TERRA0NOVA'S PROFILE

The coding interface is still under development, so I don't have much in terms of screenshots to show, but the plan is to have a block based system similar to rm2k3 where you can double click a command to edit it with a UI, and add commands all in a nice user interface.

When you click a command (for example, message), it will create a line of code: showMessage("The message"); double clicking this line of code will allow you to edit it in the UI, but if you switch to text editing mode, it will allow you to edit the text directly (with syntax highlighting and code completion). Switching back to the block editing mode will allow you to edit those blocks you typed manually (it has a parser, so it will recognize commands even if they are not written in the same style or are written over multiple lines). Commands written that are not one of the UI blocks will edit in the block mode as a "custom code block".

And yes, it would be possible to recreate an Rm2k3 game if I add all of the features and their battle system (which would all be possible via plugin). It would even be possible to write an importer which imported rm2k3 projects and then allowed you to edit them and port them to other platforms!

author=Trihan
How many layers can you have on a map in this editor?

Up to 20, so you should never run out of layers (I could add more if needed).

You can place events on any layer (and even move events between layers via scripts) to place certain tiles above or below the player and other events. That's what allowed me in the kickstarter video to walk under the bridge, up the ladder (and up a layer) and then over the same bridge. It should be pretty flexible for most needs.

author=bulmabriefs144
Maybe something like an option, at battle start, called Change Battle Type (if you don't set, it defaults to the last one used) with a few menu options (ATB, CTB, Turn, and some others) and some sort of customization to variables and switches. And common event support for alot of battle stuff.

Demo video looks good so far.

Thanks, glad you like the demo video! I can definitely make it so that you can switch battle systems mid game (could be cool to change things up every now and then) - you may need multiple database entries for the same enemy appearing in different battle systems (as some will need different enemy parameters), but that is certainly doable! Of course, customization and scripting in battles will also be doable, depending on the battle plugin (I plan to make the battle systems I add highly customizable).

Yeah, I really want to make this project easy to expand, with the Plugin API handling a lot of the integration work with the editor - that's why I make the claim "future-proof," as while I can't know what platforms and features people will want in the future, I can make it easy for people (including myself) to add them!

And, CTB is probably my favorite turn-based battle system other than tactics battle systems (not to mention you can create a normal turn based battle system with a CTB by just fixing the order, so it's flexible)! I'll make that the first battle system I add after the editor is done.

While the Editor is GPL, the game libraries are LGPL - meaning you do NOT have to open source your games and assets even if you use Rhythos RPG Builder. You only have to open source modifications to the editor itself, and modifications to LPC assets (as those are also GPL/CC). If you distribute just the exported game and not the project files, then your resources will not be trivial to rummage through. Of course, as you mentioned, it's not that hard to break open flash or executables and extract resources for those with the desire and knowhow (and there are tools online that do just this for any flash file or executable), but it's not particularly easier to do so with Rhythos games just because Rhythos is open source. Sure, you could look at the exporter code and try to reverse engineer it, but if you had the skill to do that, you would probably just use a general purpose extractor.

The first stretch goal is more assets because I want to give back to the LPC community which helped spawn this project, and because there are a lot of base assets that could be added (although there is already a large set of LPC assets even if we don't reach this goal). The stretch goals after that are more features, and if successful I'll continue to add features in my spare time long after the funds have run out (and hopefully others will contribute features too)!

If the goal is NOT met, I obviously wont be able to work on this full time, but like with the map editor, I will continue to work on it in my spare time (as I really want to see it complete). It may take a long time to finish or require some features being cut, or I may try to raise funds a second time for the project, but I'm really hoping that the goal will be met! And of course, either way you'll be able to keep an eye on progress on github: https://github.com/davidmaletz/rhythos (and I'll hopefully start uploading alpha releases that you can download and run without compiling code soon).

And, any pixel art you want to donate would be great! This tool will just get better as people contribute new resources! If you want to contribute to the LPC set, there's a great style guide here: http://lpc.opengameart.org/static/lpc-style-guide/index.html ! Thanks for offering to get involved!