Learning to program and learning to design and produce video games can seem like a daunting task unless you have a set of tools at your disposal that offers an intuitive, powerful development environment – ideally supplemented by a wealth of useful tutorials, a committed developer and a strong community. For the past year, Gilles Pommereuil has been busy updating and improving microStudio, a FREE online game engine to aspiring and seasoned game developers. In less than a year, microStudio has experienced an exponential growth in registered users for its ease of use, set of features and developer support, and today marks the day when the engine’s Patreon community goes live.
microStudio is the perfect solution to game developers looking to create games, learn programming, play, share and prototype upcoming 2D titles. Your projects are stored in the cloud making them accessible from anywhere, and with its online integration, it has become easier to write your game code in microScript, a simple language inspired by Lua. With just a few lines of code you can get started, and it allows an entire team to work on a project with instant feedback; for example, you can code on your PC while playtesting instantaneously on your mobile device. The powerful built-in Sprite Editor allows you to create pixel art sprites and maps for use in your games, and while microStudio is still being developed, it already supports gamepad, touchscreen, keyboard and mouse input. Your final product can be exported to a host of clients such as HTML5, Windows, Linux, macOS with more to follow in the future!
microStudio is the product of Gilles Pommereuil, a 30-year veteran who started coding back in the 80s. It was created with passion from a real code warrior and is intended to always offer a free platform for game development and for educational purposes. microStudio will be fully open sourced in the near future. The only requirement is a browser, and the engines sprite- and map-editor are feature complete and future editors will make it possible to create original sound effects and full music tracks from within the engine. 22 interactive tutorials help you get started in just minutes, and you can learn from others, share or reuse content such as code, sprites or anything else that may be useful. microStudio is particularly suited for prototyping, coding camps – and game jams, and Gilles has begun working with teachers and schools to leverage the platform for educational purposes. More information about this will be disclosed in the future.
microStudio is continuously being updated and improved. Among the many planned features for the current roadmap are 3D support, voxel, sound and music editors; all editors are in the works, as is a standalone version that offers local non-cloud development, supporting your personal choice of CVS. iOS® and Android™ target platforms are scheduled for the builder, and the upcoming client-server support enables you to create online multiplayer games. Whether you are a seasoned veteran within games or just starting out, you will discover that microStudio gives you the edge over other options on the market; and best of all, microStudio is 100% free.
