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Is there a reason it has been very quiet around here? Yes, because StoryDev 1.1 has been in developmentand many design implementations considered for the editor. No new engine features have been implemented, but StoryDev in this version will incude some new features that will help you expand it further.

Plugin Manager

The Plugin Manager is a manager that will allow you to enable/disable plugins without needing to restart the client - it is completely dynamic. There will be two different types of Plugins; Engine and Editor.

Editor plugins will be in the form of DLL files, with a Main.Initialise() function that will be executed when the plugin is enabled. Main.Deinitialise() is the function used to disable the plugin. A Plugin API will be released along with StoryDev 1.1 at a later date.

In addition, you will be able to extend the source code of the engine and share this code without needing to redistribute the entire package. Along with your editor plugin, you can add a folder "engine" that StoryDev will copy into the engine folder of the game the user is working on. Again, an API for the engine will be developed to allow the extension of scripting and in-game components.

StoryDev Changes

No actual changes to the Interface will be made, apart from the new Plugin feature that will be added to the options menu.

JSON Builder

The JSON Builder, which will in fact be a plugin in itself, will give you the ability to develop extendable JSON functionality for your game and be able to write data using generated forms. This is a plugin that will take some time, and will be developed later once StoryDev 1.1 is released and stable.

Thank you for your patience in advance while we continue to work on these features.

Here are the Patch Notes for the release of version 1.0.5.

Engine

• Added newLine() function to be used when adding links via code to prevent parsing issues.
  
• callEvent() can be used in links again.
  
• Added arrows beside the Volumes and Quality control to solve scrolling issues when targeting the Web (using Flash).
  

I missed out on writing the Patch Notes for 1.0.3, but here they are plus the patch notes for 1.0.4. You can download the latest version of StoryDev here.

Patch Notes 1.0.3

• Revamped Game Events; the callEvent(); function can no longer be used with links to fix a problem with the same function outside of links.
  

Patch Notes for 1.0.2

The editor has been updated to fix some issues:

• Fixed a bug causing an item to crash the application when clicked twice.
  
• Fixed parsing of strings in the exported JSON (use single quotes for coding strings, and double quotes for JSON within single quotes).
  
• Fixed the delete function.
  
• Added a message for successfully saving and loading projects.
  

The engine and editor has now been released, and can be found over on our Products page. In addition, we will be writing some documentation with the editor to help you get started with it. We currently already have documentation for the engine, which can be found on Github: https://github.com/brutalexcess/StoryDev-Engine/wiki.

Here is a list of features to expect from the engine:

• Write Passages with Markdown-style formatting to present rich text.
  
• Write code in Passages and Game Events to add game mechanics to your passages.
  
• Use the Haxe Math class to execute complex algorithms.
  
• Customise the look of font colours, sizes and format of links and raw text.
  
• Transition the size and location of the Passage and Character Images.
  
• Display Character and Background images
  
• Play sound files on multiple channels
  
• Use JSON to get creative and make complex data such as enemies, RPG-style combat and even a custom modification on top of this engine.
  

StoryDev is an interactive story engine that is developed in the Haxe programming language for multi-platform support. It is an open source project currently being managed by MintPaw, who is considered the Lead developer for the project, while I gave support and design for it.

So what is StoryDev and what makes it so special from other interactive story engines/editors?

Well, firstly StoryDev does not use HTML5 for its output. The one thing that will put people off HTML5 is its open source nature - copyright infringement on these kinds of material is extremely easy, lacks any kind of security, and web browser developer tools can manipulate such engines in such a way to allow the player to cheat their way through such engines like Twine and other like interactive story engines.

StoryDev is an open source engine, but since it is written in Haxe, it needs to be compiled first. That means it is far more difficult to cheat your way through an interactive story. Why you would to begin with is very strange, indeed, but it is still something to consider if you want to write your own interactive stories with complex functions.

StoryDev can also use Haxe in Passage text directly so that you can have access to many functions. You have access to the Math and JSON classes within Haxe, which means that you can do complex mathematical operations and manipulate game data using JSON objects. The engine has native support for sound, music, art and text styles. Ironically, Passages accept HTML, but it is limited to the same functionality as Flash HTML text.

These are among the features you can expect from this engine, as well as some fancy transitions. But how about actually creating an editor?

This is still being designed/created... I have been attempting to create an editor that works well with the engine without taking away essential writing tools. Because of the nature of the engine, and since you can write Haxe code directly into Passages, that means simply writing text as if it were an ordinary passage will not work. This makes designing the editor much more frustrating than you would otherwise think, and I may need your help.

The engine, by the way, can be found on Github: https://github.com/brutalexcess/StoryDev-Engine.

If you wish to contribute to the potential editor to help authors write interactive stories, you can do so by contributing to my existing editor, which is currently "paused" as a consequence of its code complexity. I am considering re-writing the entire thing from scratch, but it depends on what you contributors think, and to use C# or Haxe. C# has more support for the language, for obvious reasons - it is more mature and has a large community. Haxe, on the other hand, while it has matured its support is no where near as large as C#, but has potential to be.

The editor can be found here: https://github.com/brutalexcess/StoryDev