Board Game Arena • Board Game Arena

Game File Reference

Overview

dbmodel.sql - database model
gameinfos.inc.php - meta-information
gameoptions.json - game options & user preferences
img/ - game art
Game Metadata Manager - tags and metadata media
material.inc.php - static data
misc/ - studio-only storage
modules/ - additional game code
states.inc.php - state machine
stats.json - statistics
X.action.php - player actions
X.css - interface stylesheet
Game.php - main logic
X.js - interface logic
X.view.php - dynamic game layout
X_X.tpl - static game layout

Useful Components

Official

Deck: a PHP component to manage cards (deck, hands, picking cards, moving cards, shuffle deck, ...).
Draggable: a JS component to manage drag'n'drop actions.
Counter: a JS component to manage a counter that can increase/decrease (ex: player's score).
ExpandableSection: a JS component to manage a rectangular block of HTML than can be displayed/hidden.
Scrollmap: a JS component to manage a scrollable game area (useful when the game area can be infinite. Examples: Saboteur or Takenoko games).
Stock: a JS component to manage and display a set of game elements displayed at a position.
Zone: a JS component to manage a zone of the board where several game elements can come and leave, but should be well displayed together (See for example: token's places at Can't Stop).

Undocumented component (if somebody knows please help with docs)

Wrapper: a JS component to wrap a <div> element around its child, even if these elements are absolute positioned.

Unofficial

BGA Code Sharing - Shared resources, projects on git hub, common code, other links
BGA Studio Cookbook - Tips and instructions on using API's, libraries and frameworks
Common board game elements image resources

Game Development Process

First steps with BGA Studio
Create a game in BGA Studio: Complete Walkthrough
Tutorial reversi
Tutorial gomoku
Tutorial hearts
BGA Studio Guidelines
BGA game Lifecycle
Pre-release checklist
Post-release phase
Player Resources - add player help/rules to your game page

Guides for Common Topics

Translations - make your game translatable
Game Replay
Mobile Users
3D
Compatibility

Miscellaneous Resources

Studio FAQ
Tools and tips of BGA Studio - Tips and instructions on setting up development environment
Studio logs - Instructions for log access
Practical debugging - Tips focused on debugging
Troubleshooting - Most common "I am really stuck" situations
Studio Bugs - Reports against Studio itself (not BGA!)

Note: Please DO NOT translate Studio Documentation, so that there can be one place where you can find the latest information available.

What is Board Game Arena Studio?

Board Game Arena Studio is a platform to build online board game adaptations using the Board Game Arena platform.

It is open to any gamer with software development skills :)

BGA Studio website: https://studio.boardgamearena.com

Original announcement on BGA forum: https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1973

Discover BGA Studio in 5 presentations

Why, how, what... to start discovering BGA Studio, we prepared 5 "powerpoint" presentations for you:

How to join the BGA developer team?

Please see this page: How to join BGA developer team?

Great, I'm in! ... How should I start?

If you didn't already, check the presentations at the top of this page to get the basics.

Then, you should checkout the First steps with BGA Studio to make sure that runs fine.

After that, we strongly advise you to take one of these game creation tutorials:

Tutorial reversi (recommended, closest to the actual BGA implementation and maintained by the BGA team) - an abstract strategy game played on an 8×8 uncheckered board for 2 players
Tutorial gomoku - an abstract strategy game tic-tac-toe style for 2 players
Tutorial hearts - a card game for 4 players

Then start editing files and see what happens! ;)

Once you're done with tutorials, you can start a real game (or join existing project)

Create a game in BGA Studio: Complete Walkthrough

If you have any questions, please check out the Studio FAQ or Contact BGA Studio.

To search wiki pages on studio enter this text in search bar:

 "Category:Studio" white rabbit

That is if you want to search for white rabbit

BGA Studio documentation

BGA Studio Framework reference

This part of the documentation focuses on the development framework itself: functions and methods available to build your game.

File structure of a BGA game

Game logic (Server side)

Game interface (Client side)

Other components

Translations (how to make your game translatable)
Game Options and Preferences
Game meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php
Game replay
3D

BGA Studio game components reference

Game components are useful tools you can use in your game adaptations.

JS:

Counter: a JS component to manage a counter that can increase/decrease (ex: player's score).
Scrollmap: a JS component to manage a scrollable game area (useful when the game area can be infinite. Examples: Saboteur or Takenoko games).
Stock: a JS component to manage and display a set of game elements displayed at a position.
Zone: a JS component to manage a zone of the board where several game elements can come and leave, but should be well displayed together (See for example: token's places at Can't Stop).
Draggable: a JS component to manage drag'n'drop actions.
ExpandableSection: a JS component to manage a rectangular block of HTML than can be displayed/hidden.
Anti-Stock: Code snippets in vanilla JS/HTML5 to do what stock does (that is if you cannot beat Stock into submission)

PHP:

Deck: a PHP component to manage cards (deck, hands, picking cards, moving cards, shuffle deck, ...).

Reference for classes in game class hierarchy

Table: a PHP class that you inherit from for the game php

BGA Studio user guide

This part of the documentation is a user guide for the BGA Studio online development environment.

Lifecycle

BGA game Lifecycle
Create a game in BGA Studio: Complete Walkthrough
Pre-release checklist - Go throught this list if you think you done development
Post-release phase

Tools and Advice

BGA Studio Guidelines
Tutorials checklist
I wish I knew this when I started - one liners on most common missed features, mistakes, etc with further doc references
Tools and tips of BGA Studio - Tips and instructions on setting up development environment
- Setting up BGA Development environment using VSCode
- Practical debugging - Tips focused on debugging
- Testing by developer
- Studio logs - Instructions for log access
- Troubleshooting - Most common "I am really stuck" situations
BGA Studio Cookbook - Tips and instructions on using API's, libraries and frameworks
- Using Vue - work-in-progress guide on using the modern framework Vue.js to create a game
- Using Typescript and Scss - How to auto-build Typescript and SCSS files to make your code cleaner
- BGA Type Safe Template - Setting up a fully typed project using typescript and more!
- Bots and Artificial Intelligence - How to add AI/Bots to the game
Studio FAQ

Sharing

Common board game elements image resources - Dice, meeples, cubes, etc
BGA Code Sharing - Shared resources, projects on git hub, common code, other links

Software Versions

Versions currently used by BGA framework:

Dojo Toolkit 1.15
PHP: 8.2
SQL: MySQL 5.7
JS/CSS/HTML: limited by what minimization tools support: JS minimization
Font Awesome: 4.7 https://fontawesome.com/v4.7/icons/ (available as <i class="fa fa-clock" />)
Font Awesome: 6.4.0 https://fontawesome.com/v6/search?o=r&m=free (available as <i class="fa6 fa6-clock" />)

PHP Extensions Used

The following PHP extensions are - as of May 8th, 2022 - in use in BGA Studio and available:

date, libxml, openssl, pcre, zlib, filter, hash, Reflection, SPL, session, standard, sodium, apache2handler, mysqlnd, PDO, xml, apcu, bz2, calendar, ctype, curl, dom, mbstring, FFI, fileinfo, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, iconv, igbinary, json, exif, msgpack, mysqli, pdo_mysql, apc, posix, readline, shmop, SimpleXML, sockets, sysvmsg, sysvsem, sysvshm, tokenizer, v8js, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, Phar, memcached, Zend OPcache