Dev Diary #165 - A different kind of scripting
Hey there, fellow ylanders.
After we‘ve talked about several Exploration improvements you will find in the next update 1.6, today we focus on something big that Creators will surely like (if you‘re interested in Exploration, don‘t worry, there‘s plenty more cool stuff in 1.6 we‘ve yet to talk about).
We‘ve seen a lot of amazing creations that pushed the limit of what is possible with visual scripting (and many time genuinely surprised us). Games like this make us, the whole platform, move forward, but it also showed more clearly what is not really surprising. Visual scripting is a great tool for learning, for making simple-to-medium complex games, but once the game complexity reaches a certain level, working with the visual script, navigating through it and in general making the code intuitive and easy to work with because really difficult.
That‘s why with 1.6 we‘re bringing you a beta version of non-visual scripting. You will be able to create text scripts, that can be attached to Entities and Game logic object in the editor and when the game runs this script will be executed in a similar way to the visual script.
The fact is that internally the visual script has always been a visualization of javascript-like language so now you will get the chance to bypass the visual scripting and type in the code directly. Instead of describing these features in many more paragraphs, we put together a short FAQ that will, hopefully, answer most of your questions. We are looking forward to discussing with you this topic more in the followup discussion.
Q: You said „beta version“ - what does it mean?
A: This feature requires a lot of work based on a lot of feedback that we would like to get from you, the Creators. Therefore it is very likely that 1.7 may bring some changes and you will be required to go through your scripts and update them. Also, as always with a feature of such size, there may be bugs. The more feedback you provide, the better it will get.
Q: What language is it? What syntax can we expect?
A: The syntax and commands (the „generic“ ones, not the ones specific to Ylands) is pretty much javascript (even its file extension is .js). However, it‘s not 100% javascript, since it does not support some features, so you can probably think of it as a javascript subset. You will find more about this in the online documentation.
Q: Is this meant to replace visual scripting?
A: Absolutely not. For us, visual scripting remains the primary way of scripting and we will keep improving it in future.
Q: Can we use both scripting and visual scripting in one game?
A: Sure!
Q: Will there be some sort of editor, IDE we will be able to use to edit the script?
A: No, not at this time. With so many cool editors out there supporting .js syntax we‘d like to focus on other areas of the scripting/game - at least for the time being.
That‘s it for today - don‘t hesitate to ask about anything that remains unclear and I‘ll talk to you next week. Until then - stay healthy and classy, ylanders!
Let us know what you think on our forums!
After we‘ve talked about several Exploration improvements you will find in the next update 1.6, today we focus on something big that Creators will surely like (if you‘re interested in Exploration, don‘t worry, there‘s plenty more cool stuff in 1.6 we‘ve yet to talk about).
We‘ve seen a lot of amazing creations that pushed the limit of what is possible with visual scripting (and many time genuinely surprised us). Games like this make us, the whole platform, move forward, but it also showed more clearly what is not really surprising. Visual scripting is a great tool for learning, for making simple-to-medium complex games, but once the game complexity reaches a certain level, working with the visual script, navigating through it and in general making the code intuitive and easy to work with because really difficult.
That‘s why with 1.6 we‘re bringing you a beta version of non-visual scripting. You will be able to create text scripts, that can be attached to Entities and Game logic object in the editor and when the game runs this script will be executed in a similar way to the visual script.
The fact is that internally the visual script has always been a visualization of javascript-like language so now you will get the chance to bypass the visual scripting and type in the code directly. Instead of describing these features in many more paragraphs, we put together a short FAQ that will, hopefully, answer most of your questions. We are looking forward to discussing with you this topic more in the followup discussion.
Q: You said „beta version“ - what does it mean?
A: This feature requires a lot of work based on a lot of feedback that we would like to get from you, the Creators. Therefore it is very likely that 1.7 may bring some changes and you will be required to go through your scripts and update them. Also, as always with a feature of such size, there may be bugs. The more feedback you provide, the better it will get.
Q: What language is it? What syntax can we expect?
A: The syntax and commands (the „generic“ ones, not the ones specific to Ylands) is pretty much javascript (even its file extension is .js). However, it‘s not 100% javascript, since it does not support some features, so you can probably think of it as a javascript subset. You will find more about this in the online documentation.
Q: Is this meant to replace visual scripting?
A: Absolutely not. For us, visual scripting remains the primary way of scripting and we will keep improving it in future.
Q: Can we use both scripting and visual scripting in one game?
A: Sure!
Q: Will there be some sort of editor, IDE we will be able to use to edit the script?
A: No, not at this time. With so many cool editors out there supporting .js syntax we‘d like to focus on other areas of the scripting/game - at least for the time being.
That‘s it for today - don‘t hesitate to ask about anything that remains unclear and I‘ll talk to you next week. Until then - stay healthy and classy, ylanders!
Let us know what you think on our forums!