Editor

The game style intended to be produced by the FGMK interface is usually called JRPG and is inspired by the old RPGs from the SNES era.

The central idea of the games are a series of maps, that the player explores in 2D fashion, in a Front Top Down view. These maps can contain characters for the player interact with (called Charas in the FGMK Editor) and also with the map itself (called Events), and these interactions lead things to happen (called Actions). By using these elements the user can create interactive stories.

Interesting stories usually require struggle and growth from the player and the classic way of dealing with this in RPGs is through Battle and Leveling. The editor denominates the playable characters as Heroes, and anything you fight with are called Monsters. The player can also during it’s journey collect Items that can help the Heroes or even be important to advance the story.

Overview

When the interface launches, it will show your last opened project. If no project is open, you can create a new one or open an existing project by using the project entry in the menu. Using the project menu you can also access the editors for other parts of the game, as the Charas (the characters), the Charasets (their animation frames), Items (like swords, potions, ...), and every other parts important to building your game.

The interface contains a map editor at it’s core. Each map in a game project is available at the Map Explorer dock, which you can use to create and delete maps also, other than navigate. Using the Palette dock you can select the current tile and draw using one of the available tools in the Tool dock.

The Events dock allow drawing Events, adding actions to them, and also drawing in the collision layer. You can change the current layer by using the Layers dock.

The Map Editor

The central thing in the FGMK Games are the maps. This is where the user will spend most of his time.

The Tools dock will allow the user to configure a tool for the left or right mouse button, by clicking or right clicking in a tool. Holding the spacebar while browsing the map will switch to the pan tool, and releasing the spacebar will return to the previous selected tool. The line and the rectangle tool require two clicks at different tiles to work, one will connect both tiles with a line, and the other will draw a rectangle between selected tiles. Charas are placed with a special charaplacer tool.

The Palette dock will allow selecting the current tile, and the Charas dock will allow selecting the current chara.

Double clicking a tile in the Palette will select the pen tool in the Tools dock. Double clicking a chara in the Charas will select the charaplacer tool.

You can select a layer by using the Layers dock, but clicking in the Events selector or the Collision selector will change the current layer to the Events layer or the Collision layer, respectively.

Shortcuts

  • ctrl + shift + n : new project screen.
  • ctrl + n : new map.
  • ctrl + s : save map.
  • f5 : save map, run server, open default browser.
  • Tab : hides all docks, tap Tab again to show them.
  • f11 : switches to full screen.
  • ctrl + mouse wheel or ctrl + +/- : zomm in or zoom out
  • press and hold space bar : switches to pan tool while on hold.

The server

When a project is loaded, you can open a browser at any time an point it to the address shown in the status bar - assuming the server loaded correctly - to test the current game. Each time you save the map, if you reload the browser that is pointing to the server, it will update to the current state of the map.

The browser doesn’t have to be in the same computer as FGMK, just in the same local network, so assuming you have a WiFi network at home, you could load FGMK in your computer and test the game in a smartphone or other computer.

Palette Editor

When you draw a map, it uses selected tiles, grouped in a palette, this is how you make your own palettes.

Item Editor

Items are an important part of how the player interacts with the map. This is where you make them.

Charaset Editor

Charasets are a file that points to pieces of an image, and describe the animations used by Charas (and the player chara).

Charas Editor

Usually the NPCs you interact appear in the form of a Chara, in the Chara editor you can set how a Chara moves or which actions would be executed.

Jokenpo Editor

Here you can set the elements available in your world, and how they relate with each other (paper wins over rock).

still to be developed

Heroes, Monsters and Skills Editor

You can calibrate how each hero should level up, develop new skills, and specify the monsters.

still to be developed

Scripted Battle Editor

Meaningful battles should work like puzzles, the scripted battle editor is design for just that.

still to be developed