Previous Blog Next Blog
Prev/Next Blog
by date

Gyhart Framework Design

Gyhart Framework Design
Name:Glen C 
Date Posted:Jul 05, 2006
Rating:3.5 out of 5
Public:YES
Comments:YES
RSS Feed:GarageGames Blog feedor Subscribe with .
Profile Page:View profile page for Glen C

Blog post
Hi folks,
Hazel expressed interest in the ideas behind my framework/modules, so I'm going to have a quick ramble and see what I can do to explain them. "Gyhart" is the working name of my framework.

The purpose of Gyhart: To streamline game/game content creation, so that I can optimise what I can do with my available hobby time. I've identified patterns a level above "every game has moving images", over a broad range of (2d) game styles, and designed a system that I hope is sufficiently flexible and modular and can support many game styles and elements, whilst not hampering T2D's potential. In reality, it's all nothing more than a layer of basic OO design principles intended to provide a more stable and coherant application structure than TGB comes with out of the box, whilst ensuring I don't have to code any aspect more than once. By making everything self-contained & reusable, the various elements come to feel like "building blocks" that can then just be assembled into the right shape.
For example: Modules of functionality are implimented through classed scriptObjects. 'slide_show' and 'menu' are two basic modules which can be quickly extended/customised to provide specific slide shows, opening titles, credits, simple cutscenes and GUI features within whatever I'm working on.
Having designed this system to suit my natural ways of thinking, things work the way I expect them to, and I know that when the time next comes to throw up a menu or open a minigame or change to a different game play style or whatever, it's just a matter of pushing the right module into action and letting it take care of itself from there.

Caveat: The Gyhart design is not drop & run compatible with the Torque Game Builder / Level Editor; I've not even tried to make it so. I use the TGB tools seperately to build content (and they're extremely handy for it), but my 'home' for implimenting most of this is a code editor, not a level builder.

My apologies to anyone for whom this explaination was too dry or obvious or vague, I'm hoping to explain things better as I have more time and flesh out further aspects of the framework.

Recent Blog Posts
List:10/29/07 - Platforming with TGB
10/02/06 - Moving ever forward.
08/10/06 - Sandboxes, Shmups & Tilemaps
07/25/06 - Endless War
07/17/06 - Hitting the road.
07/10/06 - Weekend Warriors
07/06/06 - Sandboxing
07/05/06 - Gyhart Framework Design

Submit ResourceSubmit your own resources!

Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy   (Jul 05, 2006 at 15:03 GMT)
I would be interested in your ideas as well, Glen.
Keep the good work!

Oliver Rendelmann - DerR   (Jul 06, 2006 at 08:34 GMT)
Sounds pretty interesting, keep us posted. :) I'd also like to see this in action... it sounds like you implemented a script-based finite state machine system.

You must be a member and be logged in to either append comments or rate this resource.