Google Summer of Code: 2015

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ENIGMA, the Extensible Non-Interpreted Game Maker Augmentation, is an open source cross-platform game development environment derived from that of the popular software Game Maker. Its intention is to provide you with a quality game creation tool and a bridge between high- and low-level programming languages. It can be used either through an IDE, namely, its sister project, LateralGM, or through a Command line interface.

Like Game Maker, ENIGMA comprises both an easy to use Drag & Drop system as well as its own programming language. This programming language, known as EDL, is essentially a mix between C++ and Game Maker's GML. Part of ENIGMA's goal is to remain backwards compatible with Game Maker, serving for some intents and purposes as a Game Maker compiler, however, EDL offers many very powerful features which simply aren't present in the alternative. Such features include the ability to compile DLLs and other C/C++ scripts right into the program and access C++ types, templates, and functions.

This article gives a general outline of several tasks that could be completed by Google Summer of Code 2014 volunteers. Most ideas were created by top ENIGMA contributors, but a few ideas were created by ENIGMA users.

Students may join the ENIGMA IRC channel, #enigma on Freenode, or post on the forums if they have any questions or concerns.

Small functionality tweaks/additions

These are small tasks to get a student or potential contributor familiar with the inner-workings of ENIGMA. They are minor tasks which would take less time for a mentor to implement than explain, but they have actually not been done yet, and so are good candidates for introductory tasks.

  1. Rename resources whose names are not valid identifiers. Right now, ENIGMA will let you name a sprite "while" or "if" or "Mario's Cap" or "string." These resources can cause name conflicts and should be assigned a different name, or no name at all.
  2. Sound system improvements. The current implementations of sound_volume is not working, and sound_position is missing.
  3. Particle system features. The current particle system is missing attractors, and in general offers plenty of room for improvement.

API Extension Tasks

These are large, modular tasks which would require elevated interest in a topic. They are potentially the most fun and the most useful.

Add support for Scalable Vector Graphics

Description: ENIGMA currently supports only pre-rasterized graphics resources. This task would involve adding a method to rasterize vector graphics at compile-time. After that, at the student's option, this task could be extended to render vector graphics live in-game.

Prerequisites: Intermediate C++ level programmer. Prior experience with OpenVG is a plus. Prior experience with OpenGL is strongly encouraged, but not required.

Mentors: JoshDreamland

Further Box2D support

FEATURE REQUEST: ELABORATION REQUIRED

IDE Tasks

These are largish tasks which concern the IDE, which serve as umbrella projects. Students will have the option of working with Java for LateralGM (NGM) or with C++ using Qt for NaturalGM (NGM). NGM is a work-in-progress IDE intended to eventually replace LateralGM, but as NGM does not have a stable API, new LGM features are welcome and will be ported to NGM in the future.

Recode LateralGM frontend using JavaFX

Description: This is a large, UI-intensive task. Mentors would be able to assist, but the magnitude of work and learning curve seems too high for a GSoC task for an inexperienced student. Mentors would potentially not suffice.

Prerequisites: Beginner to intermediate Java programmer. JavaFX experience is a plus.

Mentors: JoshDreamland

Polygon editor

Description: To be used primarily for designing polygon collision masks. Work points include a marching-squares algorithm (or the like) for bitmap tracing, and a point editor.

Prerequisites: Beginner to intermediate Java programmer. Swing experience is a plus.

Mentors: JoshDreamland

Texture Groups

Description: Add support for generating texture atlases to the IDE, then support writing them in the backend (compiler).

Prerequisites: Beginner to intermediate Java programmer. Swing experience is a plus.

Mentors: JoshDreamland

Map Editor

Description: For use in the new NGM IDE. The goal is to create a new tile-based map editor from scratch with functionality such as flood fill, shapes and multi-selection (of which are not available in our old LGM editor). Map display will be done using OpenGL ES2, while all GUI will be done in Qt.

Additional features that may be added by discretion of the user include accelerated graphics (batching, etc) and a 3D map visualizer.

Prerequisites: Beginner to intermediate C++ programmer. Qt framework experience is a plus. Graphics programming experience is highly encouraged.

Mentors: JoshDreamland

Extremely Specialized

These tasks would be useful to the project, but require special skills or equipment. They are listed in case a student has a deep interest in a subject, coupled with existing skills. Mentors will be less able to assist with these tasks.

Support for virtual reality displays

Description: Add support for VR displays such as Oculus Rift. Design and implement a simple-to-use API for virtual reality development in existing games. This would require a VR device for testing, and the team does not presently have any experience with these APIs.

Prerequisites: Intermiate or highr C++ programmer.

Mentors: JoshDreamland