Chrono Trigger HTML5 Engine?

[fernandoc1]

Do someone have any news about an Chrono Trigger HTML5 Engine?
If not, I would like to help build one in my spare time.
HTML5 in my opinion is the best technology to recreate anything based on the older Super Nintendo, because it's very capable to create graphics better than SNes and it is the most cross platform programming environment ever released, with support for nearly every device that we use today.
If someone is interested, let me know!

[Schala Zeal]

OMG! Yes! Yes!

[tushantin]

(WARNING: After the recent C&D event, the Compendium has stopped endorsing any mods or remakes of any Chrono franchise. Fanworks may still exist, but nothing technical will ever be dabbled with, and as such you may want to take such projects outside the forums. Not that we don't support it, but because we simply can't support it anymore.)

I'm no programmer, but I certainly am interested in a CT-like engine for an original game! Although, I'm not sure if an HTML5 engine exists yet, or whether someone has been working on it, I think I did find a similar OpenSource engine that was still in development (and knowing what "open source" means, you can modify the engine as you please with all the codes you can muster). Now, where did I keep that link...

Ah, here we go: http://rpgjs.com/

Alternatively, there's this: http://rpgcreator.net/

[Schala Zeal]

Tush, you're a godsend. As for a Chrono remake, why remake it as the same 2D RPG? Why not remake Crimson Echoes or Prophet's Guile in HTML5? That would prove beneficial instead.

[fernandoc1]

My idea is to create a game that resembles Chrono Trigger in all aspects, but has no explicit mention of the original work, or the Characters are not crude copies of the original ones.
I don't think that Square Enix will be able to stop a community base game that is only an original reconstruction of their work, because we will not touch their so "precious intellectual property".
We should be able to rename the characters and make as many modifications as we judge interesting.
I personally don't care about the Chrono's original history or their Characters. I liked that game for the game play and music.
Except for the music, I want to mimic only the gameplay, specially the battle system, which is what I loved most in the original game.

I'm discussing some technologies to be used in the development of this engine, on a post on Google+ Dart Community.
https://plus.google.com/104252588882890853673/posts/GBAq6NhZrQe
Dart seems to me to be a very interesting platform to create games for the Web because it has a much more intuitive Object Oriented structure, that resembles Java and C++, which I'm very familiar.

To begin the engine, I would like to discuss here, how Chrono Trigger Maps are designed, in terms of how to properly handle collisions with objects, how to see if a tile is walkable, how to put the layers, so the character can pass below a tree without it appearing above it, how deal with stairs, and any other topic which seems relevant.

So if someone have all these information, please, let me know.

[fernandoc1]

Hi everyone!

Is there any place where I can host the code that I'm producing for the Engine?
I'm building a sprite joinner, which join many tiles together and create a JSON as output, so we can use DartFlash resource manager.

[Schala Zeal]

DartFlash?

[fernandoc1]

DartFlash is a Open Web technology designed around the capabilities of the Dart Language.
For more information, please go here:
http://www.dartflash.com/index.html

It still in it's early stage, but I'm very confident it will be a great resource for the Web.

[tushantin]

Hi everyone!

Is there any place where I can host the code that I'm producing for the Engine?
I'm building a sprite joinner, which join many tiles together and create a JSON as output, so we can use DartFlash resource manager.

I guess there's only two code-specific hosting I can mention (considering I'm not a programmer, but do know a few general things about it): GitHub and Launchpad! Although, I'm quite confident you could use SourceForge and Google Code too.

[fernandoc1]

The problem here is not to host the code it self, but to publish HTML/javascript content on Chrono Compendium,
So people could try the progress of this work.

[tushantin]

The problem here is not to host the code it self, but to publish HTML/javascript content on Chrono Compendium,
So people could try the progress of this work.

In that case, that could be possible with Dropbox! It has the capacity to "host websites" too, limitedly, so there you have it.

And I would encourage using Dropbox rather than the Compendium's own server -- the latter which would be useful simply to keep version backups -- because Dropbox allows you to instantly change files and upload, which is more convenient than traditional manual means.

[fernandoc1]

Ok guys.
So I will be hosting my stuff here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23586678/index.html
Currently it only has a Packer tool that I had developed to work with the charsets.
Something working might follow.

[Schala Zeal]

I have been learning Dart and DartFlash since yesterday, trying to code a test RPG engine. However, I'm rather concerned if or not I can write a save file feature that allows you to save/load from your PC as opposed to cookies like Flash does - yuck.

[fernandoc1]

For SAVE/LOAD issues, you have many options:
 - Create a file (on the fly) that user can download an then load again when he wants to proceed.
 - Use HTML5 FileSystem API (http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/file/filesystem/)
 - Use Google Drive or Dropbox APIs to save users progress, so it is stored on the cloud.

On to make it clear, there are lots of advantages in doing anything that runs in a Browser, using HTML5 / Javascript / Dart over using outdated technologies like Flash and Java Applets.
One of the main advantages in my opinion is that it is very portable, and can run on all platforms that support HTML5, since Dart can be compiled to Javascript.
Using plugins, make it very hard to run this on iOS, Android, Playstation 3, Windows RT, Wii, Linux and Mac OS.

Another thing, is that you may need a tool to create your TextureAtlas for loading in DartFlash.
I have updated my HTML5 Packer tool, and it seems to be more stable now:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23586678/tools/packer.html

And Schala Zeal how is your DartFlash progress?
As you have already told in a post, it seems that you already know Actionscript.
I can confess that I never touched Flash development before.
So I would like to know if you wanna collaborate in this project?
I know a little of HTML5 development and it's APIs. However the default (and unique) language available is Javascript and I think that it is really hard to code large projects on working on it, because of it's syntax don't help Object Oriented coding.
So I had decided to do it in Dart. DartFlash is a framework that mimics Actionscript APIs and there are lots of caveats that helps coding, specially when dealing with loading resources.
So if you know Actionscript, maybe we can exchange some knowledge and create a great engine to mimic Chrono Trigger gameplay.

[Schala Zeal]

Would TexturePacker work? And well... I know a bit of Action Script, but I've never made anything with it. The hard part of a language for me is learning the APIs and coding algorithms and mathy stuff. I flat out blow at math.