State of the Project: February 2019

It’s been about 2 and a half years since I first got the itch to build my own RPG (open sourcing as much of the engine code as possible) and about a year and a half since I started putting consistent effort into this project. In that time I have gained a better understanding of how the pieces fit together in LibGDX and how I can present framework components, such that game authoring is focused on content generation and configuration as much as possible. Continue reading

JRPG-Engine Stat System

At the time of this blog post jrpg-engine is still in development (pre-1.0). APIs referneced in this post may change before 1.0 release. Stats in a RPG are how we model the differences between entities in the game simulation. The warrior with Strength of 25 is likely to deal more damage with a standard physical attack than the mage with Strength of 8. Continue reading

LibGDX: Apply Gradient Effect to Center Patch of Ninepatch

The basic building block of UIs in JRPG Engine is the panel. They are used to break up content on menus, display dialog between characters and render messages to the player. A Dialog Panel from Final Fantasy VI A Panel in JRPG Engine is a Scene2D Container with a themed background Drawable. The easiest type of Drawable to for Panels is LibGDX’s NinePatch Drawable. A NinePatch is an image that is divided into a 3x3 grid of patches that can be stretched such that the center patch stretches to fill most of the Drawable area. Continue reading