. Messages when the weapon was picked up, used, or failed to work, as well as sound.

This is what the Window menu options looked like.

Whew, that covers a lot...I've missed a few things here and there but that's the gist of it.

[Millennium]

Something else that might be of interest: the old PixelShox Composer.

What I wouldn't give to have the editor (not the engine) Open-Sourced, just so I could get the feeling for how one might code a node-based object model with an editor like that. I'm not even talking about the graphics engine; it's the editor that I want to get a look at. Think about it. With an object model and editor like that, it should actually be possible to get quite a complex game going before you even had to touch any code at all. Stick Python behind that for "dirty work", and you have the potential for something truly amazing.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Something else that might be of interest: the old PixelShox Composer.

What I wouldn't give to have the editor (not the engine) Open-Sourced, just so I could get the feeling for how one might code a node-based object model with an editor like that. I'm not even talking about the graphics engine; it's the editor that I want to get a look at. Think about it. With an object model and editor like that, it should actually be possible to get quite a complex game going before you even had to touch any code at all. Stick Python behind that for "dirty work", and you have the potential for something truly amazing.

OMG, exactly!!! The most obvious would be the Scene map window (if we were to use World Builder as an example...scenes could be linked via 8 nodes on the Scene elements (NW, N, NE, E, S, SE, S, SW, W) (or 10 if we wanted up and down as well)...that would be the most basic idea. But it could be extended way beyond that.

Hotspot areas in a Scene/room could have a node so you could hook it up to another Scene/room. Or a Character could be linked up to a Scene/room (instead of typing in the 'Initial Scene' as World Builder did it).

Or more complicated scripts such as 'this object can perform an action on this other object'...link up the 'key' object to a 'door' object.

The node-based object model (especially one as sexy as PixelShox's model which makes really nice use of bezier curves) would bring interesting possibilities as well as ease-of-use to scripting.

I'd never expect anyone to undertake such a project but a PixelShox-style node-based object model combined with Automator-style visual scripting would probably be close to the best scripting experience ever.

Hook elements up via nodes, and hook the script up (context/node sensitive of course).

[Chuckit]

I don't imagine a node-based editor would be too hard to implement. Sounds like comp sci 101 to me. With Cocoa bindings, it ought to be a breeze. And I agree, that interface is a little rough, but it's got some really good ideas. I'd been imagining something more similar to Interface Builder for a World Builder update, but the PixelShox interface is actually a little cooler.

Or so I would think, anyway. I haven't really tried making this project, so maybe there are some unforeseen hiccups or something, but I can picture it in my head.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
With Cocoa bindings, it ought to be a breeze.

Except that if you use Cocoa bindings, people will start screaming and whining because it will not support 10.2.x.

Although, maybe for this particular app, you will want to grab whatever userbase you can. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make it compatible with Jaguar in order to get a few extra users...