GameLab
The N&M Games GameLab is an environment where players can create their own games and get them published to N&M Games. It has been introduced on May 4, 2023.
Concept
The GameLab is a place where players can build games by themselves, with medals, up to 5 custom sprites and a custom game image. When entering the GameLab, players will run into a menu where they have three game slots. Players can work on three games at a time. When creating a new game or editing an existing one, players will enter the GameLab Studio.
Requirements
Some requirements to use the N&M Games GameLab are:
- Knowledge of how N&M Games game names, descriptions and medals work;
- Knowledge of front-end JavaScript;
- And knowledge of HTML and CSS could help too.
GameLab Studio
The GameLab Studio is the location where players are able to work on their games.
Top bar
The studio has a top bar with:
- the N&M Games GameLab logo. Clicking on it causes the user to exit the GameLab Studio;
- a mode switcher. The studio has a play screen, edit screen and settings screen;
- your profile picture, username and the game name you are working on.
Note that this text is not (set as) your status!
Left bar
Below the top bar, there is also a bar on the left, including a switcher between:
- the file manager of your game, where you can view and edit your files and sprites;
- the code reference, which is very useful to create your game.
Main field
Finally, there is the main field, which displays, depending on the mode switcher in the top bar:
- In Play mode: the play canvas, with buttons to run the game at 60 frames per second, or just for one frame, or to restart the game as a whole;
- In Edit mode: a text field where the code of your HTML and JS file can be edited. Furthermore, it can work as an image viewer when opening a sprite. It also contains buttons to save and close files, or to change the game image, or to delete a sprite image;
- In Settings mode: the settings for the game: the name, description, medals and the feature to request publication to the public games.
Publication
When players finished working on their games, they can do a request to publish it from the Settings tab. Once this has been done, the game files and settings can no longer be modified. In the meantime, an N&M Games admin must review the game, and takes one of the following actions:
- Approve the game. Even though some small code snippets might be modified to work on the actual N&M Games play window or for optimization, no content-related changes will be made;
- Give some hints. When an admin thinks that the game is not ready for publication yet, he must send some hints to make it eligible for publication by chat. The attempt to publish it will be undone, so the game files can be modified again. Once the feedback is processed, the player can request the game again for publication, repeating this procedure;
- Revoke GameLab access. If a submission is remarkably in conflict with the Terms of Use, the game will be removed, along with all files and data. In some cases, the entire account can be banned as well.
Internal Links
- N&M Games GameLab (requires account to enter)