synSpace: Drone Runners -- StarMap Coding Tips

YOU WILL NEED:

Access to the Chrome browser, with a nice keyboard.
A working Google Drive, accessible by that Chrome Browser
Some sort of Google Drive plug-in that supports TEXT files. I use Drive Notepad
Your mobile device, with current copy of the game installed
Appropriate network access. Wifi preferred, for both the device and Chrome
An interest in learning the lua programming language, if you haven't already

You shouldn't need to spend any money to do this, given you already had Chrome and the mobile device, and yes, I probably charged you a couple bucks for the game itself. Note that Kindle Fire does not come automatically with GDrive access, since that requires a connection to "Google Play Services". I can only wave my hands as to whether YOUR kindle Fire is able to open g-drive files. Mine is not, so I use a Nexus tablet for script importing/testing.

YOUR WORK FLOW:

Read an example file until it makes sense, if ever
Make a new Google Drive TEXT file, starting with the example code
Make appealing changes
Add interesting extras
Remove irrelevant example crap
Put back in the crap that was not as irrelevant as you thought
Save your work (to Google Drive)
Start the game (synSpace: Drone Runners!) on your mobile device.
Launch a ship and open MENU/STARMAP/IMPORT FROM GOOGLE DRIVE
Follow google's instructions until you locate your starmap file.
Use the REFRESH option as needed to make sure you have the latest copy
I think the button is SELECT to start the import
The map should then automatically load with you on it.
Play with it, debug, and repeat.

Note that you are on a server while playtesting your work, and other people can drop in and live fetch a copy from you, if they choose to do so. However, no one has access to your Google Drive but you. The game only uses your Google Drive for the act of importing the text file. After that it is all peer to peer file transfer between players.

These 'live fetch copies' I alluded to above are not actually stored by the game and only exist in memory until the game is shut off. To make your test game a permanent published game you have to CLONE it (button on the map chooser panel). Thereafter it will appear 'forever' in your map chooser, and that of anyone else who plays it (they getting their copies peer to peer, but ultimately from your source copy). And 'forever' ends when you push the DELETE button :-)

WHY SHOULD YOU DO THIS AND OTHER RANDOM STATEMENTS

For kicks, man, for kicks!
I apologize for typing that. Hopefully it's fun and educational in the process
My goal is for it to be quick to add small stories with interesting characters
While the visualization today is little spaceships, I plan to move this to WoS:Rune Runners
The example script is just one way to do it. The API is very basic and its up to you to flesh it out
My plan is to move much of that example into a game library you can include or not
The API is message based, since this is all multithreaded to keep the animation smooth
As such you can write long lazy sections of code that take minutes to play out, without jamming the game
I am trying to foster a sort of 'screenplay' view, though not literally
You don't need deep lua knowledge if you just use my template.
Then you can just use simple commands without having to understand anything :-)
Of course, any typos at all and you might have difficulty debugging
And lua has some oddities, like -- for a comment marker, and you'll want to understand lua tables (easy)
My goal is for a map to be able to add truly interesting additional things
Though clearly much of that will just be through a long list of predefined properties
This is version 0 of the API, and one can expect change probably
But then, I work slowly.

I know budding programmers and authors have a zillion free coding opportunities available to them today, so just add this one to the list. I think it occupies its own niche somewhere :-) And you will definitely need access to other educational sources anyway, such as the lua.org site. But while the starmap script is entirely lua based, you don't HAVE to do anything all that complicated if you don't want to. And, a starmap can have no lua at all, and still be fun. You just need lua if you want NPCs that can interact with the player.