As you may know, I’ve been working on an entity editor that I called Alchemist for about four mounths. It is an API coded in Java 8, JavaFX, and powered by jMonkey Engine and Zay-ES entity system.
Alchemist intend to offer a working space where you can focus on gameplay. You create components (pure data objects) and processors, plug them to Alchemist, then you can play with it visually.
Alchemist has been though generic but you know… it is never ! and among the bugs and needed features in the TODO list, I need to proove that it is able to host game projects very different from mine (a top down shooter and a RTS).
That’s where I need you guys ! Is there one or many vonlonteers to experiment and use Alchemist for your own project ? I beleive that it will lead you to good practices and give you a good testing environnement, and of course, all components and processors will remains usable in a classic code if Alchemist fail to host your project eventually.
It requires the will to work with entity component system, of course.
That looks awesome and I would be glad to use it. However, I don’t really have time to do anything serious with jME lately, so I can’t apply for a real tester…
But when you’ll relase it to all public here, I’ll be glad to fiddle around a bit and test some ideas.
That looks promising. I do game development currently only as a hobby. So only little time, but I would be interessted, as my games are new all Zay ES based. Would it be hard to port a Zay ES jME3.1 game to Alchemist?
I like to do my code TDD, would that be hard with Alchemist? How does that play together with jME3 IDE? Not at all?
You know, I’m a bit far from being an ES user and understander. But when I finally start that (in a months or so), I will give it a try (and the blog from ia97lies too).
How does Alchemist work together with OpenRTS? Because I want to use OpenRTS with a mixed RTS / FPS / TPS. I think you also made OpenRTS if I remember correctly?
Great news ! I will contact you when the wiki is ready in a few days.
Since the most important part of an ECS game rely in component and processors, it’s certainly only a matter of translation. But there may be some things we have done very differently so I can’t tell. Alchemist is actually running jme3.0 but the upgrade is trivial.
About the TDD and IDE consideration, it should not be a problem at all. Alchemist is currently a dependancy to add to your project, not a stand alone IDE. You create an extension of the main class, inject your processors and a few other things, then run the project.
It is gradelized so you can use it inside JME SDK, netBeans, Eclipse, Intellij, on a PC, Mac or Linux… you only need Gradle plugin.
Note that it is Java 8.
Alchemist may be a good approach to discover the entity component system pattern. It is flexible but lead the user to what I think is a good practice in a matter of architecture.
Plus, Alchemist is provided with my game Cosmovania as a sample project, including nearly a hundred of processors and as components, if you lack inspiration.
@wuendsch has begun a portage of OpenRTS into Alchemist. We intend to make Alchemist the future of OpenRTS if we can.
Well yes, it’s an alpha test. I’m looking for issues, and I need to establish the proof of concept : “Build a simple and efficient game programming interface that allow coders to focus primarily on what matters : gameplay”
Volonteers will have these missions :
implement the game of their choice in an Alchemist project,
report bugs on the Brainless-Studio chat (slack) or on the GitHub issue page,
report issues about features, GUI, wiki, performances…
give general feedback and suggestion at will,
be patient with problems resolution !
Of course, all of this with absolutly no obligation or pressure. Each of your report will be considered as a gift. Ideally, I would be authorized to use your work to showcase the editor at the end. Your game don’t have to be open-sourced.
And hopefully, you will find Alchemist usefull
A word about contributions :
I would like to incorporate a library of components and processors for recuring needs and Alchemist is extensible : you can plug many things to it, like specialized editors, new windows or entire plugins. I would be happy to include your things if you want to share, and if they are generic and reusable enough.
And of course, you are free to dig into the code and make pull requests ^^
Remember that Alchmist is made to save you time but well… in alpha test stage, it will maybe fail in its duty
There is now such thing at the moment. But if you fill comfortable with a canvas, then I listen to any suggestion on that part.
Glad to hear ! Note that Alchemist uses InJFX code from the JME-JFX lib, meaning it’s jMonkey inside JavaFX and not the contrary. I’m not sure that we will be able to include JavaFX inside the JME inside the JavaFX, it may be a limitation.
About the repository, Cosmovania is the video game I’m working on with alchemist. Alchemist has it’s own repository, including a light version of cosmovania as a sample project, providing a bunch of exemple for component and processors.
I am writting a short wiki for you guys to start quickly and simply. I will post here when it’s ready.
Very impressive body of work! Btw, I strongly suggest you make a clean break from the methusalah/cosmovania repo. As long as GitHub identifies Alchemist as a forked project, it’ll be treated as lower priority, so you won’t be able to search the repository and things like that.
After working with Unity and jME back and forth for many years, I can tell this editor get my attention the most. Congratulations. My wish list:
Can we extend it with some magic annotations?
Do you have a spec for data format of the project, if there is a saved form?
I will never forget the messy place Unity can be for big project and one tiny error can cause the whole project not to compile. But is there some reason somehow this editor have scripting interface to intergrate with Zay-ES ?
I have did one for myself in the past and this is much better. I’m just curious about what do you think about this topic?
but well… in alpha test stage, it will maybe fail in its duty 
