Beginner's Guide

Hello fellow Particubes tester 👋

If you reached this guide you may be an Alpha tester nor a lost random person curious about what we are doing! In any case, thanks for stopping here and wanting to get more invested in the app.

Because Particubes is still in Alpha, some key features are missing, and it might be difficult to get sarted.

Do not Panic! Take a deep breath and relax because this guide will help you to enjoy the features already in the app. 🌈

🏁 Get Started 🏁

Once logged in, you land on the "Featured" menu. This menu is full of fonctionning games made by the dev team especially for you to enjoy. Some are destined to be played alone, some are planned for the multiplayer mode, and some are just here as demo to show some possibilities of the app!

Take a look around and try some!

PS: We're curious to know if you can slay more than 20 monsters in the game "Monster Slayer". Jump in the Discord server and tell us your highest scores! 🏆

If someone asked you to try his game, click on "🔎" and write the name of the game. You'll be able to find it!

The newest worlds are in the “New” menu.

Next to the “Explore” button, you’ll find the “Build” menu, represented by "🏗️". Everything you build is going to be under that section (worlds, items, maps, code snippets…).

🎨 Create cool assets 🎨

1. Item editor basic knowledge

In the Build menu there are 2 tabs: Items & Worlds. At this time, the map editor is still complicated to handle. It will be set in the World editor in few updates!✌️

However, you can use the item editor to create maps too. A way to import it in your World is explained further in this guide.

Create a new item, and give it a name.

⚠️ Items names should not contain spaces, capital letters and special characters ⚠️

You're now facing a unique green cube, add more cubes and shape it the way you want!

Legend

2. Mirror mode

The Mirror mode can help to create faster symmetrical items. It creates a reference line. Each cube added on one side of the line, is also added on the other side.

To activate the mirror mode, click on the mirror button. It will open a submenu in the bottom right hand corner asking you to select a cube as a reference point.

Once you choose a reference point, you’ll be able to change the rotation of the point and move it from half a cube.

2. Face mode

When adding, deleting or painting cubes, you’ll see a new submenu appear in the bottom right hand corner.

The single cube means you’ll add, withdraw or paint cubes one by one. The stack of cubes means you’ll add, withdraw or paint all the cubes on the same face.

3.Preview

Once you make your item, you can also see how the item looks in your avatar's hand in the preview. Click on the character button at the top right hand corner.

In this mode, you will be able to place your item on your avatar. When creating your World, it will help you to equip the player’s avatar in an easier way.

In this example we will place it in the hand of the avatar.

Then, you can change the placement with these:

5. Import from Magicavoxel

If you want to build a map, you can also use Magicavoxel and send us the .vox file when it’s done. We can link it to your account. It’s ok to use a custom palette for maps (not items), but ideally, please use our palette. (the png can be imported in magicavoxel).

🌎 Create your own world 🌎

Go to the Build menu, then go to the “World” button (represented with the earth).

  • Click on new
  • add a title
  • click on “Create”
  • use the “Edit” green button
  • press ESC or pause button
  • edit the code

    • The default script should look like this:

    1. Set the map

    By default, you will use the map named “aduermael.hills”, however the map can be changed in the code editor.

    In front of the map name, there will always be the username of its creator. Here are some example of maps you can use:

  • aduermael.hills
  • aduermael.mountains_cabin
  • aduermael.lovely_castle
  • aduermael.red_planet
  • aduermael.rockies
  • claire.desert
  • claire.market

    • You can also create your own map in the item editor.

    Afterwards, go in the script of your game and replace:

    with:

    2. Set the OnStart script

    On this part of your script you’ll find every function you want to enable at the start of your game.

    Here we can find the player spawning position for example. Feel free to change that position as you like, by changing the orange values.

    3. Trigger actions

    There is 5 types of action you can trigger in Particubes, and they match a different option if you are on computer or mobile:

  • Action1
  • Action2
  • Action3
  • DirectionalPad (= keyboard directional keys)
  • AnalogPad (= movements of the mouse)

    • On computer:

    Action 1: Space bar

    Action 2: right click

    Action 3: left click

    On mobile:

    The only action triggered now is the jump, written in this part of the script:

    You can change these actions and trigger different things in it, here are some examples ou can copy-paste in your script :

  • This one will print the Block ID touched by the crosshair :

    • Client.Action2 = function()

    end

    4. Import items

    Here’s a tutorial on how to do it in 3 simple steps:

    1- In the config, add a comma next to the map name and write:

    Items = {“your_pseudo.your_item_name”}

    The item name is always: "creator_name. its_name"

    2- In the OnStart function, define that your item is a `Shape` and link it as a Child to your map.

    3- Then define the position and the properties of your Item. (It’s not mandatory to set them all):

    You can also just write :

    Player:EquipRightHand(Items.claire.balloon)

    in the OnStart function without defining the Shape or the parent. It will equip the item in your avatar’s hand.

    5. Write your script

    At first, you may want to use a script already made to help you understand how it works. Games templates are available for you to customize! Take a look at them in the Guides page of our doc and copy the script in your game.

    You can also read the code of a game you like, to see how it’s made:

    Some commands can be written directly in the game you're playing, even if it’s not your own game. However, these changes will not be saved when you will leave. To use a command, press enter and write “/ ” followed by your command.

    We encourage you to train your lua skills with our chopper simulator tutorial available here: https://youtu.be/WH0FjHBKCLI

    If you want to create your game from scratch, you can find useful commands in our documentation: https://docs.particubes.com . Feel free to read the code of other games to find inspiration. In addition, the whole team will be glad to help you, feel free to contact us in the Discord !

    Once your game is ready, take a nice thumbnail of it so it can stand out in the World gallery. To do so, you can press Enter while hanging in the world and write: /Dev:SetGameThumbnail