Alright, so I ended up dropping RealBasic in favor of GameMaker for the prototype for The Rice Engine (flash engine), I can get so much done in GM in so little time its ridiculous. I decided to use GMWidgets for the UI and the author is making some nice Syntax Highlighting code for my editor…sweet!

I decided to create language files, so all the text you see on the screen is loaded from an xml file. Huge pain in the ass to code, but once I start adding languages all I have to do is edit the language file. Anyways, right now all you can do is Create a Project.

Basically what this does is copy over the contents of a template folder (which you see in the treeview) and change all the constants within those files to match your project settings (just the Project Name for now). Setting up that treeview was OMFG tedious…I had to almost rewrite all the scripts for the widgets system. I had to use a bunch of lists, recursion, and sorting to get the treeview to display the way it does and setup file associations for the icons…it was a headache.

Right, so the project compiles using the Flash Builder SDK, but I figured out a method for Network Compilation…which means you don't have to download the 100-200MB SDK - just the 2-3 meg Rice Engine. It will send your project to my server, compile it, and send you back the url.

It's pretty sick how it works. Basically, you code your project using my Rice Language. When you press F5 to compile and run, the Rice Language gets converted to Flash, loads up all the necessary libraries, compiles to .swf, wraps it in an html file, and launches it in your browser. Pretty sweet.

Tomorrow I'll add the Code Editor, and write my first "Hello World" program, which only needs the following:

I opted to mix up BASIC with C to create the Rice Language, so the above command could also be written as:

By the weekend I should have all the core functionality: variables, condition handlers, loops, and text I/O. Enough to make a full Flash Text Based RPG…thats the goal. Then I'll add 2D functionality, and eventually 3D. Oh and you can embed actionscript, javascript, php, etc into your code so if the Rice Engine isn't powerful enough you can extend it using other web languages!

I've put together a small team of people to help with the coding and since GM is so effin easy (I swear its the best prototyping engine) we should have fully functional demo mid week, and maybe have a complete product in a month or two. Then we start work on the live version - that will take a loooong time :'(

I gotta figure out how to not write so much geeze…