itch.io

Hi-i-i, here’s my hopefully not-so-aggressive insert!

Widget for those impatient:

Lore and improvements:

For the past few months I was developing Whimtale (you could previously find it under a name “Whimsy”) because Bitsy was more a burden than a tool when trying to introduce game-making to young students. As a guy who has experience in tool- and engine-making, I decided to take my own spin on Bitsy concept and… got carried away, I guess? I made a visual programming language and added more programming features that solve common requests from students like making VN dialogues and following NPCs, adding timers, etc, plus added a layer of polish to solve common complaints from others, as well as my own:

• Easier making of areas that span across multiple rooms (you can connect them by edges, with a preview, without making a heckton of exits)
• Foreground sprites that overlay characters and heroes
• Flipping sprites towards movement direction, including the hero (avatar) and actors (characters)
• Easier duplication of characters and items. (You can place any number of instances of one actor anywhere.)
• Scenario-driven manipulation of any actors, across stages or not. Turn one actor type into another, or delete them. (E.g. manipulate series of gates when flipping a switch.)
• NPC pathfinding 😲
• More customization options for text — which is a powerful narrative driver in itself. Artistic fonts, more animations, full-screen messages for larger texts.
• Better mobile support of the engine and the games it makes.
• Offline editors.

And many other things that previously required hacks or separate versions — stuff that is not beginner-friendly at all.

🖼️ Screenshots (click me to open!) 🎨

Stage editor:


Scenario editor, with branches, actor manipulation, and variable handling:

Example of an exported game:

Anyways, judging from itch.io and youtube comments, people like Whimtale! It can be a match for you, too — give it a spin! Links:

Online editor · Desktop editors · Homepage with tutorials and docs · Discord server

👻

Hi! Whimtale is exactly as you said it: a simple engine for hobbyists. If you want to make the next Hollow Knight, you have to look at other engines. Whimtale takes the concept of Bitsy games and improves on it and the Bitsy editor structure, allowing making more dynamic stories, but the scope is still limited. You can look at the bitsy tag at itch.io to see examples of this game style.

If you’re unsure, check out the online or desktop versions first, as HD and Ultra editions are based on the same core and only add stuff on top of it — meaning that programming and exporting capabilities are the same.

About Windows export, Whimtale produces only html files right now — which can be opened in any browser, but definitely is not a native steam-like experience.

Feel free to ask any other questions!

Ri-i-i-igh here: (Can be found on Props, Actors, and Hero tabs)

Oh. That’s… totally a browser issue. This is not the thing I even thought could be failing, it uses the most basic way to do tooltips here (the title HTML attribute).

A full tooltip customized by Whimtale should appear when you place it into a Scenario and hover over the placed block. And what happens with the title on Chromebook is a good reason to make custom tooltips there as well.

I’m happy to tell that today I finally release Whimtale HD and Ultra, and that Whimtale is now considered released! Whimtale is a small game engine for making stories where you can navigate the worlds you create and talk with stuff — similarly to Bitsy, but more polished and with visual scripting and many other helpful things.

About the new editions

New editions are premium versions and exist in parallel with the web editor at whimtale.app and the existing Desktop editor. Free versions aren’t going anywhere, and paid versions expand the existing functionality and also give you an opportunity to support the developer, CoMiGo. (It’s meeee!)

Whimtale HD allows for sharper visuals and adds a Proofreader module, besides adding new customization options for both the games and the editor. Remove branding and craft your unique style 💅

Whimtale Ultra lets you escape the fantasy console constraints. Define your own canvas size and transform Whimtale into your personal engine 💪

More information with screenshots and detailed description is available on the editions’ pages:

https://itch.io/embed/3710667?bg_color=1B1C1E&fg_color=D5D5D8&link_color=9CFFFF&border_color=48494b

https://itch.io/embed/3710683?bg_color=1B1C1E&fg_color=D5D5D8&link_color=FFD2FF&border_color=48494b

Do you have any questions?

Then join Whimtale Discord server! It is easy to skip notifications on itch.io, but Discord where I always dwell and am ready to answer your questions.

And now it is time for me to munch on a cake! 🥳🍰

a brave search

Ew
Not like I don’t consult with AI sometimes myself, but in-search AIs are stupid and definitely lack the required context.

SADLY, I still have the Actor Scenario Blocks’ ToolTips Text being Cut-Off issue!

Busy with other stuff atm.

1. Hollow Woods: I saw the banner of this on one of your posts below (115 Days Ago). Is it an actual game you’re making?

It was before I nuked it like an idiot.

1. How do I access your default TileSet within WT?

Through the 📂 button on Hero, Actors, or Props tabs:

do I see that you slowed-down Player Movement Speed somewhat?

Nope, you’re hallucinating 😛

shouldn’t you limit the size that it can get rather than make it an infinite space?

Sounds like a bad idea to me and a strange thing to ask, to forcibly restrict the scripting area and thus the maximum amount of blocks you can manage in one actor. Especially for me after making such horrors as this “simple” battle system:

In Unreal Engine’s Blueprints language, there is an option to collapse a set of blocks into one, to preserve space and also group blocks — essentially a scenario inside a scenario. There’re also ways to declare reusable functions in a similar fashion in UE. I would like to implement something like that one day.

Thanks for that info, tho I actually meant if you could somehow make the Blocks map screen less huge?

I feel like there is a communication gap here. Blocks are sized to their content, and I can’t throw anything willy-nilly from them. I assume you are aware about zoom buttons and scroll-to-zoom/pinch-to-zoom gestures. It would be cool if you captured a video/sent photos of you using Whimtale’s Scenario editor on your device — maybe your issues come from weird UI scaling or something like that. Rn I don’t even know whether you’re using Whimtale on a PC, a tablet, or something else, and all they have settings for UI and font scaling that do affect web apps.

the Fit option actually made my Boxes so small that there was NO Text in ‘em once I’d made a fair-sized tree of code

Content of blocks gets hidden when zoomed out for performance reasons; I will experiment with large icons to visually communicate which block is which later, maybe also introduce performance settings to the scenario editor, but simply showing everything all the time does tank FPS on larger scenarios. (I added this simplification when I was working on a 100+ block scenario, and oh boy it was needed.) Current performance methods are not permanent, too; unfortunately, the devs of SvelteFlow (the framework for node-based interfaces) are not currently interested in improving their renderer, and writing one of my own will be beneficial for Whimtale and my future projects but will also take so much time that it is definitely happening after v1.0 release. Development is hard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why isn’t this AMAZING Tool being touted on the Bitsy Forum […]?

Because it’s mean? 😅 But if you think it is okay, please do spread the word!

Is there a better Control Scheme? When playing WT Games in Browser or even using the Editor, the Up and Down Arrows Move the Screen instead of the Hero!

I did catch this and other issues recently and a fix for them will arrive shortly; you can use WASD, arrow keys, or on-screen controls. On touch devices you can press the screen and drag your finger for a joystick-like control. (This had its issues with accidental page refreshes tho, but I have a fix for it in the upcoming update as well.)

Is there a way for you to make the Blocks screen (fashioned after Twine’s Passages) a bit easier to manage?

You can hold Shift key to box-select several blocks or Ctrl to select/deselect them by clicking. If you meant something else, please tell me.

Why are the “?” Icons’ and Blocks’ Information CUT-OFF when you Hover Over ’em?

They’re positioned relatively to the blocks themselves, you usually can pan around so the tooltips fit.

I’ll try to make them exceed the boundaries of the scripting area, but can’t guarantee results as I’m using a 3rd-party framework for most of the scripting UI. And if the tooltip is larger than the scripting area for you, please send a screenshot.

Do you have plans to implement Hero Walking Speed (Movement) in the future?

There is actually a hidden speed limiter that I can expose; with the default values, I tried to balance keyspam prevention and being able to navigate through stages quickly enough to not be annoying. You haven’t seen the very first prototypes where the hero moved like a bullet…🤣

I’ll add it to my backlog and perhaps add a setting and blocks to dynamically tweak this currently hidden value.

Thank you SO MUCH for Making and Improving on this INCREDIBLE Tool, sir!

And thank you for sharing your thoughts and detailed suggestions!

For now, I gotta grind towards the 1.0 release 🥵 Thanks!

I’ve published a fix in v0.6.3, though for some reason Linux x64 version is processing longer than the rest. Looks like itch.io’s services have a long queue for Butler projects atm. Hopefully this will resolve by itself today.

I’ve replicated the issue on my end, will try to fix soon!

You can use the engine anywhere from a browser at https://web.whimsy.rocks

Thank you for your kind words!

I only wish there were more functionality to make a bit more complex games

I’m afraid that’s how Whimsy’s magic disappear: an easy-to-use tool turns into a more complex and hard to learn tool. I’ve already added more to scripting than I initially planned “O_O

and also a way to hide the whole UI around the game so it only displays the Scene, like the original Bitsy

Probably will be a project option of the Ultra edition as scenes there won’t be necessarily with 1:1 aspect ratio. For other editions, keep in mind that the UI around a game is also the touch controls. But maybe I will add an option to go fullscreen when I add an in-game settings menu, it shouldn’t be too hard to make. I’ll add it to my to-do list.

Ah, then it should probably be smol c:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ok-so-basically-im-very-smol

💚

omg so cute!

You can draw your own banner in the Settings tab, and the default one will be much smaller and in the corner. Like this:

Yeah, no matter how easy everything seems, there is still a learning curve. A curve of learning what even is in there 😅 I’m glad you like my tool!

For now, I have to decline this request.

I don’t have positive experience with open-source and don’t plan on releasing Whimsy as a FOSS for the foreseeable future. Making it open-source still allows to sell Whimsy, yes, but definitely doesn’t make it easier. Maybe in a perfect world it would be FOSS from the start, but alas—and I hope you’ll understand that.

Should be fixed now 🐛🔨

Will try to upload a fix soon!

Discord server is the way to go.

This is on a roadmap, though: “Game player additions: Universal menu, initially only for saving/loading games.”

🤔 I’ll add it to backlog but this feature is pretty minor in its importance; you can edit any colors and add any amount of them with the palette shown in prop, actor, and stage editors, and you can copy-paste the hex-codes from lospec directly into color picker.

I’ll probably expand it in the future; this game was made as a demo for Whimsy, and I didn’t want to just make a tech demo, but also didn’t want to pay several days on making an example game when I had a ready-to-go engine awaiting its release. So it is what it is. But I will return to it as I add more features to the engine, to make this project as polished as it can be :3

I also wanted to make an outdoors section after you light the beacon — this is stripped, for now.

You just can’t talk on the internet anything — one badly-landed joke and you’re instantly attacked, with wrong assumptions about my work. You know nothing about it. At least, learn to read the description on how this particular game was built and on what fandom it bases.

Oh, and also—get banned.

The horrors corrupted all but those with a strong, razor-sharp mind and those whose mind was not prepared even for our plane of existence.

I fixed one bug that caused actors to disappear; perhaps your issue was connected to the same problem.

The possibility is definitely there! And publishing on Steam is a good idea. Time will tell; I will definitely release them on itch.io first as it’s just simpler to do it here for me as a developer.

Try Castles or PocketCode then.

Then you should use another engine!

🤔 can’t tell much rn. Does the issue persist when you refresh the page? If so, you can send me your project (the 💾 icon) at cosmomyzrailgorynych@gmail.com (or at Discord) and I’ll see what’s happening.

У меня есть Бусти, там слева есть опция одноразового доната.

А в целом для покупок на итче и других сервисах открыл карты в Солидбанке, у них вместе с их картой можно открыть визовскую карту в Лаоссе, и перекидывать деньги туда-сюда. Paypal напрямую не оплатить всё равно, там нельзя подтвердить операцию, но с другими сервисами норм.

Mine is 190, what are you talking about lol

until you quacking explode the game, yeah. A creative… win condition.

Very cute. Good work!

What do all this mean to you, anyways? Try not to use oversaturated palettes — they don’t work as you think and are tiring to eyes anyways.