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 Game creating steps
I. The design document
If you are planning to make a game, the first thing on your list must be a good design document.
Usually the design should contain the story of the game, a detailed map with all the locations,
characters, objects and items. You must write details about the puzzles, and the ways of
solving them, like an walkthrough. And don't forget about characters dialogs.
The idea behind this document is that you should know exactly what you want to do, before starting the work.
II. Prepare the game's data
Usually you start your games based on the default template data.
Make a backup copy of the DATA folder to perserve the original content for future games.
If your game requires additional graphic tiles, create them in your graphic editor, as uncompressed TGA files, and add them to the DATA\TILES folder,
respecting the file naming convention and keeping unique tiles ids.
More about tiles format, in the Editor Book.
Additional sound effects and music files can be placed in their specific folders, also respecting their naming conventions, presented later in this book.
III. Create the map
Use the DizzyAGE editor to create the map of your game.
This process is detailed in the Editor Book, that you should have read by now.
Remember to have the map saved in the DATA\MAP folder as dizzy.map.
Keep a written note of the objects ids, items and other special brushes you place in the map, so you can later easily access them from the script.
IV. Edit the game scripts
In the scripts, you must describe what it should happen when various game events occure,
or when the player interacts with characters or other objects from the map.
The scripts are text files that stay in the DATA\SCRIPTS folder.
You will write them using the GS9 programming language, that you should have learned by now, from the GS9 Programming Book.
Don't worry! Simple games require simple scripts.
In fact, beginners will have to write most of their code in only one file and there will be only simple functions
that request text messages to be displayed, or various objects to be activated or deactivated.
As you gain more experience with scripting, you will be able to understand more of the default template scripts and you will customize them as you need for your games.
V. Release the game
After you finish your game, you have to prepare it for release.
This means to pack it in a standard format and test it.
Give it to a few friends, or to other Dizzy fans to test it as well.
Then submit it to the official DizzyAGE website and to the Yolkfolk community, to make it available for the public.
More about releasing the game, later in this book.
How to read this book
This book presents the basic concepts of scripting your games.
It uses a practical approach to teach you how to implement the most common aspects of Dizzy games.
Understanding it, will allow you to further edit the default template scripts and to implement more complex puzzles.
The lessons are focused on simple tasks, like tutorials.
They will not go into all the details, to keep it as simple as possible for the beginners.
When an example presented in the book, requires you to start from the default template data,
you should start with a fresh copy of the original default template data folder.
Just to make it cristal clear, reaname the original DATA folder to DATA_DEFAULT, or something similar.
When you have to start working on a new example, make a copy of it (ctrl+c, ctrl+v) and rename this copy back to DATA, as the game engine requires.
Most of the examples presented here, will require you to edit only the game.gs file.
Use your favorite text editor to do that, or just use the Notepad application comming with Windows.
The script files have the .gs extension and, when you open them for the first time,
you can associate this kind of files to your text editor.
Make sure you save the script file after you edit it and before you run the game again.
Usually, only the necessary functions are presented in the book.
This means you must add them in the specified script file, as they are.
If the example suggests an adjustment of a function you added before, and it presents it's whole code again,
you must delete the previous function when you add the new adjusted one, avoiding to have two functions with the same name.
If you do a mistake in the script, the engine will report the file and the line of code where the error occured, so you can
go back in the editor and fix it. Errors are also reported in the dizzy.log file.
Once you've got a grip of the game scripting, it will be easy for you to learn details from the reference chapters,
from the articles available on the official website, or even from other people's games.
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