I am a coder. I like writing code. Probably too much. My biggest problem when it comes to coding is suffering from Not Invented Here syndrome. This is when a programmer prefers to write his own code instead of using third-party libraries. There are a lot of really good low-cost (some even free) game engines and game-related libraries out there. When it comes to cross-platform development, the big problem with developing your own cross-platform engine or library is testing. When each of the platform that you wish to support also has a wide variety of devices with different specs, it is clear that this is not a good idea for a one-to-three person team to attempt. Instead I am going to be looking at existing tools and engines to use for my cross-platform projects. The list of platforms I am looking at is a lot larger than anticipated as I have acquired a lot of game making tools the last few weeks.
I found AGK 2.0 (App Game Kit) on Kickstarter a few months ago and should be getting a beta of this library fairly soon. This is an interesting tool as it comes with a BASIC language compiler as well as a C++ library so you can use either language. Their BASIC does not seem to have any Object Oriented extensions in it so I would probably only use it for rapid prototyping, with C++ being my development language. It supports a variety of platforms with Windows, OSX, Android and IOS on the list so clearly meets my needs. Once the beta is in my hands, I will be able to better decide but on paper this looks like a good choice.
While looking into AGK, I discovered FPS Creator Reloaded as well as the original FPS Creator. As these came with a large number of free model packs, I figured I would grab them if only for the extra models. While Reloaded looks like a neat tool, especially if they use Lua as their scripting language, it is sadly Windows-only. For game-jams it might be a handy tool so I may end up playing around with it.
Unity is a very popular 3D engine. My focus is mostly on 2D so it seemed like this was overkill for my needs. Now that they have added 2D, it may be worthwhile looking at it. This is an expensive option, though they do have a free indie version which seems fairly capable. Scripting is in C# or JavaScript which is tolerable. While technically this is probably a better choice than AGK, it is my second choice but I definitely want to play around with this.
The above is more than enough but the Steam autumn sale had RPG Maker XV Ace on sale for 75% off so I had to grab it. This is Windows-only but might be great for prototyping. Right after acquiring this, Humble-Bundle had a bundle that included Multimedia Fusion 2, a game maker I had never heard of but that has optional cross-platform support modules. Then there is Game-maker pro, but unless there is an extremely good deal on the masters bundle this is just not worthwhile for me but my experimentation with the free version showed me that this tool has a lot of power. These are just the tools that I have access to at the moment. There are many additional tools that are available to those willing to look for them.
Showing posts with label Game Engine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Game Engine. Show all posts
Friday, December 13, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
Gamemaker
One thing I have noticed while participating in Game Jams is that there seem to be a lot of people using tools like Gamemaker to create their games. As Steam has a free version of it available, I figured that I would take it for a spin. The free version has a lot of restrictions on it, such as the number of sprites, sounds, and rooms that the game can contain so the free version is pretty limited but is enough to give you a taste for the tool.
While the idea behind Gamemaker is that you can create games without programming, this is not entirely true. Objects in the game support a number of events. When an event happens, it triggers a series of actions. While these actions are assembled through a drag-and-drop interface the actions are essentially function calls so the user is just programming in a simplified manner. The nice thing is that you can actually select a command that brings up a code editor and write C-like code to handle some more complex logic.
With the pro version supporting a native compiler option an support for a number of platforms such as iOS and Android, it seems like YoYo games is trying to attract more serious developers. The problem I have is that their editors are actually very primitive and from what I can tell, their tile support is very limited so for the bulk of the games I like to create there is very little this tool adds for the amount it would cost me. Still, if there is a decent enough sale, I would probably consider buying it.
As it is free to try, I would recommend anybody looking for a simple to use 2D engine give this a brief look. It is a lot more powerful than I had expected. I could actually see it being good enough for a large variety of games. As a coder, however, the key reason I would buy a tool like this is for editors tied to a powerful scripting engine. As the editors are somewhat lacking, going with a cross-platform library and tools such as tiled is probably a better (and cheaper) bet.
While the idea behind Gamemaker is that you can create games without programming, this is not entirely true. Objects in the game support a number of events. When an event happens, it triggers a series of actions. While these actions are assembled through a drag-and-drop interface the actions are essentially function calls so the user is just programming in a simplified manner. The nice thing is that you can actually select a command that brings up a code editor and write C-like code to handle some more complex logic.
With the pro version supporting a native compiler option an support for a number of platforms such as iOS and Android, it seems like YoYo games is trying to attract more serious developers. The problem I have is that their editors are actually very primitive and from what I can tell, their tile support is very limited so for the bulk of the games I like to create there is very little this tool adds for the amount it would cost me. Still, if there is a decent enough sale, I would probably consider buying it.
As it is free to try, I would recommend anybody looking for a simple to use 2D engine give this a brief look. It is a lot more powerful than I had expected. I could actually see it being good enough for a large variety of games. As a coder, however, the key reason I would buy a tool like this is for editors tied to a powerful scripting engine. As the editors are somewhat lacking, going with a cross-platform library and tools such as tiled is probably a better (and cheaper) bet.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Making One of those Weeks Chapter 36
Chapter 36 of Making One of those Weeks has been posted. For people who are interested in developing games, it has been fairly interesting as of late. First, the Unity engine (http://unity3d.com/company/news/unity2.6-press.html)has been released for free for independent development. Now the Unreal engine (http://www.udk.com/) has been released for free software. Sadly the UDK is Windows only and crashed when I ran it under parallels. Still, this has me again thinking of developing using a real game engine.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Engine Search
Coffee Quest fans will probably be disappointed when they read this entry, as I have very little progress to report on Revenge development. In fact most of the ten hours allocated for this project this week have not been used so I can't even tell you if a new build will be happening this week. Work this week is revolving around finally implementing a tile class (in AS3) and if there is enough time I will try to get a map class also finished with a very simple viewer so the result would be a map viewer. I honestly don't think that I will get all that done in the allocated time, which means there probably will not be an update as there will not be a second build until I get the map view functional. While I normally get most my hours in on Sunday, yesterday was spent looking at a variety of game engines which would be used to develop a commercial game when I am between contracts again.
A game engine is what you use for building a game. This is essentially what I am creating with my CQfs project that is being used for the creation of CQR, CQ5 and CQ6. The engine used for these games, due to the fact that it is being written for online Flash games, is much less capable than what is necessary for a commercial quality game. Once Flash has proper hardware 3D support and better resource management, it may be possible to expand CQfs into a much more powerful engine. Even with the FS project, I am planning on using a 3rd party software 3D library. The problem with software 3D is that it is so limiting. A commercial game that uses 3D hardware can throw huge numbers of polygons at the screen allowing for incredible looking images. In addition, hardware supports all sorts of effects and special per-pixel shaders that simply is not practical to do in software.
All of this fancy stuff comes at the cost of complexity. While I could certainly write my own game engine, it would be a multi-year task. Using an existing engine saves a huge amount of time and allows me to focus on making the game. The problem is that there are so many engines that choosing one is quite a challenge in itself. My lack of a budget is actually not that big of a factor, as many of the engines are low cost (for instance, the C4 engine is only $200) with a lot of them being Open Source (Crystal Space being the big one here). The best way of cutting down the options was to require Mac, Linux and Windows support which cut the field down to about fifty. I will go over my short list of entries in future posts.
Apple did get back to me, which was nice, but they basically didn't tell me anything. I don't know why the Smashing Pumpkins albums are no longer available as plus (DRM free) albums, but do know that they are trying to work out some issues. Not sure who has the issues but do hope that this gets resolved as I do like Smashing Pumpkins and don't want to have to remove them from my favorite bands list.
A game engine is what you use for building a game. This is essentially what I am creating with my CQfs project that is being used for the creation of CQR, CQ5 and CQ6. The engine used for these games, due to the fact that it is being written for online Flash games, is much less capable than what is necessary for a commercial quality game. Once Flash has proper hardware 3D support and better resource management, it may be possible to expand CQfs into a much more powerful engine. Even with the FS project, I am planning on using a 3rd party software 3D library. The problem with software 3D is that it is so limiting. A commercial game that uses 3D hardware can throw huge numbers of polygons at the screen allowing for incredible looking images. In addition, hardware supports all sorts of effects and special per-pixel shaders that simply is not practical to do in software.
All of this fancy stuff comes at the cost of complexity. While I could certainly write my own game engine, it would be a multi-year task. Using an existing engine saves a huge amount of time and allows me to focus on making the game. The problem is that there are so many engines that choosing one is quite a challenge in itself. My lack of a budget is actually not that big of a factor, as many of the engines are low cost (for instance, the C4 engine is only $200) with a lot of them being Open Source (Crystal Space being the big one here). The best way of cutting down the options was to require Mac, Linux and Windows support which cut the field down to about fifty. I will go over my short list of entries in future posts.
Apple did get back to me, which was nice, but they basically didn't tell me anything. I don't know why the Smashing Pumpkins albums are no longer available as plus (DRM free) albums, but do know that they are trying to work out some issues. Not sure who has the issues but do hope that this gets resolved as I do like Smashing Pumpkins and don't want to have to remove them from my favorite bands list.
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