Multiple Gamepad inputs? And a couple more buttons?

[Domarius]

Yes I did see that, I can see what you mean

[megamarc]

Hi, how are you doing?

Release 1.18 introduced features about input you suggested: more action buttons, a start button, up to four simultaneous players... have you checked it?

[Domarius]

I just read the release notes - that sounds awesome! I think it's really good to have this, a lot more convenient than relying inn SDLs input and setting up key config yourself.

I've had to give this a back seat since the fire has been lit under me to have my projects generate an income.

But I wonder if I can come up with and excuse to use this for one of my projects

[tmoney2049]

I haven't tried LUA, but I think it's in the same abstraction level than python. Yes, I strongly recommend python for prototyping: dynamic typing, no source clutter with superfluous container classes, clean syntax, execute directly from source code (no separate compile/run steps as in C, C# or Java)... The tilengine python wrapper is fully object-oriented and has all the docstrings, so any smart python editor will assist you with auto-completion and inline help as you type.

In the main website there is a very basic sample in C and its equivalent in python, side by side, so you can check what I mean.

Hey guys, speaking of Lua, I have a small binding and sample code using LuaFFI. It's a little bit of voodoo and it'd probably be better as a lua\C API.

[megamarc]

Hey guys, speaking of Lua, I have a small binding and sample code using LuaFFI. It's a little bit of voodoo and it'd probably be better as a lua\C API.

Welcome here and thanks for your contribution! I've merged your pull request into the main respository and posted a message in facebook page about the new feature

[Daniel H.]

You're right, the user input mechanism is very simplistic. Straightforward, but very limited. Originally I designed tilengine to be just a back-end renderer without any kind of windowing or user input, this part was meant to be implemented on top of it -it's a graphics engine, not a game engine-. This makes tilengine very versatile because it can be integrated into any existing or custom-built game framework, but soon I realized that it could be too demanding to do quick tests and evaluate it. So I built a basic windowing system to help in quick setups, but it's not really meant to be used in production systems.

I've thought seriously about extending it a bit: adding multiple players and some more buttons, but without putting too much effort on it. Anybody interested in advanced features like keyboard/gamepad remapping and so, should consider discarding the built-in windowing and go for some game framework that already has this functionality and integrate tilengine on it.

Thanks for mentioning this. The game I am planning to put together will require a lot of customising when it comes to user input. I see that in some of the most recent releases you have improved the input functionality. Are there any future plans to make Tilengine a full fledged game engine? Or is the idea of Tilengine (in the long run) to just stay as a back-end renderer?

[megamarc]

Yes, I've upgraded input in two phases: first implementing multiple players, configurable key bindings and more inputs. And recently I've opened a link to get direct SDL events, for maximum flexibility.

The goal of tilengine has always been a back-end renderer, modeled on classic 2D systems and enhancing them. The windowing was added to ease setup and testing, with its arcade-like input and CRT filter, but I consider this element just a convenience, not a core feature. So a full game engine is not planned. There are great libraries out there that can be used to build a complete gaming framework: windowing/upscalers, audio, scripting, network... the pieces are already out there and Tilengine cannot provide value here.

What kind of game are you planning?

[Daniel H.]

Myself and a designer are planning a twin-stick shooter tank game. We were really pleased when we came across Tilengine because it has the exact style we were looking for. I am currently in the process or figuring out what libraries we will need to work alongside Tilengine. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to find out if there were any plans for making a full game engine, or if I would need to use other libraries.

I'm also considering as to whether or not I should use Tilengine in an existing game that I made as part of a university project from a few years ago. It was for a software development course and the emphasis of the project was object oriented design (using C++). When I started the project, my goal was design it in such a way that there was a good separation of program layers, so I used a modified passive MVC architecture. That way, I could use the code in the future when if I wanted to port it to other platforms or use other libraries. I used SFML for the original project. I found SFML to be a great library. I think tt will be possible for me to replace a lot of the SFML with Tilengine. But, on the other hand, I'm considering just building the game from scratch using Python (with the Python Tilengine bindings). So I'm still deciding if I should refactor the old game or make a new one. It would be very satisfying if I could get Tilengine to work with the original game, because then it would prove that I designed the original game successfully.

I'll be making the original tanks game available on GitHub in the future, if anyone would be interested in checking it out.

[megamarc]

Tilengine is a rendering system, so it shouldn't get in the way (architecture-wise) if you try to port an old game. What can be problematic is wether the graphical features used in your old graphics library have functional equivalents in Tilengine, or the design philosophy is too diferent to be easily ported. Tilengine understands sprites, tilemaps, and indexed color graphics (palettes). What does your game require graphics-wise?

Have you decided on companion libraries? You already know SFML, that has many tools. My personal choice is SDL, it's very concise and lightweight, but has a great ecosystem of specialised libraries: SDL_ttf for text rendering, SDL_image for graphics loading, SDL_mixer for sound and music playback, SDL_net for networking... Open source and has bindings for every imaginable language. And the windowing in Tilengine is built on top of it (but you can bypass it and provide your own environment).

[Daniel H.]

SDL definitely looks like a good option. And Tilengine will fit in very well with the existing game for the sprites and the maps. I made a very rudimentary tilemap editor using text files. Fortunately I wrote it in such a way that I can replace it with the tiles in Tilengine. Thanks for the suggestions!