Strategy, shooters, block worlds and contraptions

Real-time strategy

The Strategy template is a whole real-time strategy game made of no-code components: blue against the computer’s red, each with a town hall, workers and soldiers, on a map with gold mines, trees, rocks, fog of war and a pause menu. The pieces:

Faction, one per team: its Team name (everything with that Team belongs to it; different names are enemies; the same teams every genre shares, see Teams), its Color, and the Resources it has to spend, items kept a row each (Gold 400, Wood 150) as an inventory keeps them, so they show and rewind like anything else. They’re its team’s items: a platformer’s hero on its team collects coins into them and pays from them (see Items and resources). Scenes saved when resources were one line of text still load. A team with no buildings left is beaten; it sends its Defeat Message with the team’s name. The Inspector lists a faction’s resources, and a unit’s or building’s Cost, as rows of a resource (picked from what the factions have and the resources give) and how much; Team fields pick from the factions’ teams, and a Hotkey from the letters.
Unit, anything that can be selected and sent about: its Team, Speed, Radius and Sight, and, for training it, its Cost (50 Gold, 25 Wood), Train Time, Supply and Hotkey. Units find their way around buildings, resources, rocks and solid tiles on their own, keep apart rather than stack, spread out when sent together, and fight back when something armed shoots at them.
Fighter, for units and towers: Damage, Range (edge to edge, so a melee soldier’s is small), Cooldown, and a Projectile prefab (an arrow) with its Projectile Speed, or none to hit straight away. Fighters attack enemies that come within their unit’s sight by themselves, the closest first, armed ones (and towers) a little before the rest: units and buildings of other teams, and anything else with a health on another team (a platformer’s hero who joined the enemy).
Worker, which makes a unit gather and build: its Carry and Gather Time, and the building prefabs it Builds (Farm, Barracks, Tower). Sent to a resource it fetches load after load to the nearest depot, moves on to more of the same when that runs out, and goes back to work after putting up a building.
Resource, something to gather: its Kind (Gold, Wood, or anything else: an item, as a Faction’s Resources, a pickup’s Item or an inventory’s are) and the Amount left. It’s gone when it’s empty.
Building, which stands still and takes up its Size: Team, Sight, Cost, Build Time, the Supply it provides, Depot (workers bring resources here) and Hotkey. Placed by a worker, it starts at Progress 0, see-through, and only trains, takes resources, provides supply or shoots once it’s finished. A Fighter makes it a tower.
Producer, on a building, Trains units (Soldier, Archer, prefabs with a Unit), up to Queue Limit at once, paying for each as it’s queued (Esc or X cancels the last one, giving the cost back). Its Train action (a unit it trains, or the first) and Cancel do the same with no code, so a card or a trigger can raise an army, and its Queued and Progress are outputs. Trained units walk out to the rally point, or start gathering if it was set on a resource. A Team Color on a sprite inside a unit or building paints it in its team’s color, so one prefab serves every side (scenes saved when an entity called Team Color did this still do).
Commander, on the camera, is the player’s controls and HUD: a bar of resources and supply along the top, and along the bottom a minimap, what’s selected (with health, what it’s doing and what it’s training) and a command card of buttons with hotkeys. Its Map Center and Map Size bound the camera, the minimap and pathfinding. Victory Panel and Defeat Panel name panels it opens when the game is won or lost. Its map is its game’s: units, buildings and resources on it are its game’s, its fog covers only it, and its HUD is drawn only in its own camera’s view, so a strategy game can sit in one part of a bigger scene, or in a viewport. Each Commander plays a game of its own on its own map (two side by side, or two players’ commanders on one map, each with their own selection, fog and HUD); with no Commander at all, the units and buildings make up one game. Untick its Controllable (or Focus something else) and its controls ignore the mouse and keys while the game plays on.
FogOfWar, next to the Commander, hides what the player’s team can’t see: black where it has never been, dimmed where it has been but can’t see now, with enemy units there hidden.
Opponent, next to a Faction, lets the computer play it: it keeps its Workers gathering, trains more, puts up what it Builds (and farms when short of supply), trains its Army, one every Train Every seconds (0 as fast as it can pay; higher is an easier game), and once it’s past First Attack and has Attack With soldiers idle, sends them to the nearest enemy building, waiting for Wave Growth more each time.

First-person shooters

The Shooter template is a first-person shooter made of no-code components: fight out of a dark base past grunts that charge and robots that throw fireballs, with a pistol, a shotgun to find in the armory, medkits, doors that slide open as you come near, a blue key for the locked way out, lamps lighting the corridors, a minimap and a pause menu. The level is an ordinary tilemap painted top-down in the Scene view; in play mode you stand in it. The pieces:

First Person View, on the camera, draws the game through the Viewer’s eyes (the entity called Player by default); on a camera with a Viewport it draws only in that part of the screen, a first-person window in a 2D game (see Viewports). Solid tilemaps are walls, textured with their tiles (and shaded by side), as tall as Wall Height; sprites stand on the floor and always face the viewer (a pickup with Spin turns in place), hidden behind any wall that’s nearer; particles hang in the air. Field Of View, Eye Height and Columns (strips across the screen: fewer is chunkier) shape the view, Floor and Ceiling color it, and everything fades into the Fog color by Fog Distance. In a dark scene (the camera’s Ambient), lights light the walls, floor and sprites near them. It also draws the weapon in hand, a Crosshair, a Minimap of the walls, enemies and pickups, and a Hurt Flash when the viewer loses health. The HUD (anything with a Screen Anchor) goes on top as usual. The viewer looks the way its Rotation Z points: 0 is to the right on the map.
First Person Movement walks (W and S, or up and down) and strafes (A and D) at Speed, or Run Speed with Shift, and turns with the left and right arrows at Turn Speed. With Mouse Look, clicking the game hands it the mouse (hidden, and kept inside the game) to turn with, Mouse Sensitivity degrees a pixel, and to look up and down a little with Look Up Down; Esc, pausing or switching away gives it back. The controller’s left stick walks and strafes and the right stick turns. Step Sound plays every Step Length units walked.
Weapon, on the player, shoots where it looks when Action (Fire) is pressed, or held for an Automatic one, up to Fire Rate times a second: Pellets bullets a shot, scattered across Spread degrees and reaching Range, each taking Damage from whatever with Health they hit first (every pellet that hits one thing lands as one blow) and pushing it back by Knockback, with an Impact Effect where they land. A Projectile prefab is launched at Projectile Speed instead. Each shot uses up one of the player’s Ammo item (Bullets), so a Pickup with that Item refills it and a Counter with that Item shows it; with none left it plays its Empty Sound. A weapon with Needs Item (Shotgun) can’t be used until a pickup gives that item, and is taken out the moment one does. Several weapons on the player are picked with the number keys (their Slot), the mouse wheel or the controller’s Y. In hand it’s its Image (or a simple gun in its Color) at Size, swapping to Fire Image for a moment as it fires, with a Muzzle Flash, a Kick and a screen Shake. It fires while its player’s First Person Movement has the input; its Fire action fires the one in hand once (ready and with ammo) whether or not it has, so a note hit on the beat, a card or a trigger can fire it, and its Shots and Cooling Down are outputs.
Billboard, on a sprite, lifts it off the floor in first person (Lift: a lamp on the ceiling, a fireball at chest height), Bobs it up and down, or Scales it.
Block, on an entity with a Box Collider, draws it as a box of wall instead of a sprite, covered with its sprite’s image (or color): doors, gates, pillars. Give it a Mover and a Switch to slide it open, or let a switch hide it.

Three smaller additions came with the shooters: a Pickup’s Heal gives back health (a medkit is left alone while health is full), Damage On Touch’s Destroy On Wall breaks a shot on whatever solid it hits, and a Shooter’s Needs Sight holds fire while a wall is in the way.

The controls: click a unit or building to select it (double-click picks every unit of its kind on screen), drag a box round units, and hold Shift to add to the selection. Right-click to send what’s selected: on the ground to walk there, on an enemy to attack it, on a resource to gather it, on a building going up to help build, and with a building selected, to set its rally point. Hotkeys follow the command card: A then a click attack-moves (fighting whatever’s met on the way), M then a click moves, S stops, H holds position; with workers, a building’s hotkey and a click places it (Shift places more); with a building, a unit’s hotkey trains it. Ctrl and a number keeps the selection as a group, the number picks it again, and twice brings the camera to it. Selecting goes by the same rules as Selection Controls, with the same built-in actions (Select, Command, AddToSelection, AssignGroup, Group1 to Group9), so Game → Controls and the player’s Rebind buttons change those keys. The arrow keys, the screen’s edges and the minimap move the camera, the mouse wheel zooms, and Esc cancels placing or targeting before it opens the pause menu.

Block worlds

The Sandbox template is a world to dig and build in, Terraria style: rolling hills over caves full of coal, iron and gold, trees, sand, and a floor of bedrock, with a hotbar, crafting, and torches to light the dark underground. All of it is no-code components on a tilemap and the player:

World Generator, on a tilemap, fills it with a world made from its Seed each time the game starts (Generate On Play; untick it to keep and paint on the map as it is). The same seed always makes the same world, and 0 makes a new one every time. Width and Height size it; Surface, Hills and Hill Width shape the ground; Grass Tile, Dirt Tile (Dirt Depth deep) and Stone Tile fill it; Caves hollows out tunnels and caverns, more of them deeper down; Ores lists ore tiles and how much of the stone they make up (3 6%, 4 3%), each later one deeper; Sand and Trees (Trunk Tile, Leaves Tile) dress the surface, and Bottom Tile floors it. Walls names a second, non-solid tilemap to fill with the underground’s back walls, which caves show instead of the sky. Spawn stands the player on the ground in the middle.
Blocks, on the same tilemap, makes it something to dig and build with. Items says which item puts down which tile (Dirt 1), and mining a tile gives its item, unless Drops says otherwise (0 Dirt for grass, 6 nothing for leaves). Mine Time and Hardness (2 0.8, 3-4 1.2) are how long blocks take to break; Unbreakable tiles never do. Falling Tiles drop while there’s nothing under them, like sand. Glowing Tiles light the dark like a Light (Glow Radius, Glow Color), and Underground is the light the camera fades to below the ground, Dark Depth down. Save As keeps the world in the game’s save data, so what’s dug and built is still there next time. Break Effect, Dig Sound, Break Sound and Place Sound give it feel.
Block Builder, on the player, digs with the left mouse button held on a block within Reach (faster with Mine Speed), the block cracking as it goes, and puts down its Item with the right button, next to another block and never on top of anyone. In first person it works on the block straight ahead, Minecraft style. What’s dug goes into the player’s Inventory.
Hotbar shows the inventory in Slots along the bottom of the screen, each block drawn with its own tile, and picks one with the number keys, the mouse wheel or a click: that’s what the builder puts down. Items keep their slot until they run out. Colors colors items that aren’t blocks. Its Next, Previous and Pick (a slot, from 1) actions pick with no code.
Crafting lists Recipes like Torch 4 = Wood + Coal, opened and closed with its Key (C); click one to make it, lit up when there’s enough. @ Workbench needs a workbench within Station Reach: a placed block of that item, or an entity with that name. The Inspector lists recipes as rows: what it makes and how many, the workbench, and what it takes as items with how many; the blocks’ Items, Drops and Hardness are rows with their tiles shown and picked off the tileset.

Tilemaps now only draw the tiles in view, so worlds can be big.

Contraptions and wiring

The Contraption template is a room to build machines in, Garry’s Mod and Wiremod style: a lamp on a rope with a button, a lift of thrusters welded under a plank, a door held shut by logic until a crate is dropped on its plate, a clock blinking a lamp and counting on a display, and a windmill turned by its hinge’s motor. Its props all rotate, so what’s built with them tips, tumbles and swings, and its Wheel hinged under a plank makes a cart (wire a button to a wheel’s Power to drive it). The pieces:

Sandbox Tools, on the player, are tools to build with while the game runs (with Within set, only on what’s inside that entity or standing in its area, spawning only there; the tools in use are the first with Controllable ticked, so Focus picks between sets), picked along the top of the screen, with the number keys or the mouse wheel. Grab carries things to the mouse (Grab Strength) and throws them when let go; right-click to freeze one in the air, or free a frozen one. Spawn puts down the prop picked from Props (prefab names; each gets a name of its own). Weld and Rope join the two things clicked; Hinge hinges the first thing clicked where it was clicked (making it rotate) to the second, or to the world where nothing is clicked; Wire joins an output of one to an input of another, asking which when there’s a choice; Remove takes something away with its welds, hinges, ropes and wires. Undo Key (Z) undoes what was made, newest first. What’s made is part of the scene, so Keep Play Changes brings a contraption back to the editor.
Body has three new settings: Frozen holds it still where it is (others still bump into it), Mass says how heavy it is, and Friction stops it sliding along the ground.
Weld sticks its body To another entity, by name: everything welded together is one body, as heavy as all of it (so a balloon welded to a crate lifts it), whose members don’t bump into each other. When all its bodies rotate it turns round where its weight balances: a thruster off its middle spins it, it tips over edges and lands on its side, rests and falls asleep, and meets tile floors, slopes, polygons, hex walls and isometric walls like any body that turns; when any of them doesn’t, it stays upright. Welded to something without a body (or with a member frozen), it holds still. Hinge wheels to it to make a cart (see Hinges). The Rope tool ties the two clicked together with a Rope from where each was clicked, as long as they are apart: it sags, swings and wraps round things, and holds them no further apart (see Ropes). The Contraption template hangs its lamp on one, ties a balloon to a crate with another, and hangs a third from the ceiling for the player to jump to, climb and swing on.
Thruster pushes its body (and what it’s welded to) along its Direction, turned with the entity, with Force times its Power input; a particle emitter on it fires while it pushes.
Wire, on the entity it drives, carries the Output of the entity named in From into this one’s Input, drawn from one to the other (brighter while it’s on, unless it isn’t Visible). Every entity has the inputs Power (switching it on and off as a Switch does: movers, spawners, doors) and Show, and one for each of its actions (Spawn, Fire, Damage…), done once each time the signal comes on; outputs are whatever its components know (see Outputs) that gives a number or true or false: a button’s or switch’s On, a gate’s Out, a sensor’s Out and Count, a body’s Speed and Height, health’s Health, a counter’s Count and Reached, a board’s Score, a faction’s Amount:Gold, a script’s own, picked from a list of what the entity in From has. Several wires into one input add up.
Wire Gate works out Out from its A and B inputs (an input with no wire keeps its value) as its Kind says: And, Or, Not, Xor, Nand, Nor, Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide, Greater, Less, Equal, a Constant Value, a Toggle (flips each time A turns on), a Latch (A sets, B resets), a Delay of Value seconds, a Clock ticking every Value seconds, or a Counter. Chains of gates answer in the same frame, and each is labeled with what it does.
Wire Button is pressed with Interact (E) with the mouse over it, or while touching it (by a character with the input): a Toggle, or on only while held. Its Press action presses it with no code (one that’s only on while held is on for a moment). Wire Sensor notices bodies inside its trigger (on its Layers). Wire Lamp lights from Off Color to On Color (and turns up a Light on it) with its On input, and Wire Display shows its Value input on its Text, or over itself.

Visual novels

Visual novels have a page of their own: a Stage with backgrounds and the characters on it, at named positions and with expressions, directed by the lines of a dialogue ([show Ava left happy], [background Park fade], Ava (sad): Oh.), the Dialogue Editor that picks each line’s speaker, expression and directions from lists with a preview of the stage, and save slots with screenshots, a log of the lines said, Skip and Auto, are in Visual novels. A stage’s Advance, Skip and Auto actions (Space, Ctrl, A) work only while it has focus, and it names its actions (Background, Show, Hide, Direct) and outputs (Background, Speaking), so a visual novel scene can sit inside any other game. The Visual Novel template is a whole short story, Starfall Café, with a title screen, two choices and three endings.

Rhythm games

Rhythm games have a page of their own: the Rhythm template (a whole rhythm game with a song select, results and settings), Note Lanes (Entity → Genres → Rhythm → Create Note Lanes, with a song and its chart at three difficulties) that scroll a chart of notes from a table to a hit line and judge each press Perfect, Great, Good or Miss against the beat as the player hears it, with the keys, a controller, the mouse or several fingers, holds held to their end, and their Score, Combo, Accuracy and Grade as outputs and a message on each hit and miss; each player’s audio and visual offsets (how late their speakers and screen are, which beat clocks allow for), the calibration screen they set them on by tapping along to clicks or a flashing light with the keys, a mouse, a finger or a controller, and timing a hit against a beat, are in Rhythm games. A Calibration listens like a menu (on the top panel), names its actions (Start, Stop, Apply) and outputs (Result, Taps, Current, Prompt), and sits in any game’s options or pause menu. Note Lanes take focus like any genre’s controls, name their actions (Start, Play at a difficulty, Stop) and outputs, and send Hit, Perfect, Miss and Song Complete, so a note can fire a weapon or a miss hurt the hero. A Song Select picks a song and difficulty to play, with its best score, like any menu.

Card games

Card games have pages of their own: decks, hands and play zones, drawing, shuffling, discarding and playing cards by dragging them, cards that deal damage, heal, draw and cost mana, and a computer that plays its hand against you, with no code, are in Card games, and the Cards template is a whole duel against the computer made from a table of cards. They’re built to mix with the rest: a Hand takes the player’s input only while it has focus, so a card game can sit inside another game, a card’s effect can Do any action in the scene, and decks, hands and play zones name their actions (Draw, Shuffle, Discard, Gain Mana) for triggers and wires, and their outputs (the cards in a deck, in a hand, played) for counters, bars and texts.

Point-and-click adventures

Walk areas drawn round a room’s floor (with holes for the furniture, and depth so the player shrinks into the distance), a walker that goes where the player clicks or taps along the shortest way round, and hotspots that show their name under the pointer and answer a look or a use with a line, an action, a flag or a conversation, with an inventory bar of items to pick up, use on things and put together, all with no code and with the mouse, touch, keys or a controller, and rooms joined by doors; the Adventure template is a short one to play and take apart: see Point-and-click adventures.

Physics games

Physics puzzlers have a page of their own: a slingshot to pull back and let go (with the mouse, a finger, the keys or a gamepad), shots that fly where its dotted line says with the camera following them, and blocks of wood, glass and stone that crack and break into pieces on hard knocks, levels won with one to three stars once every target is down, and the Physics template, are in Physics games. They’re built to mix with the rest: a Slingshot takes the player’s input only while it has focus (and on its side’s turn), and names its actions (Load, Launch) for triggers and wires and its outputs (Shots Left, Out Of Shots) for counters, bars and texts; a Breakable has Break, Damage and Repair, and the outputs Damage and Broken. The same page has pinball: flippers that snap up on a button and hit the ball hard, bumpers and slingshot kickers that knock it away, a plunger pulled back by holding a button or a stick, drop targets and rollover lanes in sets, a drain that serves the next ball (with a ball save and extra balls) and a tilt, all scoring through Counters; each piece names its actions (Flip, Launch, Nudge, Tilt, Extra Ball) and outputs (Up, Hits, Lit, Tilted, Balls Left), so a bumper can hurt a boss and a target can open a door. The Pinball template is a whole table, Midnight Midway, with a multiplier, an extra ball, a ball save, a tilt and the best score kept. A Level Goal’s targets are anything by name (enemies with a Health in a platformer as well as grubs in a tower), it has Win and Lose, and its outputs Targets Left, Stars, Won and Lost.

Fighting games

Fighting games have a page of their own, with the Fighter template (a whole versus game for two at one computer or against the computer: a character select, rounds against the clock, training): fighters with moves written in numpad notation (236P, 623P, [4]6K) over startup, active and recovery frames, blocking high and low with chip damage and blockstun, hitstun and combos, an input buffer and cancels, and the Move List that edits them; hitboxes and hurtboxes on each frame of an animation’s clips, drawn over the frames in the Clip Editor, that land hits frame by frame with damage, knockback and hitstun; a sparring pair and a training pair to try them on; a Versus Match of rounds, a Character Select for players at one computer, and a Computer Fighter, are in Fighting games. They’re built to mix with the rest: a Hitboxes takes no input of its own, hits things with a Health on its Layers through their colliders (a hero’s sword drawn on the frames of its swing hits a platformer’s slimes), has the actions Stun and Recover, and the outputs Hit, Got Hit, Hits, Hitstun and Stunned for wires, counters, bars and texts; a Fighting Character takes input only while it has focus, does a move by name with its Perform action, and has the outputs Move, Phase, Free, Blocking, Blocked, Combo and the rest.