Hello again everyone! Unfortunately I haven't been able to stick with the bi-weekly schedule quite like I had wanted, but I've been trying to get a development update out at least once very few weeks. This particular update will focus more on some smaller changes and additions I've made to the current version since most of the recent work on the Godot 3.0 upgrade has been more code-related (therefore I don't have as many visual things to show on that front).

A new scripting function, "Add Character", allows you to add a new character into the current scene at a specific tile location. You can optionally provide an entity ID that will be assigned to the character once it is added to the scene so you can reference it elsewhere by its ID, for example to assign a dialogue to the character. You can read more about this new function on the documentation wiki here: http://www.rpginabox.com/docs/doku.php?id=add_character



Entity tooltips are a new feature that lets you assign some descriptive text to a tile, object, or character from the Map Editor. This text will display when the player hovers their mouse cursor over that particular entity, similar to the item tooltip feature. The new "Set Entity Tooltip" function can be called from a script in-game to change an entity's tooltip (or remove it) at any time. You can read more about this function here: http://www.rpginabox.com/docs/doku.php?id=set_entity_tooltip



When an entity has been assigned some tooltip text from the Map Editor, a corresponding marker icon will display above it. As part of this addition, I also made some improvements to the logic for displaying multiple marker icons above one entity to make it easier to include new icon types in the future.



I also added a new predefined animation name, specifically one for when the player interacts with objects. If a character's model has been given an animation with the name "interact", this animation will automatically trigger whenever the player interacts with an object in the map.



Another small but useful change involves the built-in Image Editor that is used to edit UI images. Whenever you are editing a 9-patch image, for example the dialogue box image, the slice lines will now be displayed to show where the image gets split apart for the corners, borders, etc. They can be toggled on and off with a checkbox as desired.



In regards to the new version using Godot 3.0 (which will be RPG in a Box v0.5), I've been focusing on the Voxel Editor and related functionality. The grid is now implemented and mostly working, and each side of the grid will be seamlessly hidden/shown as you rotate the view around. As with the current version, the grid can be completely hidden if desired.



And finally, a quick preview of the new selection tool that I've started working on! There's not much you can do with it yet, but it's a small step towards a more featured editor than the current one which doesn't have any sort of selection capabilities. I plan for this tool to allow for a variety of new possibilities, for example to select a group of voxels and move them around.



Thank you again for your interest and support, and for taking the time to read this development update! :) Any feedback is welcomed and appreciated, it's always great to hear from the community! If you are interested, you can find out more information and try out a demo of RPG in a Box on my Itch.io page here: https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox

Hello again everyone! Unfortunately I haven't been able to stick with the bi-weekly schedule quite like I had wanted, but I've been trying to get a development update out at least once very few weeks. This particular update will focus more on some smaller changes and additions I've made to the current version since most of the recent work on the Godot 3.0 upgrade has been more code-related (therefore I don't have as many visual things to show on that front).

A new scripting function, "Add Character", allows you to add a new character into the current scene at a specific tile location. You can optionally provide an entity ID that will be assigned to the character once it is added to the scene so you can reference it elsewhere by its ID, for example to assign a dialogue to the character. You can read more about this new function on the documentation wiki here: http://www.rpginabox.com/docs/doku.php?id=add_character



Entity tooltips are a new feature that lets you assign some descriptive text to a tile, object, or character from the Map Editor. This text will display when the player hovers their mouse cursor over that particular entity, similar to the item tooltip feature. The new "Set Entity Tooltip" function can be called from a script in-game to change an entity's tooltip (or remove it) at any time. You can read more about this function here: http://www.rpginabox.com/docs/doku.php?id=set_entity_tooltip



When an entity has been assigned some tooltip text from the Map Editor, a corresponding marker icon will display above it. As part of this addition, I also made some improvements to the logic for displaying multiple marker icons above one entity to make it easier to include new icon types in the future.



I also added a new predefined animation name, specifically one for when the player interacts with objects. If a character's model has been given an animation with the name "interact", this animation will automatically trigger whenever the player interacts with an object in the map.



Another small but useful change involves the built-in Image Editor that is used to edit UI images. Whenever you are editing a 9-patch image, for example the dialogue box image, the slice lines will now be displayed to show where the image gets split apart for the corners, borders, etc. They can be toggled on and off with a checkbox as desired.



In regards to the new version using Godot 3.0 (which will be RPG in a Box v0.5), I've been focusing on the Voxel Editor and related functionality. The grid is now implemented and mostly working, and each side of the grid will be seamlessly hidden/shown as you rotate the view around. As with the current version, the grid can be completely hidden if desired.



And finally, a quick preview of the new selection tool that I've started working on! There's not much you can do with it yet, but it's a small step towards a more featured editor than the current one which doesn't have any sort of selection capabilities. I plan for this tool to allow for a variety of new possibilities, for example to select a group of voxels and move them around.



Thank you again for your interest and support, and for taking the time to read this development update! :) Any feedback is welcomed and appreciated, it's always great to hear from the community! If you are interested, you can find out more information and try out a demo of RPG in a Box on my Itch.io page here: https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox

Over the past few weeks I've been spending most of my time on the migration to Godot 3.0, so this update will primarily focus on my progress around that effort. I have a lot of cool GIFs to show this time around! I've continued to be very deliberate in my development while re-implementing features into the new version since this is a perfect opportunity (and a second chance) for polishing and making improvements. I want the end result to be even better - not just a straight copy of what I already have. :)

One of the aspects I have been focusing on during this upgrade is usability. I've been trying to think of handy features that would make sense to include and would generally make the experience more fun. After getting the Game Manager and overall interface up and running, I have shifted focus onto the Voxel Editor. As one example, I added a slider that lets you navigate through your animation frames more easily than before.



Another improvement I made to the editor interface relates to the resource container on the right side that includes the tabs for your tiles, objects, and characters. This panel is now resizable and the number of columns will auto-adjust to the width. The animation toolbar for the Voxel Editor will also adjust accordingly to ensure as many buttons are visible as possible.



In my first build of this new version (which will be v0.5 once officially released), you can import project files that have been exported from the existing version. This process will be necessary since the file formats are different and certain 3D resources (tiles, objects, maps, etc.) cannot be directly opened in the new version. As shown below, animation playback is now working for resources that have been imported.



The shader language in Godot 3.0 is very close to GLSL now and I've taken some time recently to learn more about the language and shaders in general. I was able to put together a voxel shader for the Voxel Editor that can draw both outlines around the voxels (first image below) as well as surface edge highlights (second image below). These can toggled on or off in the editor as desired.





Over the past few days I've been focusing on the palette implementation in preparation for work on the drawing tools (for adding voxels, painting voxels, etc.). As with the other functionality, it's fairly similar to the existing version, but it will come with improvements as well! There will now be a set of built-in color palettes you can choose from. Choosing a particular palette can help create a consistent look across your game's resources. And of course you'll be able to create your own palette, either from scratch or using a built-in one as a base for inspiration.



I also took some time to learn about color spaces and color comparison methods for an experimental new tool I may include. This tool will retrofit a model's color to match the currently selected palette as best as possible. In the example below, I'm updating the red potion model to use the Commodore 64 palette. It doesn't always work great according to the palette size and the existing model's colors, but it could be a convenient feature!



I've added a few small features here and there to the current version, but considering the amount of content I decided I'd save those for another update. One final bit of exciting information I wanted to share with everyone and make official: after much planning and deliberation, I decided to resign from my day job so I can focus on RPG in a Box full-time! This is a project I've always been very passionate about making, and the timing was finally right. These past couple of weeks have been great being able to fully devote myself to development without the constraints of my previous job. Besides having more time for development, I'll also have more time to support the community (and other aspects, like documentation and tutorials).

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this update! :) I always appreciate any feedback, comments, or suggestions. Don't hesitate to reach out to me by any method if you'd like to know more! You can also find more information about RPG in a Box and try out the demo on Itch.io here: https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox

Over the past few weeks I've been spending most of my time on the migration to Godot 3.0, so this update will primarily focus on my progress around that effort. I have a lot of cool GIFs to show this time around! I've continued to be very deliberate in my development while re-implementing features into the new version since this is a perfect opportunity (and a second chance) for polishing and making improvements. I want the end result to be even better - not just a straight copy of what I already have. :)

One of the aspects I have been focusing on during this upgrade is usability. I've been trying to think of handy features that would make sense to include and would generally make the experience more fun. After getting the Game Manager and overall interface up and running, I have shifted focus onto the Voxel Editor. As one example, I added a slider that lets you navigate through your animation frames more easily than before.



Another improvement I made to the editor interface relates to the resource container on the right side that includes the tabs for your tiles, objects, and characters. This panel is now resizable and the number of columns will auto-adjust to the width. The animation toolbar for the Voxel Editor will also adjust accordingly to ensure as many buttons are visible as possible.



In my first build of this new version (which will be v0.5 once officially released), you can import project files that have been exported from the existing version. This process will be necessary since the file formats are different and certain 3D resources (tiles, objects, maps, etc.) cannot be directly opened in the new version. As shown below, animation playback is now working for resources that have been imported.



The shader language in Godot 3.0 is very close to GLSL now and I've taken some time recently to learn more about the language and shaders in general. I was able to put together a voxel shader for the Voxel Editor that can draw both outlines around the voxels (first image below) as well as surface edge highlights (second image below). These can toggled on or off in the editor as desired.





Over the past few days I've been focusing on the palette implementation in preparation for work on the drawing tools (for adding voxels, painting voxels, etc.). As with the other functionality, it's fairly similar to the existing version, but it will come with improvements as well! There will now be a set of built-in color palettes you can choose from. Choosing a particular palette can help create a consistent look across your game's resources. And of course you'll be able to create your own palette, either from scratch or using a built-in one as a base for inspiration.



I also took some time to learn about color spaces and color comparison methods for an experimental new tool I may include. This tool will retrofit a model's color to match the currently selected palette as best as possible. In the example below, I'm updating the red potion model to use the Commodore 64 palette. It doesn't always work great according to the palette size and the existing model's colors, but it could be a convenient feature!



I've added a few small features here and there to the current version, but considering the amount of content I decided I'd save those for another update. One final bit of exciting information I wanted to share with everyone and make official: after much planning and deliberation, I decided to resign from my day job so I can focus on RPG in a Box full-time! This is a project I've always been very passionate about making, and the timing was finally right. These past couple of weeks have been great being able to fully devote myself to development without the constraints of my previous job. Besides having more time for development, I'll also have more time to support the community (and other aspects, like documentation and tutorials).

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this update! :) I always appreciate any feedback, comments, or suggestions. Don't hesitate to reach out to me by any method if you'd like to know more! You can also find more information about RPG in a Box and try out the demo on Itch.io here: https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox

Hello again, everyone! I don't have as many interesting features to cover as usual in this bi-weekly development update since I've been focusing a lot on the conversion to Godot 3.0, however I thought it would be worth sharing a bit about the progress that I've made in regards to that aspect, as well as a few minor features that were added. Read below for some highlights on what I've been working on recently!

Since some of the resource files for your game project, like tiles and maps, will not be directly compatible with the new version of RPG in a Box that uses Godot 3.0, I've been building out a feature that will let you export your project files into an intermediate format that can then be imported into the new version without needing to recreate anything. In addition to that tool, I've also been focusing on getting some of the basic Voxel Editor functionality working. In the first test build, I plan to have support for at least loading and viewing your models, and then I will gradually add in all of the editing tools.

I am using this upgrade to Godot 3.0 as an opportunity to clean up a lot of my code and apply lessons learned from what I've designed up to this point. I have been gradually re-implementing features in small chunks so it's easier to test and ensure that the code is well organized. This will also provide some great opportunities to implement new features and usability improvements that would be difficult to do with the current version without some extensive effort.



A new feature that I've implemented as part of the conversion so far is an expandable resource panel, as shown in the GIF below. In the current version of RPG in a Box, this panel is limited to two columns and cannot be resized. This change will make it easier to browse through the tiles, objects, and characters in your game project, and will set up the workspace to be a bit more flexible in general.



Outside of the conversion to Godot 3.0, I've managed to fit in some minor new features and bug fixes here and there. One of these features, which I've been wanting to add for some time now and finally got around to, is to display a marker icon in the Map Editor for any entities that have an ID assigned. This particular marker is represented with a "tag" icon to match the icon used in the entity properties dialog next to the ID field. This will make it easier to quickly see which entities in your map have an ID assigned without selecting each one. As shown in the image below, you can quickly tell that the chest has a script attached, is defined as a container, and has an ID assigned.



When playing your game, you can now hold the Shift key and left-click on an item in a container window to immediately transfer it into your inventory (assuming there is an open slot) instead of manually moving it into a slot. You can also use this same method to transfer an item from your inventory into the active container if one is currently opened.



And lastly, a feature I meant to cover in a previous update, is the ability to duplicate nodes in both the Script Editor and Dialogue Editor. To do so, you can simply select one or more nodes then click the "Duplicate" button. Any parameters or values will be retained for the duplicated nodes, as well as any connections between them.



Thanks so much for following my progress and taking the time to read this! Your support is greatly appreciated. :) Check out https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox if you'd like to find out more about the tool or to try out the demo version.

Hello again, everyone! I don't have as many interesting features to cover as usual in this bi-weekly development update since I've been focusing a lot on the conversion to Godot 3.0, however I thought it would be worth sharing a bit about the progress that I've made in regards to that aspect, as well as a few minor features that were added. Read below for some highlights on what I've been working on recently!

Since some of the resource files for your game project, like tiles and maps, will not be directly compatible with the new version of RPG in a Box that uses Godot 3.0, I've been building out a feature that will let you export your project files into an intermediate format that can then be imported into the new version without needing to recreate anything. In addition to that tool, I've also been focusing on getting some of the basic Voxel Editor functionality working. In the first test build, I plan to have support for at least loading and viewing your models, and then I will gradually add in all of the editing tools.

I am using this upgrade to Godot 3.0 as an opportunity to clean up a lot of my code and apply lessons learned from what I've designed up to this point. I have been gradually re-implementing features in small chunks so it's easier to test and ensure that the code is well organized. This will also provide some great opportunities to implement new features and usability improvements that would be difficult to do with the current version without some extensive effort.



A new feature that I've implemented as part of the conversion so far is an expandable resource panel, as shown in the GIF below. In the current version of RPG in a Box, this panel is limited to two columns and cannot be resized. This change will make it easier to browse through the tiles, objects, and characters in your game project, and will set up the workspace to be a bit more flexible in general.



Outside of the conversion to Godot 3.0, I've managed to fit in some minor new features and bug fixes here and there. One of these features, which I've been wanting to add for some time now and finally got around to, is to display a marker icon in the Map Editor for any entities that have an ID assigned. This particular marker is represented with a "tag" icon to match the icon used in the entity properties dialog next to the ID field. This will make it easier to quickly see which entities in your map have an ID assigned without selecting each one. As shown in the image below, you can quickly tell that the chest has a script attached, is defined as a container, and has an ID assigned.



When playing your game, you can now hold the Shift key and left-click on an item in a container window to immediately transfer it into your inventory (assuming there is an open slot) instead of manually moving it into a slot. You can also use this same method to transfer an item from your inventory into the active container if one is currently opened.



And lastly, a feature I meant to cover in a previous update, is the ability to duplicate nodes in both the Script Editor and Dialogue Editor. To do so, you can simply select one or more nodes then click the "Duplicate" button. Any parameters or values will be retained for the duplicated nodes, as well as any connections between them.



Thanks so much for following my progress and taking the time to read this! Your support is greatly appreciated. :) Check out https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox if you'd like to find out more about the tool or to try out the demo version.

Hi everyone! I am happy to say that I already have enough content for another development update! I think going forward I'm going to attempt to stick with a bi-weekly schedule for these since that has seemed to work out well this past month. Continue reading for screenshots and information about some of the features and improvements I have been working on recently!

One of the more interesting new features is the new first-person camera mode that is available in the Map Editor. By selecting a tile, you can then switch to this new mode and the camera will zoom down into the first-person perspective to get a better feel of how the game will look from that view. This is particularly helpful if your game will be using that as its main camera type. You can move and look around in this mode as if you were walking around in-game.



While in the first-person camera mode, you can do most things as you normally would, like placing tiles, adding scripts - even building a house from the inside! :) At any time you can also select any tile and press the M key to move to that tile while remaining in first-person mode.



In regards to the dialogue system, I made some improvements to the visual appearance of player choices in-game as shown in the GIF below. Now they are shown within the dialogue box instead of floating above it, and you can customize the alignment (left, center, or right) from the Theme Editor. The hover color of the player choices will use the color defined for the player.



In the Dialogue Editor, the player nodes will now automatically show choice numbering when more than one is connected to the output of another node. This will make it easier to see what the ordering of the choices will be in-game.



Since I've never been quite happy with the way that the player precisely follows the blocky terrain (walking up stairs can be a bit jarring, especially in first-person), I took some time and implemented a couple of methods of smoothing out this movement. Combining this with the ability to override a tile's collision model, you can achieve several different variations of smoother stair climbing!



The properties panel for the Theme Editor was cleaned up a bit, specifically the Images section. All of the images that are available to edit are now in a list. You can select the image you want to change, then click the Edit button to open it in the built-in Image Editor. The Revert button will restore the image to its default appearance.



Lastly, a bit of humor to demonstrate the new "Override Animation" scripting function that was recently added!

"Well sir, I have a silly walk and I'd like to obtain a government grant to help me develop it."



Thanks so much for following my progress and taking the time to read this! Your support is greatly appreciated. :) Check out https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox if you'd like to find out more about the tool or to try out the recently updated demo version.

Hi everyone! I am happy to say that I already have enough content for another development update! I think going forward I'm going to attempt to stick with a bi-weekly schedule for these since that has seemed to work out well this past month. Continue reading for screenshots and information about some of the features and improvements I have been working on recently!

One of the more interesting new features is the new first-person camera mode that is available in the Map Editor. By selecting a tile, you can then switch to this new mode and the camera will zoom down into the first-person perspective to get a better feel of how the game will look from that view. This is particularly helpful if your game will be using that as its main camera type. You can move and look around in this mode as if you were walking around in-game.



While in the first-person camera mode, you can do most things as you normally would, like placing tiles, adding scripts - even building a house from the inside! :) At any time you can also select any tile and press the M key to move to that tile while remaining in first-person mode.



In regards to the dialogue system, I made some improvements to the visual appearance of player choices in-game as shown in the GIF below. Now they are shown within the dialogue box instead of floating above it, and you can customize the alignment (left, center, or right) from the Theme Editor. The hover color of the player choices will use the color defined for the player.



In the Dialogue Editor, the player nodes will now automatically show choice numbering when more than one is connected to the output of another node. This will make it easier to see what the ordering of the choices will be in-game.



Since I've never been quite happy with the way that the player precisely follows the blocky terrain (walking up stairs can be a bit jarring, especially in first-person), I took some time and implemented a couple of methods of smoothing out this movement. Combining this with the ability to override a tile's collision model, you can achieve several different variations of smoother stair climbing!



The properties panel for the Theme Editor was cleaned up a bit, specifically the Images section. All of the images that are available to edit are now in a list. You can select the image you want to change, then click the Edit button to open it in the built-in Image Editor. The Revert button will restore the image to its default appearance.



Lastly, a bit of humor to demonstrate the new "Override Animation" scripting function that was recently added!

"Well sir, I have a silly walk and I'd like to obtain a government grant to help me develop it."



Thanks so much for following my progress and taking the time to read this! Your support is greatly appreciated. :) Check out https://zeromatrix.itch.io/rpginabox if you'd like to find out more about the tool or to try out the recently updated demo version.

Hey everyone! I've gotten quite a bit accomplished over the past couple of weeks, so I figured I would go ahead and do another development update to share some of the more interesting things I've been working on.

I've recently been polishing some of the features related to the user interface, specifically the inventory window, item container windows, and item tooltips. The Theme Editor now allows you to modify the appearance of the title bars, window boxes, and item slots. As shown below, these components now have a new and improved default style as well (and match the default dialogue box appearance better). For now, the title bars and tooltip text use your game's dialogue font, but in a future release these fonts will be able to be specified individually.



I also made a small tweak that will make it easier to drag windows around. Previously, you could only drag a window around by clicking on the title bar and dragging, but now you can also click on the other non-functional areas, like the borders, to drag the window. The GIF below also provides a look at the new default tooltip style!



To complement these changes, I also updated the theme preview so you can see what the inventory window and tooltips look like as you make changes to their respective images.



Since linking maps together can sometimes be more tedious than it should be, I added a new feature that will make it very simple to connect two maps together. As shown in the GIF on the left, you can now select a tile in one map, then select a destination tile in another map and use the "Link with Map" context menu option to automatically generate a "Load Map" quick script for both tiles. Recent updates also included some new lighting functions for adjusting an entity's light or the map's ambient and directional lights. In the GIF on the right, the new "Set Entity Light Color" is being triggered to fade the torch's light to purple.



To open up some new possibilities with scripting, I added the "while loop" syntax to the scripting language. I still need to test this a bit more and implement it into the visual editor, but you can use it currently within a quick script. In the GIF on the left, I've created a script to toggle the light 5 times using a while loop. Another addition, as shown in the GIF on the right, is the ability to retrieve an entity's coordinate within a script for checking against another coordinate.



The Main Menu Editor was updated to allow the use of an image for your Main Menu. There are also several different "image stretch modes" you can pick from to determine how the background image gets stretched (or even tiled if desired).



Last but not least, I added a "Global Properties" tab to the Game Configuration dialog that will allow you to set up global values for your game in advance. This will help eliminate the need to define these in your startup script and will make them easier to access and manage.



In addition to normal development and the daily documentation efforts, I have also started a bit on the migration to Godot 3.0. I will be working on that version as a separate build for now since there will be a lot of changes and testing involved, and I'd like to continue working in parallel on the current build using Godot 2.1. It will take some time to get through the conversion, but it should be worth it in the end with the new features that will be available!

If you are interested in learning more about RPG in a Box, check out my Itch.io page here.

And to end this update, another look at lectronice's work-in progress cyberpunk game that he is creating with RPG in a Box!

Hey everyone! I've gotten quite a bit accomplished over the past couple of weeks, so I figured I would go ahead and do another development update to share some of the more interesting things I've been working on.

I've recently been polishing some of the features related to the user interface, specifically the inventory window, item container windows, and item tooltips. The Theme Editor now allows you to modify the appearance of the title bars, window boxes, and item slots. As shown below, these components now have a new and improved default style as well (and match the default dialogue box appearance better). For now, the title bars and tooltip text use your game's dialogue font, but in a future release these fonts will be able to be specified individually.



I also made a small tweak that will make it easier to drag windows around. Previously, you could only drag a window around by clicking on the title bar and dragging, but now you can also click on the other non-functional areas, like the borders, to drag the window. The GIF below also provides a look at the new default tooltip style!



To complement these changes, I also updated the theme preview so you can see what the inventory window and tooltips look like as you make changes to their respective images.



Since linking maps together can sometimes be more tedious than it should be, I added a new feature that will make it very simple to connect two maps together. As shown in the GIF on the left, you can now select a tile in one map, then select a destination tile in another map and use the "Link with Map" context menu option to automatically generate a "Load Map" quick script for both tiles. Recent updates also included some new lighting functions for adjusting an entity's light or the map's ambient and directional lights. In the GIF on the right, the new "Set Entity Light Color" is being triggered to fade the torch's light to purple.



To open up some new possibilities with scripting, I added the "while loop" syntax to the scripting language. I still need to test this a bit more and implement it into the visual editor, but you can use it currently within a quick script. In the GIF on the left, I've created a script to toggle the light 5 times using a while loop. Another addition, as shown in the GIF on the right, is the ability to retrieve an entity's coordinate within a script for checking against another coordinate.



The Main Menu Editor was updated to allow the use of an image for your Main Menu. There are also several different "image stretch modes" you can pick from to determine how the background image gets stretched (or even tiled if desired).



Last but not least, I added a "Global Properties" tab to the Game Configuration dialog that will allow you to set up global values for your game in advance. This will help eliminate the need to define these in your startup script and will make them easier to access and manage.



In addition to normal development and the daily documentation efforts, I have also started a bit on the migration to Godot 3.0. I will be working on that version as a separate build for now since there will be a lot of changes and testing involved, and I'd like to continue working in parallel on the current build using Godot 2.1. It will take some time to get through the conversion, but it should be worth it in the end with the new features that will be available!

If you are interested in learning more about RPG in a Box, check out my Itch.io page here.

And to end this update, another look at lectronice's work-in progress cyberpunk game that he is creating with RPG in a Box!