Game devtools
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The document discusses and compares various game development tools, categorizing them as low-level tools like DirectX and SDL that provide few limitations but require significant work, high-level tools like RPG Maker that make game creation easy but limit game types, and mid-level tools like XNA, Unity, and UDK that provide basic functionality through GUIs but have limited portability and sometimes require payment. It also provides more details on specific tools like XNA, Unity, UDK, Game Maker, and Multimedia Fusion. The document advises researching tools before spending money and that the best tool depends on the intended game type.
Game devtools
- 1. Game Development Tools* and ways to use them * Note: I might be wrong about certain aspects of tools If so, please correct me
- 2. “Low Level” Tools Directx (windows only)
- 3. Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL)
- 4. Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML)
- 5. Orge3d (mostly rendering) Good/Bad No limitations to what you can do
- 6. Lots of work required for basic stuff
- 7. “High Level” Tools RPG Maker
- 9. MUGEN (2d fighter engine)
- 10. Starcraft 2 Map Editor Good/Bad Easy to create a game
- 11. Hard to make a game type not supported by the engine
- 12. “Mid Level” Tools Everything else
- 13. XNA, Unity, Unreal Developer Kit (UDK), Torque, Game Maker, Multimedia Fusion, BlitzBasic/3d, DarkBASIC, PyGame, 3D GameStudio
- 14. Many others not listed here Good/Bad Basics are “done” for you
- 15. Often has a GUI editor
- 17. Often costs money, or has restrictive license
- 18. Specific Tools - XNA/Unity/UDK XNA -- free, uses C# as a base, requires Visual Studio. Great for Xbox Development
- 19. Unity – free, uses a GUI for coding, multiplatform. Great for artists with little coding experience.
- 20. UDK – free (mostly), similar to Unity. Main difference: no way to play in browsers.
- 21. Specific Tools Game Maker/MM Fusion Game Maker – costs money (every time a new version is released, too). Powerful scripting language, tons of tutorials and community support, and many commercial indie games were made using it.
- 22. Multimedia Fusion – costs money, has a GUI editor + scripting, overall, similar to Game Maker
- 23. General Notes There's a lot of tools out there.
- 24. Do research before spending money. Free tools exist.
- 25. The tool you pick will depend on what you want to do with it.
- 26. Some tools are better than others at certain game types.
- 28. DISCUSS
Editor's Notes
- #2: Welcome to the January Gamedev Meetup. This month's topic is game development tools, originally suggested by Bob Russel, so thank you for that idea.
- #3: Low level tools-- majors ones I know of are listed here, plus there's also first party APIs which are usually for developing on a console The good: you have complete freedom, you're not limited to restrictions of the engine/tool, and you can build whatever you want. The bad: usually, it takes anywhere from 20 to 100 lines of code to be able to open a window and display an image on the screen. It can take days just to get a rotating cube to show up, and months to years to build a game
- #4: “high level” tools – designed for a specific type of game. They're great if you want to make a very specific type of game, but otherwise... The good: if your goal is to make a specific type of game (RPG, adventure game, 2d fighter), then they're easy to use, and a perfect choice The bad: if you want to make something other than the specific game they're designed for, then it becomes a lot more complex. It's not impossible, but it's definitely harder
- #5: “mid level” tools-- there are a lot of these (will go more in detail on some next). Varying levels of popularity, cost, and ease of use The good: a lot of the basics are done for you. Stuff like displaying graphics to the screen, getting input, animation, etc is usually already built in. Many of these tools have built-in GUI editors for code/scripting The bad: Limited portability is often a problem. Some tools only support certain OS's, or certain platforms, or charge extra for additional features. Plus, many of the more GUI centric tools cost money to own.
- #6: XNA is a library used mostly for development on the Xbox, by Microsoft. It's closer to a low level tool in that you have to do a lot of stuff “manually”, but it also has support for a variety of things like animation built in. It uses C# as a base, and (kind of) requires visual studio (probably possible to use a free version of that though) Unity and UDK are similar, they're both free (though UDK has a cost in certain situations). They both are 3d engine tools, and they both have a GUI editor for code. Unity games can be played in a browser, though, which gives it an advantage in that sense.
- #7: Game Maker and Multimedia Fusion are both similar, in that they are engines built to make 2d games quickly. They both cost money, but there's been commercial indie games made with both, as well. Both of them have a GUI interface for basic game creation, as well as a scripting language.
- #8: Read text on slide (yeah it's bad, but short and sweet in this case)