2
2toes_Pixels
Guest
Hello, everyone! I'll preface this by saying that the engine is $15, just to be fully transparent. As I was working on a personal project, I knew I wanted a character creator, and I knew I wanted gear that the player acquired to show up on the actual character. I also knew that a lot of games do this, and during my beginning game dev years, I had absolutely no clue how to do this, and when I did implement mechanics like this, they were always very sloppy. Since those days I've gotten a lot better at coding in general, but also at planning the architecture of programs, games, etc and abstracting code to be very moldable.
So when I decided to create this engine, I wanted two big things - I wanted it to work with any kind of game, whether it be a top down shooter, a sidescroller, an rpg, or anything else, and I wanted it to be easy to customize.
I think I achieved these 2 goals with the engine, and I'm pretty proud of the architecture of it. It is easy to add "layers" (hat, armor, ears, eyes, anything you'd want the player to be able to choose from), and even easier to add the options to those layers (like adding a new hat the player can choose from). The "funnest" part about this project was abstracting all of the code, using arrays as little databases that store animations and sprite sets, and creating a foundation that makes accessing things like the player's current armor or helmet, very easy and readable.
Now onto what the engine actually is. The engine is a character creator, where you can change the character's head, body, helmet, armor, boots, hair, and weapon, along with the color of all of these things. As I stated above, it is very easy to change what exactly is changeable. I also have built into the engine, the ability to decide whether something is a part of the player (head, body, arm), or if it is equipment (weapon, armor, boots), so that the user could store other stats in equipment if they'd like, or the part can be purely aesthetic.
This engine could be the base of a project that you know you'll want a character creator in, or it can be added to a project you already have, as I have just one script that actually draws the custom character, which can be placed into the draw event of your player object. You will just need to make sure to include my control object that initiates the databases. I also think this would be a good way for novice or beginner programmers to learn a little bit about abstracting code, setting up arrays, making menus, using scripts, etc.
I also include a google doc tutorial with the project, which I will keep updated as questions get asked or things need clarified.
Available on itch.io:
https://2toes.itch.io/gamemaker-studio-2-character-creator-engine
and the gamemaker marketplace:
https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/9409/character-creator-engine
I believe this will only work for Gamemaker Studio 2 - I have not tried it on any other Gamemaker.
So when I decided to create this engine, I wanted two big things - I wanted it to work with any kind of game, whether it be a top down shooter, a sidescroller, an rpg, or anything else, and I wanted it to be easy to customize.
I think I achieved these 2 goals with the engine, and I'm pretty proud of the architecture of it. It is easy to add "layers" (hat, armor, ears, eyes, anything you'd want the player to be able to choose from), and even easier to add the options to those layers (like adding a new hat the player can choose from). The "funnest" part about this project was abstracting all of the code, using arrays as little databases that store animations and sprite sets, and creating a foundation that makes accessing things like the player's current armor or helmet, very easy and readable.
Now onto what the engine actually is. The engine is a character creator, where you can change the character's head, body, helmet, armor, boots, hair, and weapon, along with the color of all of these things. As I stated above, it is very easy to change what exactly is changeable. I also have built into the engine, the ability to decide whether something is a part of the player (head, body, arm), or if it is equipment (weapon, armor, boots), so that the user could store other stats in equipment if they'd like, or the part can be purely aesthetic.
This engine could be the base of a project that you know you'll want a character creator in, or it can be added to a project you already have, as I have just one script that actually draws the custom character, which can be placed into the draw event of your player object. You will just need to make sure to include my control object that initiates the databases. I also think this would be a good way for novice or beginner programmers to learn a little bit about abstracting code, setting up arrays, making menus, using scripts, etc.
I also include a google doc tutorial with the project, which I will keep updated as questions get asked or things need clarified.
Available on itch.io:
https://2toes.itch.io/gamemaker-studio-2-character-creator-engine
and the gamemaker marketplace:
https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/9409/character-creator-engine
I believe this will only work for Gamemaker Studio 2 - I have not tried it on any other Gamemaker.