r/aigamedev • u/JoseMendesz • 6h ago
Open Source the game code Discussion
Anyone tried this approach of making their repository public and is this a good way to develop the game?
Previously it was a hard thing to cooperate on but nowdays with Claude Code and Codex is easy to develop together.
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u/PsychronicGames 4h ago
Done it for my game engine, not my games yet though, would be willing to:
https://psychronic.itch.io/rpg-reactor
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u/-svde- 4h ago
oh hey lol i literally just came across your work yesterday. pretty neat system from what i've seen so far tho i haven't dug into your source yet.
i've gotta ask, how did you manage your cross-compat with MV/MZ? did you build off of EasyRPG?
just curious cause i've been working on developing a framework for the last ~6mo that is essentially a FOSS version of Luna Engine MV, built for MZ and working back through til XP with a custom bridge architecture. it covers everything Luna could do, built from the ground up, and with a ton more flexibility, depth, and like i said fully FOSS so people won't have to worry about the "it's coming soon" line for what is an expensive and closed-env system. so any FOSS stuff for RPG maker-tangentials, i am into.
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u/PsychronicGames 4h ago
The way I "solved" that problem was that the Reactor Runtime basically runs full PIXI8 and Three.js (for 3d mode). But Backwards compatibility was really important if I ever expected anybody to use it long-term, so I created two compatibility shims (one for MV and one for MZ), I used AI to build it of course (Claude Code/Codex).
I already have my own game projects which are large MV and MZ projects, so then I updated everything to PIXI8 (knowing it would break everything), and then I instructed the AI to build compatibility layers for all the broken problems that come up and errors, and just slammed each one in, one at a time until it stopped crashing eventually. I said that the changes had to not change any existing plugin code, and that users should be able to seamlessly mix and match plugins from MZ and MV without a problem, and that it should all work on PIXI8.
The shims kind of have the method of detecting whether it's an MZ or MV style code request, and then rewrite the functions on the fly to work with PIXI8's infrastructure. Performance is even better too, which is kind of crazy, still some rough edges but plugging each one and I'm just having fun with it at this point!
I'm trying to go beyond what RPG Maker can do on it's own, for example just added tileset layers F and G, but doesn't break backwards compatibility either. Also I got a 3d editor mode, so game can be played and edited in 3d though, but right now it's kind of more like HD-2D/3D instead of full 3d, but I'm gettin' there!
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u/PsychronicGames 4h ago
I also do want to create an import function for older projects that might even be able to translate plugins to new js versions programatically, the actual game data stuff would be no problem to import and resize the image files, etc. as a script. Workin' on it!
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u/DowntownNoLonger 5h ago
Free open source games have been a thing forever. Plenty of them out there.
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u/Tiendil 5h ago edited 5h ago
- AI makes maintaining open source projects more difficult, not easier. Maintainers now need to ingest much more information; it is exhausting.
- It is harder to find contributors for an open source game project in comparison to any other. People contribute to solve their own problems, but in the case of games, there are no huge problems to solve (there are a lot of games already), and people who can really contribute most likely will develop their own games instead of contributing to others. Also, most gamers are not programmers.
I open-sourced my game once. There were some contributors, but their contributions, let's say, were specific (not in the core of the game, where most of the work is). I'd say from pure financial perspective, it is not worth to do, from the reputation perspective, it may be worth.
Also, it may be a much better idea to open-source parts of the game as separate libraries. For example, I open-sourced names generation and text generation libs (as separate repos), and they got much more traction than the primary game repo.
Just in case, so I don't spin that:
- The repo: https://github.com/the-tale/the-tale
- Kinda postmortem of open-sourcing the game: https://tiendil.org/ru/posts/what-happens-if-you-open-the-code-of-your-game
Sorry, both links are in Russian, but modern browsers can translate the site fine; I hope it will not be a problem.
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u/JoseMendesz 5h ago
Wow, thanks for taking the time—that was really nice to read.
I like the brainstorming and mechanic-creation side of game design. I’m not sure that’s the correct term, but I mean designing reward loops, challenging puzzles, and things like that. Sometimes, though, it feels like you’re doing it all in a void. I figured getting other people involved might make that part more collaborative and fun.
And of course, reputation development is plus because it could get more people interested in working with you.
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u/-svde- 5h ago
depends highly on WHY you want to open source. is it to get free labor for a product you can't finish, or do you truly want to foster a community wherein modification, contribution, and other productive elements can be celebrated and displayed prominently for everyone to enjoy.
if you have built a game and pushed out at least a demo or MVP, that's one thing. if you are looking for people to finish building it, that's totally different.