Microgame config refactor

[net8floz]

As a new developer i want to be able to create microgame meta data in IDE and not have to learn external tools or schemas.

As a git maintainer I want to ensure that devs are able to independently manage their games microdata without it interfering with git and git history. Common pitfalls include master meta game file, and using git-ignored included files

Moving Game Meta Data:

The solution we landed on was creating a 2 part macro that

• Checks if a global datastructure exists, and if not creates it

• Adds a struct to this global datastructure

• Allows the caller to fill out this struct

• Closing macro for any macro side logic that needs to be figured out

  This logic is required because we have no guarantee of script execution order on boot. Whoever gets there first needs to create the datastructures

  Developers would stick this in their microgames/authorname/ folder in a script inside the IDE which is automatically called on game boot.

  As an example:

  // __some_private_file.gml
  #macro MICROGAME_BEGIN if(global.microregistry == undefined) { global.microregistry = ds_list_create(); // etc // etc ds_list_add(global.micro_registry,
  #macro MICROGAME_END ); }}
  
  // microgames/n8fl/n8fl_penguin_blast.gml 
  
  MICROGAME_BEGIN 
  {
   init_room: n8fl_rm_penguin_blast,
   duration: 4,
   etc,
   etc
  }
  MICROGAME_END

  All jsons would be removed from included files and recreated in new gml files.

  Validating the meta data

  It is still desired to have the meta data validated. There is already a rule based validation tool FConfigLoader or some shit. This struct knows how to take a directory, recursively find all json files, read them all, validate all their fields with a set of rules and log any warnings found. Finally this is fed into the global data storage for use in the rest of the app.

  This validator will still mostly work, but small adjustments need to be made

• Changing the input of the struct. Instead of a directory to search we already will have a list or map or something of all the microdata. File calls removed and functions changed to accept a collection

• Some asset validating rules are based around name comparisons and are expecting strings. Some fields such as init_room will now be asset references like n8fl_rm_penguin_blast instead of "n8fl_penguin_blast". These rules will need to be updated.

  Finally, this now validated collection needs to be assigned as regular to the global app storage to be used in the rest of the app.

[katsaii]

job done, all me