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[CosmicJC]

Hey everyone! I wanted to make a little post to get some feedback and suggestions on a project that I've been working on with another game developer for the past two months. It's an html5 powered game editor called Craftyy, and you can check it out here (though it is still in it's alpha stage.

It currently allows you to create games using an easy method of dragging action stickers onto artwork, and while there are a limited number of resources currently, we have been able to make some interesting stuff like pinball, a music game and the start of a skating/line rider game.

Some images of the editor~








I was hoping to get some discussion going on what actual game developers like yourself would want to see in this kind of tool. We've been pretty focused on making the UI and experience easier to understand than most game making programs. Does this take too much freedom away from you? And if so, what about those kind of programs would you prefer to see in our web app?

Oh! And if you do play around with it, post your creations too -- just hit the safe in the bottom right and it'll generate a new url for you.

A lot of the fun has been remixing other people's games and building upon them. Thanks for the help!

edit: added some images

[Quicksand-S]

Nice tool you've made. I've thought about making something like this as well, but mine would likely be more focused on scripting than dragging-and-dropping.

Anyway, I like the interface for the most part but I had a few issues. The background object started out over top of everything (which is understandable), but there was no quick way to send it to the back. I had to click "push back" about fifteen times. If the level had been more complex, it would have been even worse. I'd strongly recommend "Send to Front" and "Send to Back" buttons.

I also didn't like it that the objects had momentum in the editing phase. If I need to place a background or a block in a specific position, I don't want it to slide away once I release the mouse button.

Also, while I really like the resize/rotate control, it doesn't really work well for the background. I think the problem stems from resizing working from the center of an object instead of from the corner. It makes it harder to make things fit into a predefined space without a lot of trial and error.

Another interface issue popped up once in a while. It kept trying to tie events to that background when I wanted to tie the events to a little character. (At one point, it didn't select anything at all and tried to put the event onto "Null".)

The editing phase is pretty fast, but running the game was surprisingly slow (Firefox 14.0.1). I've managed pretty high frame-rates with my own HTML5 games, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Maybe the movement code could handle a little optimization? Resetting the level after testing it was pretty slow as well. Some sort of "Resetting..." text might be good.

It would be nice to be able to preview an audio clip before putting it into the game.

This may all sound a bit negative, but I really do like how this editor looks and feels for the most part. It'll be nice to see how it evolves.

[CosmicJC]

Thanks for all the great feedback Quicksand! A lot of points you touched on are definitely on our list of to-dos (especially the push all the way to back or front). We only got Firefox support in the other day, so it still needs to be tweaked to run as nicely as it does in Chrome.

Really appreciate this though! We really want to make the editor fun but capable of creating good games and not making it too "simple"

I'll continue to post updates here in the weeks to come, I'm excited to see what people make with it! :D