After much thinking, I’m likely to build out the universe/level/story design system using HTML/CSS/PHP/JS/MySQL.

It may sound a bit odd, but with this type of game it actually makes a lot of sense.

Most everything is laid out in a 2D array when it comes to sectors and planets/stations, so a table view is kind of perfect for that. Plus, I can save each area out under it’s own sector and reload whenever I want in order to do adjustments. Then I can connect a popup to a planet (for example) and fill in information such as what kind of map the planet will have, which resourses to use, etc.

When it comes to the storyline, it’s basically the same idea, but with forms and steps instead of sectors.

It doesn’t give a fantastic visual representation of what’s happening, no, but it gives a cerebral one. Seeing that this is kind of old-skool, I think it works fine.

Besides, this isn’t something the player will see, of course. They’ll get the graphic representation. This is just for the person handling the design/mission work. They can then ingest the exported JSON files into the game engine and test shit out.

The biggest advantage, if I’m being honest, comes in the way of speed-of-development. Secondarily would be easy-of-development. Why bust my nuts in order to have a highly-graphical interface for something like this?

So, yeah, HTML/CSS/PHP/JS/MySQL it is!

Progress

• Plan is in place for the level design stuff.
• I may have even already started building the tables in the DB…WHAAAT? 😀