Reactions on the JavaScript story engine: doing it

In two days we got:

• 300 visits on Gamamoto for the announcing post;
• 6 comments on the blog: http://gamamoto.com/2011/04/14/releasing-a-free-javascript-game-story-scripter/#comments
• 8 up votes on Reddit gamedev: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/gpxf4/releasing_a_free_javascript_gamestory_scripter/
• two (positive) answers here: http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?27224-Releasing-a-%28free%29-JavaScript-game-story-scripter-amp-engine
• a (positive) answer here: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/599858-releasing-a-free-javascript-game-story-scripter-engine/

I asked a related question on Gamedev Q&A on how to name our “thing” which also got some interesting reactions: Clarification on the “game engine” notion needed .

So this is enough positive feedback (Gamamoto is not yet a very well known site), so indeed we are going to produce and release the game engine.

What the game engine is

A first note on what we are about to release: this is a set of JavaScript files which you can publish and run in any web application that contain:

– a set of JavaScript classes and functions that define the framework for writing game stories: player, NPCs, scenes, frames, dialogs and animations

– a set of JavaScript classes and functions that make game stories run

– a set of web pages that allow to run the story step by step in emulator mode

– an example story (a JavaScript file) that you can run

– support for creating a real game running on the story skeleton

The fact that you are writing the story directly in JavaScript gives you the full expressive power of a complete programing language, so that you can keep together and test

– narrative structure,

– game environment state

– player state

– NPC’s state

and removes the need of translating (and keeping in sync!) model and real game. Moreover you can use for the modeling and testing part the same tools (e.g. JavaScript/HTML editors) that you use in the real game. Of course you could even use this as a first layer of a game that is not in the end a browser game.

License and supporting the project

Our plan is to release the game engine and examples under MIT license so everyone can use it also in commercial projects for free. We may write some kind of paid e-book with illustration of the theory behind it so to get some support for continued development of the project, and maybe activate also a “donate” possibility.

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