Playing inside the editor
How to play your game without leaving the editor 0.4.0, with the Playing strip, Restart and Stop, the dropdown to play here or watch the bot, the difficulty and the Console.
DescribesEditor 0.4.0 For creating without programming
On this page
Play runs your game inside the editor, in the same place where the viewport was. It is the real game, with the same start screen, the same pause and the same ending that people will see when they open it in the launcher.
There are two ways to test: playing it yourself, which is what this page explains, and having the test bot play it with no screen and on every difficulty, which is in Test bot.
Play#
Press Play or F5.
The viewport switches to game mode. A Playing tab opens and your game's start screen appears, with the name, the author, the description and the version you put on the Game card.
- Pick the difficulty.
- Press Play on the game's screen.
- Play. The controls are those of the kind of game; in third person, W A S D to walk, the mouse to turn the camera and Space to jump. The Controls dropdown on the start screen lists them.
The Playing strip#
Above the match there is a green strip.
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| Playing | With the state of the match next to it, in the interface language: ready to start, in game or game over with its result, and the frames per second. "Game over" only shows once the end screen is visible. |
| Restart | Starts the match again. |
| Stop and back to editing | Closes the match and brings the viewport back. Also Esc or Shift+F5. |
While you play, the Play button at the top becomes Stop, in red, and the status bar says Playing.
The end of the match#
On winning or losing, the game shows its end screen, with the result, your mark labeled Score or Time depending on how the game is measured, the Play again and Change difficulty buttons and, below, the table of best marks. The Console logs the result.
Press Stop and back to editing to keep working.
The Play dropdown#
Next to Play there is a dropdown with more ways to start. In Simple mode it is the arrow attached to the button; in Full mode, the button on the left, which says how the match starts (From the start, With bot…).
| Option | What it does | Shortcut |
|---|---|---|
| Play from the start | Spawns at the first spawn point. It is the usual one. | F5 |
| Play here | Spawns where the editor camera looks. | Alt+F5 |
| Watch the bot play | The test bot plays the game on screen. | |
| Test with bot | Headless, on every difficulty. | Ctrl+F5 |
The first three stay selected: F5 repeats the last one you used.
In a game that declares local multiplayer, the dropdown adds Test multiplayer: see Local multiplayer.
Play here#
It lets you test the end of a long level without going through all of it.
- In the viewport, take the camera to the place you want to test.
- Press Alt+F5.
The player spawns where the camera was looking, instead of at the start.
Watch the bot play#
The bot plays a match with the screen on, so you can see where it goes and where it gets stuck. The strip says Playing · bot at the controls and the game shows the label "Demo: the bot is playing".
The difficulty#
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pick it when starting | The game's start screen asks, as in the launcher. |
| Easy, Normal, Hard | The match always uses that difficulty. Useful when you are tuning one in particular. |
The Console#
The Console panel (Alt+0) shows the game's messages while you test it: what juego.registro(...) writes from the code and script errors. In Simple mode it opens by itself when you play.
Each line carries the time. The editor also logs its own:
| Line | When it appears |
|---|---|
| "Game starts." | On pressing Play. |
| "Playing on "Normal", seed …" | On starting to play: the difficulty, with the name the player sees, and the random seed of that match. |
| "Game over: victory, score 2, 3.0 s." | On finishing. |
| "Game closed." | On stopping the match. |
| "The bot starts testing the game on every difficulty.", one line per match, such as "Easy · seed 1: victory, 3.0 s of play", and at the end "Test passed: the bot finished the game on every difficulty." | During Test with bot. If a match fails, its line carries the reason, in words. |
| "Before playing, … changed asset was exported into the game: …" | On playing, testing with the bot or exporting, if you changed something in the asset workshop since last time. |
| "Game exported: …" | On exporting. |
The trash button, on the right, clears the console.
If a match cuts off#
Very occasionally, a live match can cut off by itself because of an internal physics failure: the match stops without you having done anything wrong. It is not an error in your game and it does not repeat in the same place. Just press Restart or Play again.
Test with bot and Export do not suffer from this: if one of their matches dies from that failure, they repeat it by themselves and you see nothing.
Next#
- Test bot: check that the game can be finished on every difficulty.
- Local multiplayer: test with two, three or four.
- Game card, export and share: once the game works.