Show HN: A point-and-click game engine

(purdone.com)

72 points | by kalbfled 1739 days ago

7 comments

  • ivan_ah 1739 days ago
    Here is the "map" the sample game shown: https://github.com/kalbfled/pncgame/blob/master/testgame/tes... super simple and self evident
  • kalbfled 1739 days ago
    Hi, all. Thanks for the upvotes. This little demo is something I created in 2015 because my then-girlfriend liked to play point-and-click games, and she had an idea for one. The idea never got off the ground, but at least I got a fun portfolio piece out of it.
  • leshokunin 1739 days ago
    Nice proof of concept! Warning: the page has really loud sound effects.
  • benj111 1739 days ago
    Point n click is a class of game that I've always suspected would be better off not in the hands of coders.

    I'm kind of surprised nothing like pinball construction set came out for point and click in their 90s heyday.

    I'm aware the signal to noise ratio would be terrible but surely some cream would rise to the top.

    • citeguised 1739 days ago
      AGS - Adventure Game Studio [1] came out in the 90ies. Lots of indie-gems to be found, like "5 Days a Stranger" [2]. It's still maintained and used for commercial games.

      [1] https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/ags/

      [2] https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/wiki/5_Days_a_Stranger

      • baud147258 1739 days ago
        As example of commercial games developed with AGS, there's Unavowed, released last year by Wadjet Eye, which has also developed and published a dozen of AGS game.
    • kalbfled 1738 days ago
      If I ever resume working on the project, creating a visual editor would be a priority. I have an open "issue" on my Github repo to do that. My inspiration is the Glade GUI editor for Gnome. The visual editor would output the XML file my point-and-click engine uses to define a game.
  • Aromasin 1739 days ago
    Is there any way to go back to 'full' view after clicking on something? I clicked on a picture and can't for the life of me work out how to go back.
    • kalbfled 1739 days ago
      Were you able to get it to work? (I'm the developer of the demo.)
      • Aromasin 1731 days ago
        Hey, apologies for the late reply. No I couldn't get it functioning. I tried again at home using Firefox and it worked fine though, so it's either not compatible with IE11 or my company has blocked something related to it's working.
    • taspeotis 1739 days ago
      Click on it again.
      • Aromasin 1739 days ago
        Doesn't seem to work for me. I'm running it on IE 11 so that might be the issue (works choice of browser, not my own...)
        • tty2300 1739 days ago
          You can't exactly expect websites to work in an ancient compatibility tool.
          • yoz-y 1739 days ago
            To be frank, IE11 has regular updates and everything. It's not that compatible with old stuff either.
            • tty2300 1738 days ago
              IE is many many years behind other browsers. I have to support it at work and many many hours are spent reimplementing things that exist in modern browsers because IE doesn't support it.
          • Crinus 1739 days ago
            The behavior on the site is just an on-click handler, it should be possible to get the exact same behavior on IE6 without even trying much, let alone IE11.

            Web devs seem to just use stuff for the sake of using them, not because they actually need them.

            • tty2300 1738 days ago
              Most likely they just read the docs and used the first feature that did the job and never bothered to test in IE because its a waste of time.
  • jmkni 1738 days ago
    > game.active_item = 1;

    Nailed it!

  • senectus1 1739 days ago
    nice :-)

    I reckon my 11 yr old son would enjoy making things with that.