Simple

Simple Build 20230327 and Melee Prototype Release

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Simple logo with a chmmr running in the melee prototype

It’s been a long, long time coming but we’re finally releasing new tools and content for our extremely patient and supportive public. If you’ve never dived into our in-development development tool, Simple, or tried to check out and run our Super Melee prototype, now is a great time to give it a test if you’re willing to walk through some rickety, rocky stuff. Our hope is that, with this release, some people will have success being able to play networked Super Melee together. We still have oodles of work to do, and our documentation leaves a lot to be desired, but we hope with the help of our community, we’ll be able to get some people off the ground.

The most exciting part of this release for the layperson may access to our repaired networking functionality. We had it working internally for a long time but had a lot of challenges actually getting everything out the door for all of you. About a week ago, we did a live test on Friday’s stream with a community member who successfully hopped into melee with Dan, playing some Melee all the way from San Francisco to New Zealand!

The short and sweet guide to getting up and running on your Windows device is:

  • Grab Simple from https://pistolshrimp.itch.io/simple and extract it somewhere.
  • Run the included content_installer.exe in the install/ directory.
  • Open simple.exe , load the melee sim, and press play!

Below is a video of Dan walking through the steps, and you can also see more in-depth, but likely out-of-date and still incomplete, documentation on GitHub.

Does it work? Did you have any problems? We want to know! Please join us on Discord in the #simple channel and let us know!

Watch our live streams on Twitch to see Dan using Simple in the creation of UQM2 and learn how to use it, yourself!

Tool Release Notes

For the detail oriented or those already familiar with Simple, here are the release notes for the latest Simple build:

  • Breaking Changes:
    • viewer data changed from ini/rawtext to json. See example content (https://github.com/pistolshrimpgames/simple-content) for usage.
    • tool ini config now stored in User/ subdirectory within install. To preserve your simple.ini file, move it into User/ before running simple.exe.
  • viewer
    • Better GUI support (on-screen, dialogs) via CEGUI
    • Initial logging support (viewer.log)
    • Data now in JSON
    • Basic “off-screen” indicators and mini-map support for melee
  • simple
    • Continuous collision detection for physics.
    • Wrapping collision detection for physics.
    • UI: Terser display of lines of script, using icons rather than words in some places.
    • UI: Ctrl+H toggle display of unchanged inherited properties.
    • UI: Find in script.
    • UI: Enumeration and bit-flag support.
    • UI: Save/Load of running game in simple.
    • UI: ‘Conjure’ support in complex property initialization.
    • UI: Breakpoint support in complex property initialization.
    • UI: Backdrop color setting for script view window.
    • UI: CSV file support to consume definition batches (presumably from a spreadsheet).

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Simple Build 20220711

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Text Logo for Simple

A new build of Simple is available at https://pistolshrimp.itch.io/simple.

content_installer

Add content_installer.exe, which installs the latest content from our github repo and sets it up alongside Simple.

simple

Note: All ‘remembered open scripts’ in sims when upgrading to this version will be forgotten. You will have to re-open them in the UI.

  • Functionality: Separate sim ‘user layout’ files from the sim files themselves. New .sim.cfg files will be created which will track open files and their line locations for a given sim. Note: these files should not be included in any source control systems.
  • Functionality: Add Find in scripts: new ‘Find’ tab in the UI, Ctrl+F hotkey raises it as well.
  • Functionality: Create separate log outputs for different error levels which are displayed in the UI. Designer-added prints and errors are together, and warning/notice/info elements are in a separate group.
  • Runtime/Tool: Various crash fixes.
  • Runtime: Add additional warning and notice logging for property initializations.
  • Runtime: More varied random numbers.
  • Runtime: Save State fixes.
  • Script: Add new mods markup for extensions, which causes any Conjures of that component (and its extensions) to also receive the mod, which may include alternate property initializations and additional script SECTIONs.
  • Script: Support complex initialization for synchronized properties.
  • Script: Add some limited implementations of orientation arithmetic.
  • Script: Fixes for problems when accessing singletons.
  • UI: Fix crash when trying to Conjure a in a repeat Filter.
  • UI: Fix being able to set failable on a Conjure’s property initialization.
  • UI: Fix casting a UI Capture to a collection.
  • UI: When working with multiple sims, add logic which organizes the definitions list based on what sims contain what definitions.
  • Physics: Minor fixes for Capsule Shape behavior.
  • Physics: Fixes for occasional crashes when handling Capsule Shape collisions.
  • Breakpoint crash/leak fixes.
  • Fixes for errors when running simple if the last known .sim file cannot be opened.

viewer

  • Initial support work for CEGUI.

Questions about using Simple? Join our Discord.

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Simple Build 20220608

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A new build of Simple is available at https://pistolshrimp.itch.io/simple.

simple

  • Fixes for running executable from certain unique paths.
  • UI: Add support for changing script text size.
  • UI: Fixes for entering numbers in different locales (commas/period separators).
  • UI: Line number display fixes.
  • UI: Add unique button for dropping in to a local multiplayer game.
  • Physics: Collision body damping properties work better.

view

  • Fixes for certain OpenGL failures.

Questions about using Simple? Join our Discord.

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Simple and Melee Gameplay Now Available

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Simple editor alongside Chmmr in the game

Pistol Shrimp is excited to announce the very early release of Simple, our development tool for The Ur-Quan Masters 2. We’re also releasing some sample content, including our in-development Melee gameplay. This means you and your friends—or enemies—can start playing and tinkering with a slice of our game.

Now, before you get too excited—we’re the excited ones here, remember—we want to make sure you know what to expect. Our tools and content are under heavy development and far from finished, and there will be lots of rough edges on display. (We’ve only had a limited number of devices to test on, and we’re a very small team!) We expect to provide updates to Simple on an ongoing basis, and we’ve made a start at some documentation. Additionally, our twice-weekly livestreams are a good source of information and examples.

We made Simple for us, but at heart we are explorers, experimenters, and tinkerers. We want anyone with curiosity to be able to try making and playing with things, even if they’ve never tried before. With that in mind, we’re happy to be able to license the Simple binaries under a Creative Commons license and the example/Melee content under an MIT license. Play, create, have fun, and share with others freely. We want to know what your experience is like, and we especially want to see if you make anything wild, weird, or fun!

Simple and the content we’re providing are free for everyone. If you like what we’re doing and want to support us in developing The Ur-Quan Masters 2, you can hit our itch.io page linked below. We’ll also have a Patreon coming online soon! Follow these links to get started:

Questions or feedback? See the FAQ or comment on Reddit.

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