Here's a little update for my newest project which will actually be a new tool/system for Blitz with a nice editor built in as well as the source code so that anyone who licenses the system can modify it to their own needs. It's coming along fairly quickly and will allow for any game front end to be created quickly, easily, and most importantly with imagination and a sense of fun built in.
The initial motivations for this system were the highly animated and interactive GUI's present in Nintendo DS games with their touch screen uniquness. Most everything that can be done with the DS though can be done just as smoothly with a mouse and PC games could benefit from some good fun GUI's.
I personally have always hated designing GUI's because I've always viewed them as getting in the way of the game ... like a necessary evil ... they just aren't fun to create typically. I like making little gameplay schemes and creating physics and movement ... basically just components that are fun to control. With this editor it will be just as fun to create GUI's as it will to create gameplay ... because they will contain gameplay.
Here's a little screen ... it needs quite a bit more work but I don't expect it to take much longer than a month to be complete to the point of functionality ... although I don't believe the library will every be fully complete as more and more functions will be added to it for the sake of fun ;)
In the screen you can see the general dialog which you can edit different aspects of a GUI element with and then add it. GUI elements can be added to a larger parent, they can be attached to the mouse for dynamic movement and rotation, they can be scaled, they can have editable text fields attached, as well as have a command associated with them. Things like push buttons, bouncy titles, or dynamically interactive background elements can be created very easily. In fact whole entire games could even be created with the system!
The initial motivations for this system were the highly animated and interactive GUI's present in Nintendo DS games with their touch screen uniquness. Most everything that can be done with the DS though can be done just as smoothly with a mouse and PC games could benefit from some good fun GUI's.
I personally have always hated designing GUI's because I've always viewed them as getting in the way of the game ... like a necessary evil ... they just aren't fun to create typically. I like making little gameplay schemes and creating physics and movement ... basically just components that are fun to control. With this editor it will be just as fun to create GUI's as it will to create gameplay ... because they will contain gameplay.
Here's a little screen ... it needs quite a bit more work but I don't expect it to take much longer than a month to be complete to the point of functionality ... although I don't believe the library will every be fully complete as more and more functions will be added to it for the sake of fun ;)
In the screen you can see the general dialog which you can edit different aspects of a GUI element with and then add it. GUI elements can be added to a larger parent, they can be attached to the mouse for dynamic movement and rotation, they can be scaled, they can have editable text fields attached, as well as have a command associated with them. Things like push buttons, bouncy titles, or dynamically interactive background elements can be created very easily. In fact whole entire games could even be created with the system!