About TBG

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The TBG Engine Suite is a set of GUI based tools being developed to create Text Based Games. The TBG Engine is currently being developed for Microsoft’s Windows XP, Microsoft’s PocketPC 2003 and Windows Mobile compatible devices.

The TBG Engine has been written in Visual Basic.Net 2003 and the Mobile version of the engine is being written in Basic4PPC. The Source code to both the PC and Mobile version of the engine can be downloaded and modified to fit each developers needs for his\her projects. The source code has been well documented and the TBG Engine Suite includes a complete set of tutorials on how to use the TBG game development tools and how the source code is laid out, what the major components are and what the differences are between the Mobile version and the PC version.

The TBG Engine currently includes 6 editors\tools that developers will use to design their text based games. Each editor will work the same on both the PC and Mobile versions of the engine. While the editors might look a little different you can achieve the same results, regardless of which platform you are currently running the Engine suite on.

The included 6 editors are listed below along with an explanation of how the editor is used in the course of development.

ENGINE FEATURES:

A Project Editor:

In-Editor project testing

Built in project publisher will publish all of your project files into a single directory with the correct directory structure created for your project and each file placed into each folder that it belongs to.

Creates required directories and files as needed so you don't need to worry about the engine crashing if a file or folder is missing.

World Editor:

Create worlds which can hold an unlimited number of rooms for creating huge environments.

Rooms are easily linked together and each linked doorway can have a custom description or you can use a default.

Items, NPC's, Monsters and other objects are easily placed within your room and can either use a default room description or a custom description.

Item Editor:

Create an item that can heal you, damage you or increase an attribute. All using a simple Item Wizard.

Future release of the engine will allow you to import a single item or all of your items from another project.

NPC Editor:

Allows for dialog branching so the player can have a detailed conversation with different choices to make during the conversation.

Future release of the engine will allow the npc's to give the player specific items such as Gold, weapons or status increase.

Future release of the engine will allow the players decisions during conversations to adjust and modify how the game reacts and the environments that become available to the user.

Monster editor:

You can create your own custom races, Monster genders and assign them skills from the included skills editor (Not implemented into the runtimes yet)

Skills Editor:

Create your own custom skill categories which can each hold thousands of skills.

Everything is customizable. Custom usage messages, evade messages or you can use the default ones.

Included with the TBG Engine Suite is the TBG Runtime, which allows you to play the projects that are created with the TBG Engine tools. The runtime works similar to a MUD styled game. The user enters commands through text and the engine outputs the results to the window. There is an optional GUI that can be turned on or off, allowing the users to move about the rooms with the click of a button. A default value for the runtime GUI can be set using the Project Editor. Even if the GUI is turned off by default the user can still enter a command (listed under the engines default 'Help' command) and turn on\off the runtime GUI.

The PC version of the Engines source code has been written in Visual Basic.NET 2003, and has been well documented and commented. In order for the developer to run the engine he\she will need to have the .Net Framework 1.1 installed. Any difference between the PC and Mobile versions source code will be documented in the documentation and not the source code.

A Pre-Alpha version of the suite is almost ready to be released with a very limited version of the Mobile Engine, however a Mobile version synced with all the features currently available on the PC version will be released sometime in early 2007.

Currently only the PC version of the engine is included in the TBG Suite. The current version is V1.2.9(Not available for Download) and this will be the only version released until the Mobile edition is completed. At that point both editions will be part of the TBG Suite and as updates are released the TBG Suite version will change updating both the PC and Mobile platform. There will not be a PC Version 1.3.4 and a Mobile Version 1.2.3. Having two different editions of the Engine with two different versions makes things difficult to keep track of for the developer downloading the engine. Both the PC and the Mobile engines will have the same version when updates are released.

The Mobile version of the engine is currently being written in Basic4PPC, a Visual Basic styled programming language. The developer will need to purchase a copy of Basic4PPC in order to compile any changes made to it for mobile devices. The Mobile version of the engine includes both the editing tools and the runtimes allowing developers to create, maintain and play their projects on the go, then sync their devices at the end of the day with the PC's and continue to develop or play the project on the PC right where they left off on the Mobile device. Only mobile platforms supported are Pocket PC 2003 and Windows Mobile 5.0, which requires the Compact .net Framework to be installed ONLY if the developer purchases a copy of the Basic4PPC and wants to make changes to the original source code. The framework is not needed for the TBG Mobile Engine Suite.

As future updates to the engine are made more additions will be made to these editors and more editors will be included (like a Shop Editor, Vehicle editor, player editor and party editor) along with the future implementation of networking.