XNA Magic

[tinjaw]

There is a new kid on the block- XNA Magic. It looks like it is the first game engine built from the ground up for Microsoft's XNA technology. I have requested to be part of the beta. I'll report in if I get in.

From their website:

XNA Magic is the first all-in-one game development system designed from the ground up to take full advantage of the brand new Microsoft XNA platform.

Providing an extensible game engine, level editor, particle system design surface, logic editor, script editor and a great deal more, XNA Magic is designed to be both complete and easy to use.

As well as the core engine that is designed to work on both Windows® XP and the XBox 360, XNA Magic features a fully dynamic design time environment that allows you to see changes to all your game components, shaders and assets in real time.

XNA Magic is not a port of an existing engine, it is a complete solution designed around the brand new XNA Framework. It is therefore completely shader based throughout and has no ties to a fixed function past.

What’s more, unlike many engines that require you to modify the engine source, XNA Magic takes a highly granular approach. You can choose to dip in and use whatever aspects you need and no more. Scenes you create in the development environment can be run standalone or exported as a components that you can call from your own code.

[Deozaan]

This looks cool! Keep us up to date.

[Ruffnekk]

Yup I also signed up for Beta testing earlier    Hope I get through!

[scriptedfun]

Looks amazing! I think that this is a great idea - building an engine that's free from legacy code, or at least built with such an intention in mind. My concern though is that the games won't be able to run on a Mac. Most probably, they'll work on XBox 360 though, and this is another tool that smaller game development houses (or individuals! ) can use to get that big break .

This looks very similar to OTEE's Unity, a fantastic-looking Mac game development tool (which unfortunately I haven't had the chance to use yet ). Despite being a Mac-only development tool, Unity is able to produce games for both Windows and Mac.

[tinjaw]

Unfortunately it is a mater of economics. There is very little money to be made selling Mac or Linux games. Now, that isn't, in and of itself, a reason to make your game engine Windows only. But, if there are features that you can add to make the game engine better that would require different codebases for different platforms, then you only do it for Windows because you probably can't get your money back on the Mac or Linux codebase. Cross-platform engines are nice, but they often result in less than optimal performance on every one of those platforms. So, open source will probably be the primary source of cross-platform game engines for the foreseeable future.

[scriptedfun]

Yes, I think this is very unfortunate . I've always loved the Mac as a platform. I've never owned a Mac, but I try to use one at school every once in a while, and I really hope to own one in the future. Too bad not many games, and game tools, are being actively developed for it.

[iphigenie]

I would agree about linux, alas a large majority of linux users have not yet gotten their mind around accepting to pay for something. Even the ones who clamor for years "I would pay for it if they ported <favorite app here>" usually don't really mean it.

But I would think there is money to be made on the Mac. I would think that a game could sell quite well, since there's so much less competition, and Mac users are used to pay for a lot of little things since there was so little freeware for so long.

[scriptedfun]

Yes - a Mac could be a great investment (still wishing for a Mac to magically appear at my door... )

[tinjaw]

Just a quick update. I haven't heard a peep out of them since I made the original posting.

[scriptedfun]

Pure speculation - maybe they're trying to put the finishing touches on before the GDC, so they might contact you by then...

[TheZman]

There are a limited number of folks in a private beta at the moment. Normal beta should follow shortly but I don't have a date.

Lots of new media http://www.xnamagic....abid/74/Default.aspx

Also they finally got a new name - Blade3D (XNAMagic was a little too close to some Microsoft trademarks I guess)
http://www.xnamagic....e/posts/Default.aspx

So I suspect http://www.blade3d.com will be the new site at some point soon

[Deozaan]

Yeah I got an e-mail some time ago about Blade3D and I was like, what the heck is that? XNA Magic.