topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday December 12, 2024, 1:32 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Last post Author Topic: Game Engines and Apps  (Read 67882 times)

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,776
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Game Engines and Apps
« on: September 26, 2006, 02:57 PM »
Hi everyone. I would like to make a list of game engines as a general resource, but also to start doing (mini) reviews on them. So if you've ever used a game engine, I'd like to know what it is, where to find more information about it, and what your thoughts were about your experience with it. It should also be useful to know how advanced you are as a programmer with the language the engine required you to use. Please include the following:

  • Name of engine.
  • Its website or where to get it.
  • Whether it is 2D or 3D (or both).
  • How much it costs. Be sure to include separate pricing (if they have it) for personal/educational use and commercial use.
  • A short description of it (maybe something pasted from the website). Be sure to include some of its features.
  • Screenshot(s) of it or a game made with it. (Be sure to include the URL to the game's website, if possible).
  • Choose to be an optimist or pessimist: List the additional features of the commercial edition or the limited features of the personal/learning editions. (The difference between educational and commercials versions, basically.)
  • What programming language(s) it uses and your general skill in that language. If it uses its own language, your estimation of the learning curve would be great. Also the availability of online/free documentation/tutorials on how to learn it.
  • Your experience with it, bad and good. Perhaps more detail into a description of it, if you'd like.
  • Any other information you might want to share.
  • Links to galleries/documentation

Even if you've never used a game engine, if you don't see it here and you know about it, please provide as much of this information as possible. If one is already listed, go ahead and quote the original post and add any information/comments you want to about it.

If you can think of more things that should be in my numbered list, let me know and I'll edit the original post to include it.

Again, the ultimate goal of this is to create a comprehensive list of engines, including their pros and cons, ease of use, learning curve, availability of support (included help files, online documentation/tutorials/forums/community), and other information.



Mentioned Engines/Apps:
(alphabetically and who mentioned them)

Adventure Game Studio (3D) reviewed by Gothi[c]
Alice 2.0 (3D) reviewed by Deozaan (Updated Sept. 27, 2006)
Allegro reviewed by Gothi[c] (2D/3D)
Blender3D reviewed by Gothi[c]
CDX (2D) reviewed by Gothi[c]
Crystal Space 3D reviewed by Gothi[c]
Game Maker (2D/3D) reviewed by Gothi[c]
Haaf's Game Engine (2D) reviewed by mouser.
Irrlicht 3D reviewed by Gothi[c] (3D Engine, does not include sound or networking)
Ogre 3D reviewed by Gothi[c] (3D Engine, does not include sound or networking)
Panda3D reviewed by Mahesh2k
Quest 3D reviewed by Gothi[c]
SDL reviewed by Gothi[c] (Primarily 2D, but supports 3D via OpenGL)
Sphere (2D) reviewed by Gothi[c]
Stencyl (Flash)
Torque 3D
Torque 2D
Unity (3D)
« Last Edit: May 31, 2011, 04:36 PM by Deozaan »

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,914
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2006, 02:58 PM »
a comprehensive list of engines could be asking for too much maybe, especially given that their are entire large sites devoted to listing engines, but maybe a comprehensive list of the very TOP engines, or engine REVIEW SITES ?

I really do hope we see more game development by dc members!

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,776
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2006, 03:03 PM »
a comprehensive list of engines could be asking for too much maybe, especially given that their are entire large sites devoted to listing engines, but maybe a comprehensive list of the very TOP engines, or engine REVIEW SITES ?

I really do hope we see more game development by dc members!

Okay, maybe not a comprehensive list of all of them, but I would like a large list of good, usable engines to give people some variety and choice. And how about a link to one of those sites devoted to listing engines?

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,914
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #3 on: September 26, 2006, 03:12 PM »
let me start with a 2d engine that i really kind of like, the only problem is that it's windows-only, which could be a real drawback for someone looking to make a popular game.  It's also not very actively developed and doesn't have a giant community, more drawbacks.

HAAF'S GAME ENGINE

http://hge.relishgames.com/

HGE is an easy to use yet powerful hardware accelerated 2D game engine. It is a full featured middleware for all who want to develop commercial quality 2D games rapidly and easily. It covers all imaginable 2D game genres: you could create everything from a simple puzzle to advanced multilayered platformer or strategy without even thinking of any non game logic code! And you don't have to know anything about "window messages", DirectX programming and all that stuff. Instead you can start developing your own game within 15 minutes!

HGE runs on Microsoft Windows 98, 2000, NT, ME, XP and requires DirectX 8.0. It will run even on low-end video cards, including built in video cards such as Intel Solano (i815 chipset). HGE can be used with virtually any C++ compiler including Visual C++, Borland C++, MinGW and Metrowerks Codewarrior.

 Strict concentration on subject "2D games"
Task oriented design. Nothing redundant and lots of higher level features.
 
 Simple interface and extreme easiness
You don't have to know anything about system programming and don't need any additional libraries. Classes and headers that make sense. Very easy to set up and use.
 
 Technical advanceness
HGE is built upon modern Direct3D API what allows lots of special effects and great performance. Alpha blending, color tinting, geometry transformations etc. without performance hit at all!
 
 Complete and clear documentation
All the features thoroughly grouped and described, lots of general game development hints provided.
 
 HGE just feels right!
HGE is highly consistent. Every minor feature is carefully planned and interconnected with others.
 
 Free
HGE is distributed under The zlib/libpng license, i.e. it is completely free for any uses including commercial ones.



Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,776
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #4 on: September 26, 2006, 05:57 PM »
Alice 2.0
http://www.alice.org/
Free, Open Source.

Alice v2.0 is the next major version of the Alice 3D Authoring system, from the Stage3 Research Group at  Carnegie Mellon University. It has been completely rewritten from scratch over the past few years. The focus of the Alice project is now to provide the best possible first exposure to programming for students ranging from middle schoolers to college students.
-Alice Website

Example videos of the program can be found here: http://www.alice.org/Alice_movies/

Alice uses it's own programming language that is mostly completely visual (drag and drop) as an effort to help absolute beginners to programming learn basic concepts while allowing them to see instant, visual results. A 3D "Hello World" program is much more impressive to a beginner than a simple text output.

Alice - Code.pngGame Engines and Apps

Object placement is easy using the built in world viewer. It has buttons in the upper-right corner that allow you to move the object horizontally (along the X and Z axes) and vertically (Y axis), rotate them, resize (scale) them, and more. The program comes with a built-in gallery of objects (at the bottom of the screenshot) and even lets you connect to the online gallery from within the program. It is streamlined, as if the files were already on your computer, except there is some download time to place them into your world.

Alice - Object Placement.pngGame Engines and Apps

My personal experience with it is that it is very exciting to see what can be done so easily, except it it so easy it's hard to figure out. The program comes with four tutorials that show you how to use the GUI and covers some basics of making objects move across the stage. However, these tutorials teach very little about how to actually piece together your coding in ways that go beyond the very basics of actions. Documentation on how to make your own functions, how to pass variables, etc. is practically non-existent. I can't find any websites with Alice tutorials or documentation. The only thing I've been able to find are a couple of books that are between about $25-$45 on Amazon.com. I also found the books on the SafariX website, but they cost just about the same thing for the equivalent of a rental. Not worth it to me, especially for a programming reference book.

At first I thought development on Alice was dead, but there is a community forum that gets a few posts every day, one of them very recently talking about the updates on Alice v3.0. This forum is also the only source of free help I can find on how to use the program. There are a couple of people who seem to know it fairly well, but a lot of the time it seems they're just trying to figure it out themselves.

It seems powerful enough to make relatively simplistic games, if you can figure out how to work it, and may be perfect for beginners to manipulate 3D objects with instant results. But for a powerful, make-any-kind-of-game-you-want type engine, it's best to look elsewhere.

Overall, I would like to use it a lot more and get to know the controls and what the limits of it actually are, because it looks robust enough for a decent one-player game. If only I could figure out how to keep the motion I create from being all choppy (I don't know how to get the animation to transition from one motion to another without a pause in between them), how to use variables, create my own functions, or even type in my own code using the internal syntax that I'm sure is being used underneath all that drag and drop stuff. I'm hopeful that the books would describe how to do all of these things (except typing my own code, which I just don't think is supported), but again, the price just to learn it is a bit steep if you only find out that it's not good enough to suit your needs and you never want to touch it again.

Pros:
  • Free/Open Source.
  • Instant results.
  • Very little/No coding experience required.
  • Installation free. Just unzip and run.
  • Online forums where you can ask questions and hope somebody else is there to answer.
  • You can import files from other modeling programs like 3DSMax that export into .ase format. There are also some utilities you can download that will convert some formats into .ase, so just because the modeler doesn't do it, doesn't mean it can't be done.
  • It has the ability to connect to a VR Headset for more interaction, though I lack the know-how and technology to figure out how to do that.

Cons:
  • Other than 4 very basic tutorials and a couple of example worlds, almost no freely available documentation on how to use it.
  • It's not completely stable. It crashes sometimes, but most of the time just reports an error and you can try again. (It has a SlowAndSteady mode, which is supposed to be more stable.)
  • Online forums where you can ask a question and hope somebody is there and will answer.
  • Practically no documentation on how to use it.
  • Not designed specifically to make games. Its primary function is for storytelling.
  • You can't export it to a stand-alone exe file. You record a movie of it (but you need your own video capturing software) and take screenshots, but it can only be run (and thus interactive for a game) within the Alice program.
  • No advanced mode that allows you to type in your own code.
  • Oh, and did I mention it has practically no documentation on how to use it?

Summary: It's exciting to see something in which you can have such instantaneous results from without knowing all the details about how to manipulate objects in 3D space. It's great to be able to put an object on the stage and use some simple commands to get those objects doing things. Unfortunately it's a bit frustrating to see this program seem so simple to operate but then have a hard time figuring out how to use it. That coupled with the lack of documentation included with the program (not even a help file that describes the classes and methods used within the program) or online, and the fact that the only way to find comprehensive help on the subject is to shell out $25-$45 dollars is disheartening.

Here is a link to videos of projects made with Alice, along with a description of the curriculum used: Building Virtual Worlds. (most of the images are broken, but most of the videos I tried worked.) Be sure to check out the Calvin and Hobbes video (it's a little more than halfway down) if you were ever a fan of the comics!

EDIT: I posted a link to this thread in the Alice Forums, and a couple of people have responded with their opinions and suggestions to add to this mini-review. Alice Forum member DrJim's opinion regarding Alice for creating games is a simple "Don't." For some of the reasons I already listed, being that you can't export Alice worlds to anything beyond HTML and a video capture. Mr Nemo agreed about Alice's primary use being something different than to make games, but pointed out that two-player, head-to-head gameplay was possible (see Spy vs. Spy video from above Building Virtual Worlds link) and that while Alice cannot export into a standalone .exe, it is freely available on the internet for anyone to download and run. He also reiterated that since Alice is open source, a person who was adequately motivated could indeed modify the code to provide more support for game creation.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2006, 10:57 PM by Deozaan »

Gothi[c]

  • DC Server Admin
  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 873
    • View Profile
    • linkerror
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2006, 03:50 PM »
Quick overview / Comparison table:
NameDifficultyTypeOpen source?Cross platform?Website
Crystal Space 3DHard. Steep learning curve.C++ API, modular, set of libraries.YesYeshttp://www.crystalspace3d.org
SDLLow level, but easy and clear API. C library YesYeshttp://www.libsdl.org
Irrlicht3DEasyC++ libraryYesYeshttp://irrlicht.sourceforge.net
AllegroEasyC libraryYesYeshttp://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/
Ogre3DEasyC++ LibraryYesYeshttp://www.ogre3d.org/
Game MakerExtremely EasyProgram/IDENoNohttp://www.gamemaker.nl
SphereEasyProgram/IDEYesNo. It used to be. But the linux version is no longer maintained.http://sphere.sourceforge.net
CDXEasyC++ LibraryNoNohttp://cdx.sourceforge.net
The Blender3D Game EngineMediumApplicationYesYeshttp://www.blender3d.org
Quest3DMediumApplicationNoNohttp://www.quest3d.com
AGS (adventure game studio)Very easyApplicationYesKinda. The IDE is windows only. But the created games can be played on linux or even MS-DOS.http://www.bigbluecup.com

Detailed description

Lets start with Cyrstal Space. Crystal space is a very large GDK (game developer kit) library with many features. Its purpose is mainly the creation of 3d games, but it includes networking functionality, sound, and entity management. It's is has been under development for a very long time, and it is a very large open source project, so the API may look a bit intimidating since it has many, many, many functions and classes aviable for it's many features. Thankfully, next to the doxygen documentation, and the manual, there are also many tutorials aviable. But I still wouldn't recommend it for beginners. One popular game using crystal space is planeshift, a mmorpg, fully functional and playable, with a large community, eventhough still under continious development. Crystal Space currently runs on GNU/Linux, general Unix, Windows, Windows NT, and MacOS/X. Crystal space is licensed under LGPL.

shot06.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Planeshift, a CrystalSpace3d game.

Then there is SDL. With SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) you can create both 2d and 3d games, though 2d games are probably a greater focus, since the 3d support is provided through raw OpenGL commands. SDL also has advanced input support, it will handle a joystick on many platforms for example. SDL also comes with cross platform sound and networking support (Through SDLNet, which is aviable as a separate library)
-"SDL supports Linux, Windows, Windows CE, BeOS, MacOS, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, IRIX, and QNX. The code contains support for AmigaOS, Dreamcast, Atari, AIX, OSF/Tru64, RISC OS, SymbianOS, and OS/2, but these are not officially supported." SDL also provides support to write cross platform multi-threaded applications. SDL is licensed under GNU LGPL, they also have an alternative commercial license.

shot2.jpgGame Engines and Apps
abuse-sdl, an SDL game.

Irrlicht3D is not really a game engine. Irrlicht is a 3D engine. Meaning that you will find sound and networking support lacking. It does however have input support for keyboard, mouse and joystick. What makes Irrlicht so special is that it's very activly developed and has a very nice object oriented c++ API. It's really a joy to work with. On top of that it has a very rich feature set, and supports a wide range of 3d model formats. The author has also recently made a level-editor that will save it's levels under the .irr file format. You can still import quake3 maps or other models, but the editor (which is fully optional) makes life a bit easyer. The editor also has a lightmap generator, that will create beautiful lighting in your 3d levels by lighting the textures instead of adding 3d lights, which saves the GPU allot of work. Irrlicht also comes with an XML parser which is also aviable as a separate library. Irrlicht runs on Windows (including 64b), Linux and MacOS. More platforms have been planned, and some people have gotten it to run on xbox. Next to all the 3D stuff, Irrlicht can also draw 2d primitives, and pixels, and it has easy functions to create a GUI in your game. Irrlicht is free to download, you are freely allowed to distribute your game, even commercially, without ever paying a penny to Niko(Irrlicht's author).

dungeontech2.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Dungeon Tech, Irrlicht game

spaceduck2.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Our own SpaceDuck,
showing off some of the GUI capabilities.
eg: Transparent windows and controls.

Allegro is another cross platform, open source GDK, running on DOS, Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, Solaris, Darwin), Windows, QNX, BeOS and MacOS X. Allegro started out being very similar to SDL, but from there they have taken it to a higher level. Allegro now has a higher-level API (though low level functions are still aviable) and even supports 3D. Just like SDL it also handles threads,timers,sound,networking,player input, etc,...  In addition to all that, Allegro also has GUI support just like Irrlicht does. It's 3D support however, while more advanced than SDL by providing a number of helper functions, it comes nowhere near Irrlicht, and still remains mostly pure GL programming. So Allegro remains mainly 2d in my book. Allegro is "gift-ware", meaning you can do anything you want with it, even distrubute a commercial game. Another drawback (at least for me) is that it's a C API, and not a C++ API. Though I'm sure somewhere on the net there must be a C++ified version of a frustrated OO-enthousiast.

allegro3.jpgGame Engines and Apps
A collection of allegro games running on BeOS.

Ogre3D is another one in the league of Irrlicht, meaning that it's not a game engine but rather a 3D engine. Just like Irrlicht is has a good C++ API (though I prefer Irrlicht's). The separation of several of it's features into modules makes it slightly more complicated to use that Irrlicht. Also Irrlicht is more actively developed. And last time I checked, Ogre didn't have any functions for easily creating a GUI like Irrlicht does. It is however a very capable 3d engine, and there have been a number of commercial games released using this engine.

hk02.sized.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Heretic Kingdoms: Reluctant Hero, an upcomming RPG

Next is Game Maker. Unlike all the above, Game Maker isn't an API or library for any programing language, it is a completely separate program, capable of compiling it's own games to executable format. Game maker has it's own scripting language, which is a little bit special because you can use both C-style syntax or Delphi-style syntax. (Game maker was made in Delphi) Game maker is also more aimed to people new at game development, and it is used in the university the author teaches at, to familiarize students with game development concepts. As an alternative to it's scripting language, it also provides a drag-drop approach for people that aren't very familiar to programming yet. You can create objects, and drag events and actions onto them, all with the mouse. If you're like me and don't like this type of approach, you can still code everything using only the scripting language, which has a very rich function set. And if you STILL aren't satisfied with the aviable function set in the scripting language, you can add your own commands! Game maker allows you to create plugins to export your own functions. Someone once created an Irrlicht plugin for game maker, allowing you to use the engine from the game maker scripting language. However, now this has been deprecated, since game maker now has it's own 3d support. Game maker started out mainly as a 2d engine, focusing on tile-based games. Now it has far outgrown that initial design. That's all praise and glory, but there is one superdupergreat majour drawback:
It's windows-only. Aaaaaaargh! ;)
And on top of that, it is closed source. There is a free crippleware version aviable, but the license to the full version isn't very expensive. With the payware license you are free to distribute your games commercially. It can compile the games to their own .exe files, you can change the default icon and loading screen, so that's a plus.

doomed.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Doomed - Someone actually made a doom-'clone' with gamemaker.

Then, there is Sphere. Sphere is allot like Game Maker, a separate program, but the main difference is, is that it's strictly script-only. It does have a sprite and level editor built in, but all logic is done through scripting. The scripting language itself is actually Java. It's very good to create 2d games with, there's no 3d support, though I remember someone made a small simple 3d engine with it, using purely 2d functions (it was VERY slow :P). It's quite fun to code in, and can create some neat 2d games. It hasn't been as active as it once was, it seems to have been abandoned almost, the old website is gone and is replaced by some simple black-on-white info, but still downloadable nontheless. Also, when you release games with it, they aren't compiled into their own exe file, you distribute the sphere exe, and have your game as a 'startup' file. Nontheless, I had my fun with it back in the days of old ;)

High.pngGame Engines and Apps
Migget Chainsaw Hands - Sphere game.

CDX is yet another 2d C++ library, just like Allegro and SDL. Only this one is not cross platform. It is released under the artistic license. It runs on most windows platforms (I don't know about 64bit though). It has a very nice API, and is a pleasure to use. However, it hasn't been updated since 2003, and the main website, cdxlib.com doesn't exist anymore. It's only aviable through sourceforge. Compared to SDL it's allot more higher level, and easyer to use.

screenshot.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Bugfighting - A CDX game

Blender3d is mostly known as a 3D modelling suite like 3D studio max, lightwave, or maya. Blender is allot more however. Blender also has a video editor, and... a game engine. This is a fully capable 3d game engine, able to compile the game to it's own executable, be it on windows or linux or any other platform blender runs on. Blender uses python as scripting language, but there is also a drag-drop kind of system. It includes physics and collision detection and all that good stuff, so no need to worry about having to code that. This makes it usefull not only for games but for physics simulations with your 3d models. Blender itself takes a bit to get used to, and then so does the game engine. Blender is free, and released under GNU GPL.

94649.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Brawler chapter two - blender game

Quest3D is a visual programming environment. It represents objects as diagrams, and the entire program is made by connecting these diagrams, kinda like one huge UML. Personally I don't like this approach, but people that aren't into programming might find it interesting. It's not easy however. It's quite advanced. But it makes some very nice results! Cool shader effects etc. Drawbacks: closed source, not cross platform, expensive :( (around $1000) You can also make web-embedded stuff with this btw.

ToT--8--20040728--ClothesPod.jpgGame Engines and Apps
8 - Quest3D game under development

Adventure game studio is a program you can use to create your old lucasarts-style or sierra style adventure games with. Ever played Larry, Monkey Island, Kings Quest, Police Quest or Space Quest? These are the kind of games you can create with this. It has it's own scripting language, level editor, and dialogue editor. It's really quite nice. I can't think of a better tool for the job if you want to create an adventure game! AGS is freeware.

office.jpgGame Engines and Apps
Norman Cooks - AGS game.

« Last Edit: September 28, 2006, 08:18 PM by Gothi[c] »

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,914
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2006, 04:04 PM »
irrlicht developer has a great blog:
http://www.irrlicht3d.org/

Mizraim

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 155
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2006, 02:14 PM »
Great links. I am adding this link to tie another topic together.
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=5629.0

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,776
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2006, 05:27 PM »
I just found this website which lets you pick specific requirements you want from an engine and it will list all of them that meet that description. Right now they have 260 engines in their database:

http://www.devmaster.net/engines/

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,914
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2006, 09:54 PM »
great find deozaan  :up:

mahesh2k

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2007
  • **
  • Posts: 1,426
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2008, 05:16 AM »
Worth to be on list.

Panda3D
Website: http://panda3d.org
License:Private/Opensource
Language: C++/Python
Platform: Cross(Windows,Linux)
Learning Curve: Easy/Medium (Scripting)

What i like?
Excellent Documentation.Beginne friendly(Non-programmer/Artis friendly).
Easy python calls for game design)
Support for almost every 3Ddesign model & apps.

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,914
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2011, 12:15 PM »
Today:
http://games.slashdo...ine-3-SDK-and-Editor

"[...] sometime this summer, likely around August, we will see the appearance online of both a Crysis 2 editor and a CryEngine 3 SDK (software development kit). This not only means that people will be able to make full blown new levels for Crysis 2 but that the CryEngine 3 will also be made publicly available for the development of non-commercial projects to the community at large. To quote, 'This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC.'"

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2011, 08:06 AM »
The Sphere website was down 8+ hours ago, and is still down.  Hope it's back up soon.  I want to take a gander...

Gothi[c]

  • DC Server Admin
  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 873
    • View Profile
    • linkerror
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2011, 04:46 AM »
Woah, way to bump a great old thread mouser :)

Also, related: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=3352.0


steeladept

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 1,061
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2011, 11:41 PM »
The Sphere website was down 8+ hours ago, and is still down.  Hope it's back up soon.  I want to take a gander...
Apparently it has been down for some time and has been moved to http://spheredev.org/ according to Chad Austin.  Maybe that will help?

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2011, 07:40 PM »
The Sphere website was down 8+ hours ago, and is still down.  Hope it's back up soon.  I want to take a gander...

Apparently it has been down for some time and has been moved to http://spheredev.org/ according to Chad Austin.  Maybe that will help?

Thanks steeladept!

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,776
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #16 on: May 31, 2011, 04:27 PM »
Just thought I'd mention a couple more:

The Unity 3D Game Engine is pretty cool, and there's a free version for indies.

Also, a free (cross-platform!) Flash game engine called Stencyl just launched today. It uses a drag and drop "programming" method similar to MIT's Scratch or Carnegie Mellon's Alice. ReadWriteWeb has an article about it.

Renegade

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,291
  • Tell me something you don't know...
    • View Profile
    • Renegade Minds
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #17 on: May 31, 2011, 10:38 PM »
The Wikipedia list is pretty good:

http://en.wikipedia....List_of_game_engines
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2011, 09:12 PM »
Anyone tried the beta of "Construct 2"?

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #19 on: July 01, 2011, 02:52 PM »
There's also the Mad Game Engine.

Deozaan

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Points: 1
  • Posts: 9,776
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #20 on: July 01, 2011, 04:06 PM »
I've had a tab open for a few days on a link I wanted to check out. It's been long enough that I forgot where I got the link from (probably from Twitter) or what it was about, but I finally looked at it today and was amazed:

Unity 3D Training Video Series is the most complete, step-by-step, training material for Unity 3…for free.

In keeping with Unity’s theme of ‘free’, there are over 300 HD videos consuming more than 45 hours of viewing time. And with Unity’s increasing influence in the world of interactive digital media, it’s time you pull up a seat and see what all the excitement is about.

So if you wanted to get started in Unity but weren't sure where to start, the Unity 3D Training Video Series looks like a great resource.

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #21 on: July 01, 2011, 05:48 PM »
Found JumpCraft today while browsing the Primewares site.

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #22 on: July 01, 2011, 07:08 PM »
RainEngine is a GPL alpha-stage multiplayer 3D RTS engine.  Found this one while browsing today.

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #23 on: July 02, 2011, 08:00 AM »
The Scrolling Game Development Kit is freeware and aimed at 2-D development (mostly platformers).


scrollGamDevKit.GIF

kyrathaba

  • N.A.N.Y. Organizer
  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 3,200
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Game Engines and Apps
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2011, 07:57 AM »