Guide:Bipsi

General Tips

Looking In Other Games

If you see something you like in another game you can download it and import that HTML file into the Bipsi editor to learn how it was done. The trick is that you need to download only the game part; if it's on Itch this will be in a frame. If you use Firefox you can:

1. Right-click on the game
2. Go to the 'This Frame' option
3. Select 'Save Frame As...'

Keyboard Shortcuts

• The arrow keys will move your selection, indicated by a thick, white outline.
• Q, W, E, R, T selects tabs in order.
• Draw Room tab: Holding Alt will use eyedropper/pick tile.

Events

Quick Reference

For better explanations see the user guide, but I've found it helpful to keep this quick reference list.

Field	Type	Description
exit	location	Move player to another place.
graphic	tile	Sets event's graphic.
is-player	tag	Tells game where to start the player. Not sure if it's useful later.
music	file	Play an music file. The user guide for advanced features, like having a library of multiple songs.
one-time	tag	Run event only once.
say	dialogue	Shows text in a dialogue box.
set-avatar	tile	Changes player's graphic.
solid	tag	Makes event impassable.
touch	javascript	Add your own custom code. See §JavaScript for some examples.
transparent	tag	Makes background colour of tile transparent.
page-color	text	Changes page's background colour. Use CSS colour names only.

JavaScript

Some examples of JavaScript you can insert. See the scripting guide for more information.

Please add more!

Examples

Some games with tricks to think about, or to download and take a look inside of

• Forest Song, by Niall Moody. Uses JavaScript to generate the tones the plants make.

Hacking The Exported HTML

Because Bipsi exports regular HTML files, if you know enough HTML, CSS, and or JavaScript, you can have fun adding extra features.

Some ideas:

• Overlay an image. Could be useful for a HUD or a shadowy forest scene, or ...
• Use a different font.
• Use a form to get info. from the player. Could use it to refer to a player by name.
• ...

Music

NB: Bipsi now has music stuff built-in! I'll leave this here for now as an example though — rjt (talk)

To play a piece of music while the game is running you can use this code in your exported HTML file.

Put it down the bottom, after the last </script> tag, but before the </body> one.

<audio id="[id]" src="[path]" loop></audio> 
<script>
	function PlayAudio() {
		var audio = document.getElementById("[id]");
		audio.play();
	}
	document.addEventListener('pointerup', PlayAudio);
	document.addEventListener('keydown', PlayAudio);
</script>

Where you replace:

• The two instances of [id] with a name to represent your audio.
• The one instance of [path] with the directory path of your audio file. Remember to use forward slash / to separate directories, unlike the backslashes Windows uses. If your audio file's in the same directory as your HTML file you can just enter the audio files name on its own.
• If you don't want the audio to loop, you can remove loop from the audio element.

To explain the code:

• The audio element is regular HTML for playing sounds.
• The stuff in the script element is what controls it. The function finds the item with the specified ID, and tells it to start playing.
• The two document.addEventListener pieces are triggered when a mouse button is released, or a keyboard key is pressed, and they tell the function to run, thus playing the audio.

See Also

• Bipsi
• bipsi game maker user guide - Game making beginner friendly! PDF format.
• bipsi game maker scripting guide - Guide for advanced scripting. Also PDF.