Board Game Arena

Hello, BGA Developers!

I hope this message finds you well. I have been working on implementing a game, using "Tutorial Hearts" as a template, and I've found that transferring code from my local development environment to the BGA server can be quite time-consuming and might slow down the overall development process.

A local development platform that could emulate the BGA server environment would significantly streamline this process. We would be able to test our code and rectify bugs more efficiently before deploying it to the live BGA server, which in turn could help maintain and potentially enhance the quality of games available on BGA.

I've come across a tool named bga-workbench (https://github.com/danielholmes/bga-workbench/) on GitHub, which seems to have been created for this purpose. I wanted to know if this tool is officially supported or if it's compatible with the current BGA server. It appears to have a lot of potential for making local development and testing easier.

If bga-workbench is not the solution, are there any other resources or practices recommended by the team to facilitate local testing and development for BGA?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. I'm excited to contribute more to the BGA community and believe that this could be an invaluable tool for developers like myself.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best, Cheng

There is no official thing for this.
But we use auto sync ftp plugins to make it almost invisible.

thoun wrote: ↑27 June 2023, 18:49 There is no official thing for this.
But we use auto sync ftp plugins to make it almost invisible.

that's definitely one solution. Although it's not quite the same as having a fully emulated local development environment.

Is the bga-workbench https://github.com/danielholmes/bga-workbench/ using hidden sync ftp plugins also. Because I notice that there are Projects Using BGA Workbench like The Battle for Hill 218 and Tablut. Are they developped based on auto ftp?

BGA is an online platform full stop. If you want to run/play/test your game, you need internet access.

The tool that you've found is to help with creation and deployment of projects, but it in no way allows you to run/test your game while offline.

I recently started using BGA workbench to run integration tests locally (which can execute a full headless game). I had to make some modifications to it though: https://github.com/micahstairs/bga-workbench.

Fletcheese wrote: ↑28 June 2023, 16:00 BGA is an online platform full stop. If you want to run/play/test your game, you need internet access.

The tool that you've found is to help with creation and deployment of projects, but it in no way allows you to run/test your game while offline.

Publishing BGA online platform's code as open source to be able to self-host own games is not even remotely contemplated, isn't?
Thanks

If you ever read https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/First ... BGA_Studio

It has this text
"Note: You have to setup AUTOMATED sync between your folder and remote folder, manually ftp'ing files would be no-starter."

So not sure why it would be time consuming, event if you have phone modem it will be pretty fast as code files are tiny

Trying to setup your own server would be really time consuming though...

I think this is a great question. Every web app I’ve made for every company I’ve worked for is developed in a local environment.

This is the primary reason why I don't mind making some bugfixes or minor changes, but wouldn't implement a new game. The fact that I can't even use Version Control directly is a deal breaker for me. For some reason reminds me of old days of developing with Notepad.

CraWleR wrote: ↑07 July 2023, 01:54 This is the primary reason why I don't mind making some bugfixes or minor changes, but wouldn't implement a new game. The fact that I can't even use Version Control directly is a deal breaker for me. For some reason reminds me of old days of developing with Notepad.

Not sure what you mean. You can (and should) use version control (i.e github)
The fact that its not part of bga - its actually not big deal at all. Yes it would be nice to have integrated remove dev env, but definely not deal breaker
(I used my own git for last 7 years).