Open source RPG Editor

[vico]

One of my ideas i have in mind is making a FOSS (with same license of Love2D itself, or MIT) RPG Editor, in the same vibe of editors like RPG Maker, RPG Toolkit and Open RPG Maker, that used Love2D as backbone of the generated projects.

From what i understand, these editors i cited above have a "dummy" project with everything that is default coded, and when the user create a new project, this dummy is copied and serves as the base of the project the user start to tweak using the editor UI.

I aim to use this concept in the editor i'm looking to code.

If anybody have interest in join me as a team, feel free to comment in this thread.

[Hugues Ross]

I have no interest in joining a team, but I might contribute if it takes off. That's one of the nice things about open source after all!

[Positive07]

My advice to you is to split this up into a bunch of smaller projects and work towards them by yourself, publish them and get people excited, use gifs/images/videos to demo your stuff and get traction. Don't wait on having a team and instead focus on you achieving your own goals.

Everything is possible though some stuff requires more effort, so just push through.

Also having a team can lead to unnecessary debate on features to include on how to build it, so by starting the project by yourself you can mark a clear direction for your project. As Hugues said, people can later on jump on and contribute to it since you plan to make it open source. Those contributions can be small or very large depending on what each person can contribute, but at the end of the day, accepting them would be up to you.

[vico]

Thanks for all the feedback.

I have no interest in joining a team, but I might contribute if it takes off. That's one of the nice things about open source after all!

Yeah, i really see a scarcity of active FOSS softwares akin to RPG Maker. RPG Toolkit and Open RPG Maker both are inactive, and EasyRPG seems to aim so much in be binary-compatible with RM2k3 that also inherits its technical limitations (like lack of addons/plugins/scripts), plus being a recreation of a proprietary engine can lead to gray area about copyright.

My advice to you is to split this up into a bunch of smaller projects and work towards them by yourself, publish them and get people excited, use gifs/images/videos to demo your stuff and get traction. Don't wait on having a team and instead focus on you achieving your own goals.

Everything is possible though some stuff requires more effort, so just push through.

Also having a team can lead to unnecessary debate on features to include on how to build it, so by starting the project by yourself you can mark a clear direction for your project. As Hugues said, people can later on jump on and contribute to it since you plan to make it open source. Those contributions can be small or very large depending on what each person can contribute, but at the end of the day, accepting them would be up to you.

When i mentioned a "team" was because somebody actually reached me on Discord interested in collaborate in a possible project, but i didnt set up any kind of group to code that.

In fact, i really a little clueless about how to start. While the Love2D part is feasible to me to work with, some parts of the project im really banged my head about how to approach. The main issue is the editor: i cant decide what platform i will use to code it. I only have experience with Object Pascal (Delphi/Lazarus) making Win32 GUI apps, although i see Java as having more potential due to easiness of portability, i never was able to be confortable coding on it. I find it too much cluttered to do basic things. There also the possibility to use Web (HTML/CSS/JS) as well, but coding UIs on Web is... pretty annoying to nail it. Plus how to "warp" the editor html in a native app...

[Positive07]

Then your first objective should be to learn what the requirements for your project are, what are you expecting out of it, what tools it contains, how they relate to each other, how they work and how would you implement them what libraries/tools/APIs you need to learn or use to get those project going.

Once you have everything documented sit and write code to achieve the most valuable part and build from there. You don't need to make everything in one go, start small, make small prototypes of some of the tools you need, write down your findings and document your process it will be easy to see how much you are moving forward and everything you have learned. It will become easier as you go.

You'll probably fail a lot and struggle a lot at first. Try learning your own way but also learn from other people that have worked on similar projects.

[BrotSagtMist]

Easyrpgs objective was to make old games playable on non closed platforms.
Everyone gaming on an RPI is very grateful for that effort.

Thing to consider: RPGmaker was a thing that was used BECAUSE it had limitations.
Once you give it the ability to eat plugins and scripts it loses its reason of existing.
Or in other words: If i want to do code i want to do so without having anyones mediocre middleman wrapped around BUT if i dont want to code, like in rpgmaker, i dont want to see it anywhere and want it to work fully without.

[vico]

Easyrpgs objective was to make old games playable on non closed platforms.
Everyone gaming on an RPI is very grateful for that effort.

Thing to consider: RPGmaker was a thing that was used BECAUSE it had limitations.
Once you give it the ability to eat plugins and scripts it loses its reason of existing.
Or in other words: If i want to do code i want to do so without having anyones mediocre middleman wrapped around BUT if i dont want to code, like in rpgmaker, i dont want to see it anywhere and want it to work fully without.

i respectfully disagree what you reasoning. One of the reasons i would go with an RPG Editor instead of a pure engine like Love is because i dont need to scour through and code from scratch lots and lots of complicated modules (battle system, tileset, EXP, XP, Magic, Techs, Items/Inventories), since all those parts are already stabilished the user can focus more in the artistic aspect of the game (both story-wise and audiovisual).

The purpose of plugins in my vision is just to complement one or other aspect of the basic project, not really a full rewrite (that would be a mod) of that aspect. That would server more as a pontual change for the specific project.

Coding an JRPG from scratch on Love (or any other similar framework) would be too much hurdle for a newbie/non-coding user, and that's precisely why i want to try to make a low-code tool in first place. I want people to not have the difficulty myself had when wanting to express myself by a videogame.

[Nikki]

Yeah, i really see a scarcity of active FOSS softwares akin to RPG Maker...

Here are 156 public repositories matching this topic...
https://github.com/topics/rpg-maker

But I don't know exactly what you want todo off course, I must say, to me it sounds a bit like too much complexity for your current understanding, I might be wrong though.
In general I would advise to not start out building an editor, it sounds like a good idea, but a much more practical approach is to start building your game, and then another one and more and then from that, you will find out things you can generalise and put in an editor.

If you start out with making the editor first, you will run into a whole lot of yagni (https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Yagni.ht ... ed%20it%22.)

[vico]

Here are 156 public repositories matching this topic...
https://github.com/topics/rpg-maker

And yet the most on the first page are decryptors for Degica/Enterbrain RPG Makers...

But I don't know exactly what you want todo off course, I must say, to me it sounds a bit like too much complexity for your current understanding, I might be wrong though.

How could i build knowledge and understanding without trying before?

In general I would advise to not start out building an editor, it sounds like a good idea, but a much more practical approach is to start building your game, and then another one and more and then from that, you will find out things you can generalise and put in an editor.

I heard this many and many times... Gosh, why some people really are experts in crush down the dreams and ambitions of others?

If you start out with making the editor first, you will run into a whole lot of yagni (https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Yagni.ht ... ed%20it%22.)

So... yagni is just a cute way to discourage people to give up their objectives, being or not far-fetched...

Guys.... sorry for the rant, but you guys (not particularly only this forum, but speaking about dev in general) need to stop this bad habit of discouraging anyone who wants to embark on a challenge that may seem silly to you. The greatest discoveries and innovations that happened in the world were seen as nonsense when they were first proposed.

If you are not interested in participating in this project, just... don't say anything. Silence is golden in moments like these.

[BrotSagtMist]

In general I would advise to not start out building an editor, it sounds like a good idea, but a much more practical approach is to start building your game

If you start out with making the editor first, you will run into a whole lot of yagni (https://martinfowler.com/bliki/Yagni.ht ... ed%20it%22.)

That statement is bullshit, making an editor is the first step to making a game.
Its too much of a time sucker to not make one. Do you think animations and maps are made by hand?
And really, do you feel cool when talking techy nonsense? That link was uncalled for.

Making an rpgmaker clone is not hard, after all the hard stuff is taken care of by Löve. Doable in 2-3 weeks without polish.
The hard part is actually finding anyone willing to use it. And that is depressing and you should be prepared for that.
Been there done that. I have made such editor, released it to a community of ~1000 people, 30 comments, ZERO downloads.
Thats how its going to end, mark my words.
BUT the effort is not wasted, one can always use it for future projects.
So, just get started, try it, see how far you can get. And once you have something to share, THEN you can ask around for others to participate.