Luyren's RPG Platformer Kit - Playable Demo Showcase

Download it here for windows.

This is a playable-demo intended as a showcase of some of the features of my RPG Platformer kit, still under development. This kit will provide you with tools to create from simple "run and gun" games to metroidvanias with multiple party members and enthralling cutscenes, and everything in-between. Several aspects of this kit can also be used on top-down games with little to no effort as well.  This showcase features full-screen and gamepad support. All my behaviors are highly customizable, so the in-game menus, options and dialogs could have wildly different layouts, the attacks and skills could be done in different styles, and there are several elements that can be done automatically, such as experience progression and status growth.

The kit is also being made with no extensions, and pretty much 99% standard stencyl blocks. It will be available for purchase once it's done. I'm aiming for this year/beginning of next year, though I cannot provide a concrete release date. I am pretty much working full-time on this, and hope this can give you an idea of some of the stuff that's possible not only with the kit but with Stencyl itself, and what to look forward to.

This specific demo has been in intensive development for the past two weeks. I set a time limit to have it done by June 25th, but unexpected development issues kept popping up, among other things.  Even though I tried to use as many features as I could, I had to cut some that already exist on the kit but could not be fully implement in the demo. One that pained me to remove was the menu for individual character settings. I'd use that to configure A.I. settings in-game, but I didn't have time for that. Pathfinding is another area in need of further testing and fine-tunning. A day and night cycle relevant to the game is something I want to do for future versions as well.

While I think any piece of media should be evaluated by the information that it itself provides, I invite you to play it and look at it as a product showcase. I'm open to all forms of criticism and feedback, but I'm mostly interested in your opinions on the features, what you'd want to see or be able to do with the kit, and any bugs you might encounter while playing. I already have a list of stuff to fix/work on next (like some proper music and backgrounds), and will probably expand this demo to be a sort of "companion piece" to the kit, and have a new playable demo at a later date.

I'll use this thread to post updates on the kit from now on. Let me know if you have any questions, or want me to elaborate on how I made any of the stuff in the demo. I'll also post a gameplay video in the next few days, for those without a windows machine to play it.

Finally, I'll leave you all with a question: would you be interested on a live stream breaking down how this demo was made? I'd have to setup some stuff first, and that would probably be sometime next month. I'd love to do it if there's enough interest.

Thank you for playing and for reading this post!

Had a small update with a few bug fixes, updated link on the first post.
Buying skills was broken
Made the jump on the third screen easier
Increased the damage of the level 5 thunder magic.

I will play it soon!  Will it work on mobile?
I'd like to contribute! Day night cycle.  I have one somewhere.  It may use an extension to get actual device time and you can set the length of the day manualy as well
I also have a weather system I was making.  No extension and can get device ip for real world weather via open weather rest api.  Just needs the rest of the  particles added.. I have rain and snow done

What would be the best way for me to clean these files and make it easy for you to integrate?

I will play it soon!  Will it work on mobile?

Do you mean this demo? No, that one is for windows, sorry. I'll get a gameplay video of it soon for those unable to play it.

I'd like to contribute! Day night cycle.  I have one somewhere.  It may use an extension to get actual device time and you can set the length of the day manualy as well
I also have a weather system I was making.  No extension and can get device ip for real world weather via open weather rest api.  Just needs the rest of the  particles added.. I have rain and snow done

What would be the best way for me to clean these files and make it easy for you to integrate?

Day and night I meant in-game, like majora's mask. I already have that done, just didn't add anything in the demo that would use it. I'm doing my best so that your own behaviors and extensions can be seamlessly integrated with the kit.

Answering your question: the way you can integrate your stuff with the kit is in two ways:
1- By having the relevant information you want to use easily accessible.
For example, let's say the weather is just a text, stored in an attribute. So long as you have clearly defined an attribute or a global value (global value is how I call dynamic game attributes) that holds that information, my behaviors can retrieve that, and you can have NPCs comment on the weather, or enemies only spawn under certain conditions. Even some skills could only be performed under such conditions as well if you configure them as such.

2- Having relevant code on custom events or custom blocks
Custom events are easy to understand: you call a trigger and they execute. My behaviors always have options to call triggers, and you can use those. Custom blocks would need more work, of course, but I'll document exactly which behaviors and where in them you'd add custom blocks, as well as leaving some templates.

I mean the kit.  Will we be able to make mobile games with it... Or just desktop?
And sweet!  I love day and night stuff.  Great job.

I mean the kit.  Will we be able to make mobile games with it... Or just desktop?

It's just a kit. If you can make mobile games with Stencyl, you can make using the kit. I'm not using anything mobile specific though. I might take a look at that probably after the first version of this kit is released.

And sweet!  I love day and night stuff.  Great job.

Thanks!

Hi. I just played the demo. is incredible! this clearly shows the potential of stencyl.
My question is how much time is left for the complete kit and how much it will cost.
Thanks and I will keep an eye on the next changes!

Hi. I just played the demo. is incredible! this clearly shows the potential of stencyl.
My question is how much time is left for the complete kit and how much it will cost.
Thanks and I will keep an eye on the next changes!

Thanks for playing! I'm aiming for the end of this year at the latest, though that can change. I cannot predict the time documentation and sample content will take. As for price, for now I can say it will cost less than a stencyl subscription, still have to do some research on pricing and whatnot. Do note that some experience with Stencyl is still required: the tools you use can only take you as far as your knowledge and experience can take you, or something like that.

With that said, I'll have some resources available at an earlier date. I'm working now on a standalone version of the behaviors used for cutscenes, intended to work on any type of game, as a resource pack. This also helps the development of the kit, so hopefully that will be as useful for everyone as it's been useful for me.

Finally got around to playing it. It's really well made, i did notice a minor issue that makes it hard in certain instances. When your running left and trying to jump...it won't let  you perform them at the same time.  Which lowers your jump power a bit if you don't time the release of the run button in time with the press of the jump button.

Finally got around to playing it. It's really well made, i did notice a minor issue that makes it hard in certain instances. When your running left and trying to jump...it won't let  you perform them at the same time.  Which lowers your jump power a bit if you don't time the release of the run button in time with the press of the jump button.

That doesn't happen to me at all. If you change the controls for run and jump (or use a gamepad) does it still happen? Could be ghosting key issue, and if that's the case, changing the keys or using a gamepad should avoid it.

I loved your demo! The only problem I witnessed was the save/load game option's data menu, as it kept overwriting the files other than the file you save it in after it closes.

Thanks for playing! Someone else reported the saving issue, but I cannot reproduce it here no matter what I do.

Oh boy, am I bad at posting regularly... it's about time for an update here:

What's the state of the kit?
I've kept working on in since the demo in June. There wasn't really much "visual" work done since than. That is to say, most work was implementing features or optimizing/revising code, but the end result in-game would pretty much be the same as the demo I posted here already. That's what I tell myself as the reason to why I haven't posted much about it.

You might have seen that I released 3 resource packs since that demo though. My plan for those resource packs where twofold:

• Sharing specific aspects of the kit that could be more useful for more users than the entirety of the kit itself.
• Focus on those specific aspects, fine-tuning and optimizing them as best as I can.

I had to take them out of the kit into their own standalone environment, and make them work without the dependencies. The cutscene's system had a major overhaul in terms of formatting conditions and events, and that reflected in other aspects of the kit such as the menus and saving. The real pain was fixing something in the resource pack project, then going back to the kit and applying the same fixes there. And there were a ton of them.

Right now I'm working on a fourth resource pack, this time focused on the map system the kit uses. Pending a few bugs, I've already implemented all the new features and improvements I had planned for it. There's still documentation and sample content for it, and I'll post more about it later this week.

Do you have a release date planned?
In January I said I wanted to have it done by the end of the year. I can already say that it won't be the case. With the release of my cutscene pack and by talking with a few users, I've come to realise that documentation goes way beyond just writting a bunch of stuff. My original plan was to have a sample game, a documentation explaining how to customize basic things and how to configure some of the behaviors.

So here's my new plan:
I'll work on written documentation and "template" content. That is to say, a player character template, enemy template, a simple map, stuff that the end user can just copy or use as reference. It will be my main focus once my current resource pack is done.

If all goes well, I'll have the kit setup as early access by the end of February at the latest, hopefully before that. Afterwards I'll continue working on a short sample game that uses as much of the kit as possible. Along with that I'll take a stab at making video tutorials for it. I was encouraged to make video tutorials for the cutscene pack as well, and I already started planning those.

For reference, the kit has 146 actor behaviors and 17 scene behaviors. As much as the kit is already in a usable state, it would be a huge disservice if I just drop that on people without any guidance.

That's cool and all, but what can I do in the meantime?
As I said, my resource packs were created by isolating pieces of the kit for a more general use. You can find them here. If you decide to purchase the Cutscene Resource pack, it's the same cutscene system the Kit uses, missing only a couple features. If you learn to use that, you can easily transfer that knowledge to the kit.

If you don't want or can't purchase that resource pack, both RPG Elements and Miscellaneous Behaviors are free. The RPG system is the same use in the kit, again missing a couple of features.  You can download that and get familiar with those behaviors. Same goes for the Miscellaneous Behaviors pack and some of the special effects like particles, after images and color swap.

Or just use those in your games if they fit the job.

How can we track progress?
I created a twitter account. I just might post more regularly in there. I'm also pretty much always on Stencyl's Discord server, feel free to hit me up there.

That's it for now. Hope you all enjoy your end of year festivities!

Progress so far
If you follow my twitter or check the Discord server, these might be old news:

Camera Follow
I decided to tackle some settings variations of my camera behavior. There are options for rubber banding, variable speed, and a tolerance area before the camera starts moving.

Camera Lock
A new scene behavior that limits the camera position.

Menu Items
Add the option to discard items from the inventory.

Debug Mode
New actor behavior that serves both for debug and as a cheat engine. You can change values in-game, change scenes, create actors, and all around a nice tool to quickly test game elements and play test values.

Behavior Updates
The main AI behavior of the kit had a major overhaul. It didn't gain much in terms of features, but the way you customize it is more in line with the newer behaviors, and it is less of a mess. Same with one of the more versatile combat behaviors.

Whats next
There are two behaviors that I still want to create. First is Menu Storage, based on the item box from Resident Evil games. It could be used for switching items with NPCs as well. The second is a wolrd map/stage select . The idea for this one is based mostly on the world map from Odin Sphere Liefthrasir, but I already have some ideas on how to expand it for a few other styles.

Awesome!  Ive been following.  I'll definitely be getting this!