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[IndigoFenix]

BoundWorlds
The Patchwork Universe Project

What is BoundWorlds?

BoundWorlds is a browser-based RPG/exploration game/game maker with a twist.

In it, you control a nameless traveler who wanders from world to world through portals called 'Gates', meeting NPCs, solving puzzles, overcoming obstacles, and exploring the collective dreamscape that is the BoundWorlds universe.  But that's only half of the game.  Because all of the worlds you explore are drawn, designed, and patched together by players such as yourself.

Unlike most 'design your own level' games, the BoundWorlds 'Hub' is not a point where all the levels are accessed.  Instead, it serves only as the starting point on your traveler's journey.  When designing a world, you can create exits that lead to whichever world you choose.  BoundWorlds has a cohesive, network-like geography as a result.

You don't have to design a full game to create a part of the BoundWorlds network.  One player's dungeon can become a part of another player's overworld.  An artfully designed hallway can serve as a corridor between two separate worlds.  A painting-filled castle in the sky can become a nexus for multiple levels designed by different players.  And so on...

Here is the site: http://boundworlds.com/.

BoundWorlds runs on Flash.  Depending on your browser's settings, you may need to do a full reload (ctrl+f5) after an update to use new features.

Controls:
Arrow keys: Move
Space bar: Interact
Shift: Dash
Escape: Return to the starting room

Current Features

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Create rooms up to 256x256 tiles in size and link them together
Import custom images stored on any image hosting site and use them to construct your own personalized tilesets and sprite graphics
Import parallax-scrolling, transparent, and rotating background images for panorama effects
Import background music
Create unlimited layers in any room - allows multiple tilesets and pseudo-3D geography (by moving the player between layers)
NPC sprites with customizable graphics (using charas-project.net or RPG Maker VX conventions)
NPCs can display lines of dialogue and more at the simple click of a button
Stock NPC behavior - random motion, pacing back and forth, chase or flee from the player
Advanced Scripting system allows you to make collectible items, key doors, jump/teleport pads, cutscenes, custom variables, collisions, and more

Planned features

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In-game sound or music playing functions
Dynamic file loading
Persistent items that can store data over multiple sessions
Messaging system that allows you to send a link to one of your Gates to a particular player
Custom sprite animations
Transition effects
More stock puzzle behavior - frictionless ice, etc.
Get and set basic in-game variables through functions
Function to switch player sprite
Particle and lighting effects

Screenshots

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

World building

World building using imported graphics

[My Name is Immaterial]

Interesting. PTW.

[Bouchart]

So with all of this user generated content, how do you handle quality control?

[IndigoFenix]

So with all of this user generated content, how do you handle quality control?

The users themselves handle it.  Since world builders will only link to the worlds they like, and the only way for an explorer to reach a world is by traveling though a gate from someone else's world, the higher quality content will naturally become more accessible when exploring from the Hub.

[aristabulus]

It sounds like Metaplace 2.0 on paper, right down to the building it on top of Flash.

What is being done to keep load times reasonable?  Because you know that the average kid that Wants To Make A Thing doesn't have a clue about memory budgets, polygon counts, etc.

[IndigoFenix]

What is being done to keep load times reasonable?  Because you know that the average kid that Wants To Make A Thing doesn't have a clue about memory budgets, polygon counts, etc.

Load times can be an issue right now, especially when loading large, offsite resources, but dynamic resource loading is planned.  The world builder will have to arrange this themselves, but doing this properly will simply go into the overall quality of a world.

It sounds like Metaplace 2.0 on paper, right down to the building it on top of Flash.

EDIT: Just checked out Metaplace.  Wow, that DOES seem similar.  Seeing as how Metaplace seems to have fallen a while ago, studying their mistakes may be worthwhile to avoid the same thing happening here.

EDIT2: A few notable differences: while Metaplace seems to have been based on making a MMORPG, BoundWorlds is primarily a single-player experience in the style of RPG Maker/Final Fantasy.  While the lack of proper multiplayer might not seem like much of an advantage, it does facilitate detailed plotlines, puzzle elements, and other systems that are harder to make work with a multiplayer engine.

[IndigoFenix]

Updated:

BoundWorlds now has sound playing, image preloading, and several new functions in the basic function editor.  Hover the mouse over the items in the basic function editor to find out what they do.

There is also an option to edit the world's code directly through a text editor.  Data is stored in XML format.  This method can allow you to do things that the normal editor does not allow, but be warned that abusing this may cause your world to break in later updates.