XYG Studio [Game Development Kit]

[Kelvin]

Small update, my friend showed me JSON, and I've changed the game definition file from XML to JSON. The game definition tells the RE certain details about the game, such as what title to display on the window or game selection for console/handheld versions, a description of the game for the planned market, the game's internal ID to differentiate it from other games, particularly those that have a similar or identical title (because so many people are gonna come up with Sonic: the Overused Title anyway), and requirements of the game to run, such as hardware rendering, network features, gamepad initialization, etc.

Here is the template for the JSON file:

Code:

{
    "XYG" : {
        "app" : {
            "id" : "appname.author.0001",
            "appdata" : "gameName"
        },
        
        "version" : {
            "major" : 1,
            "minor" : 0,
            "release" : 0,
            "type" : "alpha"
        },
        
        "author" : {
            "name" : "Author",
            "website" : "website.com",
            "email" : "author@email.com"
        },
        
        "runreq" : {
            "resx" : 320,
            "resy" : 240,
            "bitdepth" : 32,
            "opengl" : false,
            "network" : false,
            "gamepad" : true,
            "usef4" : true
        },
        
        "title" : {
            "en_US" : "App Title",
            "en_UK" : "Program Title"
        },
        
        "description" : {
            "en_US" : "A game where you drive trucks.",
            "en_UK" : "A game where you drive lorries."
        },
        
        "categories" : [
            "RPG",
            "FPS",
            "Puzzle"
        ]
    }
}

I find it's a lot easier to read than the XML I was using before, and until I get the editor up and running, this will make manually assembling the files easier.

You might notice the file makes no mention of icons or resource data. Those are automatically put into a folder tree by the packer, and icons are simply a file called "icon.png" placed in the root folder. Since the game file is basically just a ZIP containing resources and scripts, similar to an APK or JAR, they can be made by hand with relatively little trouble.