Creator's Starting Point

[Aleš Ulm 1725]

Well, hi there, ylander!

If you want to create your own game in Ylands, this post, done in a form of Frequently asked questions, will help you with your first steps.  If you need information, you can always head over to Ylands Wiki or ask here at the forum. 

General questions

How can I
 

... create my own game?

Games are created in the Editor - you can access that from the main game menu. Once there, you can start creating your world - or you can chose to start with a different map by selecting whatever you like under Editor/New.
 

... make games for PC / mobiles? How are they different?

From the Editor the games can be exported either as PC or Universal (Game Settings / Common Settings). PC games can be played on PC only - those can be larger, support features like real-time terrain modification. Universal games can be played both on PC and mobile devices and because of that you need to pay attention to the limitations (the most obvious is that they support MUCH smaller terrain). It's important to decide what platforms will your game support before you put too much effort into it. Please note that the Editor is by default setup to export Universal games - that only a quite limited area is available to you to build in.
 

... share my game with others?

Others can see and play your game when you export it from the Editor, upload it to workshop (simply by going to workshop.ylands.com, logging in and in "Your creations" press "Add creation") and make it public. Based on what kind of game that is (PC/Universal) players will be able to see it on PC or mobile platforms.
 

... test my game?

When testing game in single-player is enough, you can simply run your game in the editor by pressing F5 (or, if you just want to run or fly around the character mode enabled via O may be enough). If you want to test the game in multiplayer mode, you will have to export the game locally and host it in Peer 2 Peer mode so that your friends can join you. Information on how to make a local export can be found here (Wiki)
 

... earn Coyns with my game?

Please see the monetization section below.

 

Game genre

How can I

... create game genre XYZ? Is it even possible?    

Ylands is very flexible when it comes to creating your own games. The better your understanding of Visual Scripting is the more complex projects you can make. You can already work with various types of cameras (third-person, first-person, overhead, side-scroller - or define your own) and switch among them in run-time. You can control a character, drive a car, steer a ship. You can run, jump, fly, dive - you can do pretty much anything. You have a simple and intuitive UI editor at your disposal so you can do anything from ingame UI to games made completely from UI elements.

... will XYZ be possible later? What are your plans?

What is not currently possible and remains to be added in one of the future updates, is the ability to click into scene and process the result, so some specific types of games can be tricky to create. We are aware of that and will be providing a way of doing that in future.

 

Game world

How can I

... create a new game world? What types are there?

When you open a brand new world in your Editor, you can start editing literally on green field - but you can also go to Editor/New and have the Editor create

"Empty map" - if you want to start building out of nothing
"Flat map" - the default map consisting of nothing but flat terrain
"Sea map" - map consisting of sea surface
"Sandbox map" - there you can setup one specific yland in the sea
"Exploration map" - this will create several ylands, a map similar to which you can experience when playing Exploration. Please note, that unlike Exploration map the ylands here are of the same tier and there are no Random encounters present.

... how do I add existing objects?

There are well over 5000 objects of various types of objects you can place in your game. Those object can also be painted which gives you even more variants.  Just take a look under "Add entity". If you can't find something by browsing the categories, try searching via search field. 

... how do I create new objects?

In Ylands you can build large objects from smaller ones. Build your house with bricks and breams... or chocolate blocks. Or cheese. Create new objects by visually combining other ones. Take a look what amazing things has the community achieved already.

... how do I group objects?

Because objects in Ylands are often consisting of many smaller ones, it's important to group objects so that it's easier to work with them. Just select objects you want to be contained in the group and hit Create Group. You can also add existing object to existing group or select Edit Group if you want to operate with its objects without having to break to group. If you want to select a single object from the group and access its properties, double click it while holding Alt.

... how do I optimize my worlds? 

If you want your worlds to run as smooth as possible, you may want to start thinking about some simple optimization steps you can take when your structures become large and more complex. The obvious step is to use as little blocks as possible. If instead of four blocks you can use one larger, in the end you can save a great number of performance.

When you know some of your structures are finished, you can "weld" them. This process can be reversed at any time, but when you're working with a lot of entities (especially buildings made out of lots of blocks). When you weld objects together, they basically become one and because of that they even react as one in the game. So if you weld together a whole wall, you won't be able to destruct single bricks - but that is often not necessary. In the end it's up to you to decide what entities (or their parts) you want to leave unwelded.

 

Game world - interaction

How do I

... decide where my character spawns?

Where your character appears when the game starts is based on the position of Spawn point Game Logic object - it is already present in the world when you open a new one in the Editor. If , for example, you wanted for players to spawn at various places based on some logic, you could use Player Role Game Logic objects (which can even be divided among various Player Teams represented as well by specific Game Logic objects). With those you could define various "roles" and have them spawn at various spawn points. Or you can simply use the event OnPlayerSpawn present in the Spawn point and move the spawned player whenever you want to.  

... select what my character wears / has in the inventory?

Usually you want your character to start with some clothes equipped, maybe with a thing or two in their inventory or in their hands. This is where we also used the already mentioned Player Role Game Logic object. Put one in the game, set it up as you see fit and assign a Spawn point to it. Aaaand that's it! 
Of course you can change player's equipment or inventory from script, so you can do it as well in the script after the character is spawned - or any time later, like making a character fully equipped when they enter arena and so on.

... choose what kind of camera is used?

If you decide to use a different kind of camera, all you have to do is place a Custom Camera Game Logic object into the world and set it to the camera type you wish to use.  If you set this camera as "default" (and keep this Game Logic object enabled), after you start your game this camera will be active. You can have more than one custom camera in your world (you can have many of them)  and switch among them via Visual Script. You can, for example, have static cameras and activate them as players step into specific Trigger zones.

... make the game do something? How do I script?

Now this is where things get interesting. Every game object can have various scripts attached. Based on its type it possesses various events which are called on various occasions. So Trigger Zone has OnTriggerEntered which is called when something enters this zone. The script tiles attached to this event are run one by one as soon as this event occurs. For more information on scripting go here (Wiki)

... I adjust my world's rules?

Some of the world rules (like no player-to-player damage) can be set, when you starting a new game. If you want to do something more specific, you can do it again from the Visual Script. Just pick an entity and in one of its event (for example OnGameStart) set everything you want. You can have world when time is always set to a specific hour and never changes. World where it always snows or rains. There is so much you can set!
And all this doesn't have to be constant. You can adjust your world once or continuously. You can do it based on a timer or when a player does something. This is all up to you. 

 

 

Protected vs unprotected games

What is

... unprotected game?

If game in workshop is set to be protected, it never gets downloaded into players machine and it cannot be played locally. The only way how to play such a game is by joining our official server or renting private server and placing the game there. This is the only way how to protect user made games from simply copying their content and how to secure possible coyn transactions and persistent save data. Please note, that any game with either monetization or persistent save data is automatically set to be protected.

... unprotected game?

Unprotected game can be played on servers, but it can also be downloaded from workshop into players machine. User then can start local session of that game using for example peer to peer multiplayer. Unprotected game in workshop can possibly reach wider audience, but since it cannot contain monetization or persistent save data, it's more suitable for freeware games where creator doesn't care what people do with his creation.

 

Monetization

How do I

... get coyns from those who play my game?

When other players play your game, you can charge them by using Visual Scripting. What will be paid in your game is totally up to you - you can create your own store and sell items, make players pay to enter a certain part of game, to unlock a specific feature and many others. For every possible purchase place a Transaction Game Logic in your world, enable it via Visual Script when needed and then evaluate the resulting events. 

 

... find out what transaction have been processed in my game?

You can get a list of all the transaction made in your game scenario_id  in the last number_of_days days by executing this in the console:

/gettransactions scenario_id number_of_days

or

/gettransactions asset_id number_of_days

While finding out what scenario_id your game has is a bit tricky at this point (we're working on that) what asset_id it has can be found by opening the details of the game at Ylands Workshop and looking at the end of the www address. You will see something like workshop.ylands.com/asset/XXXX, where XXXX is the asset_id.

The results will be save as TransactionList.csv into the game folder. You can use this info to analyze your transactions and you can also localize transaction id for any transaction that you want to refund.

 

... refund player coyns they spend on some transaction if there was a problem?

If there is a problem with some of the transactions (usually resulting in player paying the coyns but not getting what they expected) they can report this to the creator, because the creator is always best suited to fixed (if a solution can't be found, players can always contact us). The creator can refund all the coyns players have paid. To do so, if the transaction isn't older than 7 days, it can be refunded via the following command

/refundtransaction transaction_id

 

Miscellaneous

How do I

...  get feedback from those who play my game?

When players feel they need to report anything to the game creator, they can do it via the screen accessible from within the Ingame Menu. Those reports are sent directly to the email the creator provided when creating the account. Those emails have standardized Subject and are sent from a single address so that they can be easily managed with some sort of filter. Please be aware that if a player wants the creator to reply, they need to provide an email address.