Creating a project#
Every game you build in Ignitor starts the same way: a short wizard in the Hub. It walks you through naming the project, choosing its size and interface, picking the language you'll write in, and choosing a starting point, including one that's already playable. Three steps, and you're in the editor.
To open it, click the + button next to the project selector in the Hub (its tooltip says New project). The wizard's steps are shown along its top: 1 · Basics, 2 · Template and 3 · Create. Next and Back move between them.
1 · Basics#
Type a name for the project in the first box. Ignitor turns it into the project's ID and shows the folder it'll live in (Root) right below, so you don't need to fill those in yourself.
From here you also set:
- Resolution: the size your game is drawn at. Pick a preset (from 320×200 (8:5 retro, SCUMM v5) up to 2560×1440 (16:9 QHD); the default is 1280×1024 (5:4 classic)) or choose Custom… and type a width and height.
- Main GUI: the verb bar your game starts with. Automatic: 4 verbs, sized to your resolution is the default; you can also pick the Classic 9-verb bar, its retro version for 320×200, a Modern 4-verb bar, a Verb coin, or No bar (own GUI) if you'll build your own interface.
- Room area: not something you set, but worth a look. The bar takes up the bottom of the screen, so the wizard shows how much is left for your rooms (width × height, plus the bar's height) and updates it as you change the resolution or the bar.
- Stretch: what happens when the window doesn't match your resolution. Letterbox adds black bars (recommended); Fill stretches the game to fill the window, no bars.
- Language and Translations: see below.
Picked a very small resolution? The wizard warns you when the bar you chose wasn't drawn for that size, and points you to the retro classic bar, made for exactly 320×200. It's advice only: you can still go ahead.
Language and translations#
Every project has a default language (the Language menu): the one you actually write your content in. Room descriptions, dialogue, item names: whatever you type goes into the game under that language first.
Under Translations you can also check other languages as translation targets. That doesn't translate anything for you, but it opens those slots up in the Translation Editor, so you (or a translator) can fill them in later without restructuring anything. Your default language is always included automatically, so there's no need to check it separately.
Getting this right at project creation matters more than it looks: it's the difference between "the project is in Spanish, with English available" and text quietly landing in the wrong place later on.
The two built-in factory menus (the pause/options screen and the save screen) ship fully translatable from the very first build, in every language Ignitor supports. You don't need to touch them for basic translation coverage to work.
2 · Template#
Next, choose what your new project starts with:
| Template | What you get |
|---|---|
| One-room demo (the default) | A room with a walking character, a hotspot you can talk to, and an item you can pick up. Press Play and you're already playing something. |
| Two rooms + door | The same idea, plus a second room connected by a door: a quick look at how room transitions work. |
| Empty project | A clean scaffold with no rooms or characters, for when you'd rather build everything from scratch. |
Both playable templates use simple placeholder art, so nothing here is meant to be final; they exist to give you something real to click around in before you've made anything yourself.
3 · Create#
The last step recaps your choices (name, ID, folder, resolution, main GUI, room area, stretch, languages and template) so you can check them before you confirm. Use Back to change anything. Once you click Create, the Hub switches to the new project, ready to edit.
Next step#
- General configuration: workstation settings that apply across every project you create.
- Translation Editor: fill in the languages you checked off above.