The Games Factory

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The Games Factory is a commercial computer game development system that was developed by the Clickteam company and does not require any programming knowledge. Instead, the objects are placed using drag & drop and various events and actions are assigned to them.

The Games Factory is the successor to Klik & Play and is very popular on the Internet due to its simplicity . However, there are still certain restrictions in programming, which is why it is only used in prototyping or by hobby developers. The most important new features were levels the size of several screens, the addition of so-called extensions (e.g. for network access ), file access (to save scores, hi-scores, levels, etc.), global objects and events. Otherwise there were only small changes such as alpha blending , expanded programming options and an improved engine . In contrast to other Klik software like Multimedia Fusion , The Games Factory is used more for the creation of games. It can export to the file format that is used by the Vitalize! can be read, which means that the games created can also be viewed in the web browser .

history

Different publishers in different countries resulted in a very confusing naming and many different versions.

  • 1996–1998 it was marketed by Corel under the name Click & Create .
  • In 1996 it was distributed as a "stripped-down" version of Click & Create (timeline editor was removed, libraries were changed) by Europress in Europe, Australia and China.
  • In 1998 it was published in Brazil.
  • In 1999, Click & Create was re-released by IMSI under the name MultiMedia Fusion Express .
  • In 2000 The Games Factory was re-released under the name The Games Factory Pro under a different license term .

Editors

The Games Factory consists of a number of different editors with which certain areas of the game project can be influenced.

Script editor

In the script editor , new levels can be added to the game and level parameters can be set.

Level editor

In the level editor, various objects can be added to the level using drag & drop. There are basically three different types of objects:

Event editor

The actual logic can be defined in the event editor .

A matrix is used for this, the events (eg "stone collides with pawn") represent the line headers. All objects with which something can "happen", as well as some special objects, can be reached in the column headers.

Example:

Line object "stone" collides with object "game figure" , column special object "sound" : Play Sound "aua.wav"

Line object "stone" collides with object "pawn" , column object "stone" : change direction → bounce off

Single step editor

The single step editor is a simpler version of the event editor that is very suitable for beginners. It is actually a mode of the level editor, the level is "executed" in the same.

The execution is aborted at each event and the user can now set the actions that are to be triggered by the event in a simple selection window. They are then automatically transferred to the matrix of the event editor.

This editor is rather unsuitable for advanced users, as "playing" can take a long time, the game is interrupted even in the event of unwanted events and only very limited actions are possible.

Timeline editor

Different time-controlled events can be better coordinated in a timeline view, otherwise it is similar to the event editor. This editor is only available in Click & Create or Multimedia Fusion Express.

Active objects

One of six types of movement can be assigned to each active object:

  • Mouse controlled
  • Eight directions
  • race car
  • platform
  • Bouncing ball ( computer calculated rebound movements)
  • Path movement (computer controlled )

Various parameters such as maximum speed , acceleration , deceleration , etc. can be defined for each (active) object .

In addition, a sequence of individual images and a corresponding animation speed can be assigned for each of 32 possible directions and 16 possible states (e.g. standing, walking, jumping, etc.), whereby the object can be animated differently. In the event editor, different states of the active objects such as collision with other objects, speed, position, direction etc. can be queried and compared.

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