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View Full Version : The IndieGamer open-source game engine

Jesse Aldridge
10-29-2006, 04:50 PM
Imagine an open-source engine/framework/set of tools designed, developed and maintained by the people from this forum.

I'm just wondering if anybody would be interested in working on this sort of thing. What would it be like? What would it take to make it succeed?
Dan MacDonald
10-29-2006, 05:02 PM
herding indies is like herding cats. Indies are typically independent bastards that never worked well in groups when they had a job, or if they did they resented it. Also indies tend to be very opinionated and don't tend to find consensus very well.

If you can find a way to herd the cats, by all means, it would be a neat project.

*evil smile*
whisperstorm
10-29-2006, 06:11 PM
You may be better off collecting an assemblage of existing open source projects and packaging those as the "recommended" indie gamer kit. Or do what they did with Blender3d - find some great game tool and buy out the sourcecode.
Either way - starting from scratch seems... like a waste of time.

Given that - what open source tools are people using to make games?
Coyote
10-29-2006, 06:20 PM
That's kind of the problem - there's roughly 500 different engines out there that are either freely available or well within the indie price range (sub-$1000). Why bother creating a new one? What niche would it serve?

Besides, once you get used to working with one engine, and you've modified the living crap out of it to make it serve your needs better, it takes a very compelling reason to switch.
puggy
10-29-2006, 07:09 PM
no point in making engines, as said there are plenty of them out there.

Biggest problem facing any indie is content creation. For example 3d models, now i can make the models myself, but i'm not brilliant at it and it take ages, so ideally what i would like is a tool that can make the whole process easier and quicker.

Then you have the problem of texturing the model, which i'm even worse at.

of course the problem here is one tool to suit all, for example there's a few good decent one out there that take the work out of making charactures, like "Creature Creator". However i would be looking more for building's, some people might also want buildings but that had internals, some might want vehicles.

Thats why there's so many engines out there and very few content tools, engines are easy.

If you wanted an area to start though, a simple catalog of royalty free stuff (textures, sounds, models, images etc etc) would be a useful tool, so indies could look for things quickly. (eg, i've made a game involving a farm, i want to have animal sounds, look up sounds, farm, animal for example, there's a list, i can preview the sound and if i like it, copy/paste it into the games working directory)
MrQ
10-29-2006, 08:53 PM
When our team first started our casual game project we were thinking of writing our own 2d engine. But past lessons have shown that its much better to focus on making good games, not engines. We chose the Popcap framework and havn't looked back. It's been very good to prototype our ideas and get something running quite quickly. We have also intergrated a network layer with ease. There are plenty of decent engines out there with good license deals.

herding indies is like herding cats.
heh classic
zppz
10-30-2006, 12:03 AM
Herding cats (http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://video.google.com/videoplay%3Fdocid%3D6572941025419743765&e=9797&usg=__7NYfa6ewlkFZteXHFINU2HTgYl0=)
Remember not to get sucked in to looking at other vids now mmkay...
Polycount Productions
10-30-2006, 02:27 AM
Well, it could be a good idea. If somebody is interested doing this sort of thing - why not. The problem of course is the resources - many people might be interested... but who has the time for this.
Arex
10-30-2006, 04:01 AM
Well, it could be a good idea. If somebody is interested doing this sort of thing - why not. The problem of course is the resources - many people might be interested... but who has the time for this.

True, it is a good idea. :)

But, it needs a lot time and experienced programmers to do that. And it is hard to find an experienced programmer with lots of free time.

Anyway, good luck!
mot
10-30-2006, 05:33 AM
Two words: KASUAL KIT.
Jamie W
10-30-2006, 06:29 AM
Meooooooooow. ;)
Philippe
10-30-2006, 07:32 AM
I also think it's a good idea, especially since I disagree that there are already too many engines out there: how many well-tested cross-platform C++ engines optimized for displaying 2D graphics on sub-standard hardware do you know besides PTK?
Nikster
10-30-2006, 09:37 AM
Kasual kit FTW :D I still reckon someone is actually turning that into a reality.
GBGames
10-30-2006, 09:47 AM
I also think it's a good idea, especially since I disagree that there are already too many engines out there: how many well-tested cross-platform C++ engines optimized for displaying 2D graphics on sub-standard hardware do you know besides PTK?

I agree with you on this one. There are an awful lot of Windows-only engines that get included in the "enough engines" argument.
ggambett
10-30-2006, 09:50 AM
heh classic
It's actually the name of a relatively interesting book about project management for non-managers - http://www.amazon.com/Herding-Cats-Primer-Programmers-Lead/dp/1590590171
Huge
10-30-2006, 08:21 PM
I also think it's a good idea, especially since I disagree that there are already too many engines out there: how many well-tested cross-platform C++ engines optimized for displaying 2D graphics on sub-standard hardware do you know besides PTK?

Popcap is pretty good.
Philippe
10-31-2006, 01:27 AM
PopCap is great but Windows only, as is HGE.
The only other cross-platform engine in this category that I know of is ClanLib, but it's at version 0.8 and uses OpenGL on Windows.
Bad Sector
10-31-2006, 01:58 AM
IF there is interest, i can relicense Nikwi (http://www.slashstone.com/more/nikwi)'s source code to something more indie friendly. The C++ code contains little game-specific stuff, the game is mostly driven by scripts...

I was thinking to use that code for making something new at some point. The code is highly reusable...

EDIT: btw the code uses SDL so in theory it should run wherever SDL runs. In practice, i have only tested it in Linux (where i developed it) and Windows. In both cases using GCC (MinGW for Windows). Under Intel Mac, it should run fine. I think i had some probs with PowerPC Macs which i wasn't able to fix, but that's what opensource is for, i think :-).
Jesse Aldridge
10-31-2006, 03:38 PM
Hmmm, well there seems to be some interest, but not exactly a tidal wave... I think I'll file it in the "interesting ideas to try sometime" folder.
Bad Sector
11-01-2006, 01:19 AM
Ideas alone are worthy almost nothing. I'm 100% sure that someone (and probably more than one) had the same idea before. So it's not anything groundbreaking (personally i've heard about a "forum-developed" engine in other foras too).
Bernard François
11-01-2006, 04:00 AM
Actually I'm doing a thesis about a cross-platform engine for casual games, but it won't be (at least initially) open source. Probably I'll post more about it later.
Uhfgood
11-02-2006, 09:16 PM
Well people say there's hundreds of engines. But are any of them completely full featured, completely free, but with no strings attached licenses like bsd-style, and are they all cross platform, and are they simple to use, and do they have full documentation, a totally awesome community (forums), tried tested and true, full editors, as well as a database of free ready to use content with the ability to modify that content?

Give me the name of the engine that does that.

No really, i want one that does that :-)
Bad Sector
11-03-2006, 02:12 AM
All what Uhfgood said, plus the ability to read my mind (with no external hardware, i'm low in $$) so i can create my game without even typing code.
voxel
11-03-2006, 07:25 AM
What would it take to make it succeed?

Most "engines/frameworks" are missing good UI support (except for Flash). In the perfect world, I'd have Flash + some 2D/3D engine mix...
electronicStar
11-03-2006, 01:33 PM
Well people say there's hundreds of engines. But are any of them completely full featured, completely free, but with no strings attached licenses like bsd-style, and are they all cross platform, and are they simple to use, and do they have full documentation, a totally awesome community (forums), tried tested and true, full editors, as well as a database of free ready to use content with the ability to modify that content?

Give me the name of the engine that does that.

No really, i want one that does that :-)
LWJGL
LightWeightJavaGameLIbray (http://lwjgl.org/)
oNyx
11-03-2006, 02:28 PM
LWJGL isnt an engine tho. Its a binding combo of opengl, openal, input, openil (opt) and fmod (opt) with a few utility things on top.
raigan
11-03-2006, 10:13 PM
all flash needs is support for openGL/directX.

actually, scaleform's working on this, but it's $10k.. :(
voxel
11-04-2006, 05:35 AM
all flash needs is support for openGL/directX.

actually, scaleform's working on this, but it's $10k.. :(

Scaleform looks great - a bit pricey. Secret Level had a PS2 SWF renderer, but was shut down by Macromedia...

Personally, I can do WITHOUT accelerated Flash... I just want to use it for UI elements in my (future) games. I'm thinking of embedding Gecko and have it play Flash clips... ala uBrowser. Insane, but workable and almost 100% reliable vs. building a SWF player with ActionScript support.
Nexic
11-05-2006, 03:04 PM
Well people say there's hundreds of engines. But are any of them completely full featured, completely free, but with no strings attached licenses like bsd-style, and are they all cross platform, and are they simple to use, and do they have full documentation, a totally awesome community (forums), tried tested and true, full editors, as well as a database of free ready to use content with the ability to modify that content?

Give me the name of the engine that does that.

Eh, why is completely free one of your requirements? I could understand one of your requirements being 'inexpensive' but totally free just seems silly. Do you think the makers of such a perfect engine don't deserve any compensation for their time and effort?
jetro
11-06-2006, 11:07 AM
Here's a related article some of you might find interesting:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20061101/feng_01.shtml
Uhfgood
11-06-2006, 10:03 PM
Eh, why is completely free one of your requirements? I could understand one of your requirements being 'inexpensive' but totally free just seems silly. Do you think the makers of such a perfect engine don't deserve any compensation for their time and effort?

It's not silly for a completely poor person :-)

I have no doubt that anyone that makes a super engine and all the support tools and docs deserves quite a bit of compensation. But how are they going to get that from me when I don't have any money?