Topic: Why isn't there a serious, modern Adventure Games engine?

[Monsieur OUXX]

Why isn't there a serious, modern, Adventure Games engine?

Don't misunderstand me:
- AGS is serious but not modern (there's no real support for 3D - I *do* know it's a feature, though! AGS has a very specific audience)
- Wintermute is modern-ish but the plugins are rare and the support is awkward. It aims mainly at 2.5D
- Lassie has disappeared from the Radars
- other engines are falling apart.

Don't tell me Adventure games are a niche market -- there are plenty of 3D adventure games being released since Beyond Good and Evil.
Also, don't tell me that not everybody wants to make 3D games -- I know that, but 3D features apply to 2D (anti-aliasing, Z-buffering, special effects, particles, etc.)

I'm more curious why the motivation is so low.

[Khris]

Here's one that might qualify: http://www.dageport.com/

[Monsieur OUXX]

Here's one that might qualify: http://www.dageport.com/

I'm actually really stupid because I had noticed that one a few months ago and then forgot about it.

EDIT: I remember why I discarded it : At the moment, it relies heavily on scripting. The IDE is still in developement. Also, it's not clear how good is the rendering engine (there's not point using 3D if it then looks ugly )

[Anian]

Well I'm pretty sure Unity3d can be modified with "plugins" so it's not much of a hassle (well, need of knowing programing) to make an adventure game...not sure what kind of "adventure game" you mean though, can you give an example?

I'm sure Telltales type of adventure games can be made in Wintermute and most probably in AGS.

[Rahakasvi]

I remember why I discarded it : At the moment, it relies heavily on scripting. The IDE is still in developement. Also, it's not clear how good is the rendering engine (there's not point using 3D if it then looks ugly )

So you want a such game engine with what you can (alone) make games that look like Crysis, of course without scripting, modeling or any work from you, and you want it free, preferably with option that you can sell the games as much as you like?

I'm wondering also why anybody haven't ever done this? That would be SO awesome!

[Ali]

Yes, DAGE has some way to go before it's the engine you want, and the rendering engine is pretty basic at the moment (though it does have the beginnings of Glsl support, which I lack the scripting skills to properly implement. There are also 2D effects filters like bloom which work pretty well).

I'm sure that Wintermute 2.0 aims to be what you're looking for, but it's still in development and won't be free.

However AGS appeared years after the popularity of 2D adventures, we should be pleased that 3D engines are springing up at the same time as 3D adventure games! Also, if DAGE is going to develop into the engine it could be it needs support, so why not make something short with it?

I just made this game, the DAGE equivalent of Lassi Quest. The graphics are simple, but if you use 3DS Max there's nothing to stop you producing some nice baked textures which would make things look more lovely. Since I use Blender, which won't export multiple textures in 3DS format, this wasn't possible for me. Hopefully in the future DAGE will offer more control over textures and better integration with Blender.


EDIT:

(there's not point using 3D if it then looks ugly )

Also, I think Grim Fandango and the early Telltale games (which were well designed but looked far from amazing) stand against you on this point.

[Scavenger]

I remember why I discarded it : At the moment, it relies heavily on scripting.

?? Every serious game relies on scripts. From SCUMM to AGI to SCI to Quake to Source, every game has a scripting language to make it extendable. The era of hard coded engines has long passed. What do you want, Klik and Play?

An engine cannot be serious and not have scripting capabilities.

Also, it's not clear how good is the rendering engine (there's not point using 3D if it then looks ugly )

You work around the limitations of a rendering engine if it isn't the best evar. Just like if your engine can only support 256 colours, if your rendering engine can't do, say, specular mapping, you work around it by not designing characters and sets that don't rely on that. There are Playstation games that look beautiful, and I don't think the PSX even supported bump maps or realtime lighting. Or 16 bit colour. I still think Spyro the Dragon is a nice looking game, as is Tomb Raider,even if they're blocky and without advanced texturing.

You don't need HDRIs and refraction or anything to make something look good. You just need an artist who can work within these limitations.

[Theme]

Hi. There is a lot of serious engines actually:
crystal space, unity3d, Irrlicht, Panda3D, Ogre
All you need to do is script pathfinding, dialog system, interactions, modelling characters and scene, rigging, animation etc
them you will have your own modern adventure game!
o/

[Monsieur OUXX]

So you want a such game engine with what you can (alone) make games that look like Crysis, of course without scripting, modeling or any work from you, and you want it free, preferably with option that you can sell the games as much as you like?

Oh, what a nasty answer

Yes, actually I do.

More seriously : DAGE is not automated enough (no production pipeline, the scripter pretty much has to do everything himself), so it's impossible to make a big game fast, and it makes it error-prone (you know the story: the more sscript you have to maintain, the more errors you introduce -- exponentially!). It doesn't mean it's bad, it just means it's not mature enough at the moment. For example, at the moment, AGS is much better with that matter.

I've thought of Unity (it's pretty much the ultimate solution) but the license is very restrictive. Also, the so-called "adventure game" plugin remains to be found. The basic (free) version of Unity doesn't accept plugins.

There's a huge gap between DAGE and Unity -- nothing inbetween.

However, DAGE is the best challenger.

[Monsieur OUXX]

There is a lot of serious engines actually: crystal space, unity3d, Irrlicht, Panda3D, Ogre
All you need to do is script pathfinding, dialog system, interactions, modelling characters and scene, rigging, animation etc

You answered your own comment yourself :
- Ogre is a rendering engine, not a game engine
- Irrlicht, Crystal Space, Unity, Panda are generic game engines. Not point-n-click engines. So I'd have to code pretty much everything (you gave the full list!) of Pn'C-related features. And then the visual tools to exploit them easily. And then you'd end up with another DAGE. I'd rather contribute to DAGE, actually.

[Ascovel]

Maybe slightly off topic question, but is it true that a 3D game will always be much more problematic/complex to script than the same game in 2D (even assuming all the models and textures are already created)?

And if so, could someone give me a few examples of the additional issues that going 3D brings. Especially those processes that can't be automated.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Maybe slightly off topic question, but is it true that a 3D game will always be more problematic/complex to script than a 2D one (even assuming all the models and textures are created)?

And if so, could someone give me a few examples of the additional issues that going 3D brings. Especially those processes that can't be automated.

Could you create another thread (and then edit your post to point to it) before this thread gets nuked with random posts?
(said without sarcasm, I swear)

[Sslaxx]

What do you want, Klik and Play?

http://www.scirra.com/ - things have moved on since the KnP days, thankfully.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Things have moved on since the KnP days, thankfully.

THANK YOU

Thousands of researchers have spent the last 20 years trying to find a way to make "visual programming" something real, so I'm slightly annoyed when someone posts a hateful comment like "If you can't script, then don't try to make a game, you lazy NoobZ0R".

[Theme]

There is a lot of serious engines actually: crystal space, unity3d, Irrlicht, Panda3D, Ogre
All you need to do is script pathfinding, dialog system, interactions, modelling characters and scene, rigging, animation etc

You answered your own comment yourself :
- Ogre is a rendering engine, not a game engine
- Irrlicht, Crystal Space, Unity, Panda are generic game engines. Not point-n-click engines. So I'd have to code pretty much everything (you gave the full list!) of Pn'C-related features. And then the visual tools to exploit them easily. And then you'd end up with another DAGE. I'd rather contribute to DAGE, actually.

That is the best you can find, there is no AGS easy to use engine for 3D adventure games yet.
DAGE and Wintermute 2 are being develop.
And like Ascovel said, 3d is more complex to do than 2d when it comes to programming.

More seriously : DAGE is not automated enough (no production pipeline, the scripter pretty much has to do everything himself), so it's impossible to make a big game fast, and it makes it error-prone (you know the story: the more sscript you have to maintain, the more errors you introduce -- exponentially!). It doesn't mean it's bad, it just means it's not mature enough at the moment. For example, at the moment, AGS is much better with that matter.

You sound pissed off because nobody made for you a single click modern 3d adventure game engine... There is no "make a big game fast" in 3D or 2d even, and even with AGS if want to do some quality game, you need to do some scripting.
So here is the answer to the first post: there are generic engines, you need to stop being lazy and learn how to script or use dage or wintermute2. There is no "make a big game fast" software that will do everything for you.
"why the motivation is so low?" My guess is because it is hard to make a engine in first place. Or a company that already have their 3d adventure engines don't want to share them for free or don't want to share them at all.

o/

[Sslaxx]

Things have moved on since the KnP days, thankfully.

THANK YOU

Thousands of researchers have spent the last 20 years trying to find a way to make "visual programming" something real, so I'm slightly annoyed when someone posts a hateful comment like "If you can't script, then don't try to make a game, you lazy NoobZ0R".

Don't thank me just yet.

I actually find dealing with scripting languages much easier than working with tools like Construct or KnP (or even 2.x's Interaction Editor), due to the way my brain works. So while yes, easier ways to handle common things would be appreciated, I'd still prefer to work with programming languages for the most part.

[Anian]

You mentioned that Crystalspace, Unity etc. are generic engines, but if you look at the forums you'll probably find everything you need, somebody already probably coded it. UDK is now in v2 and it has a cool scripting alternative, but, at least to me, the pipline is kind of complicated (and on that note Reality factory has a really messed up pipeline) and also, 90% games look very samey (Arkham Asylum, UT etc.).

You can try YoYo Gamemaker if you want almost no coding whatsoever, also has stuff already made to make a point and click game.

And on a bit off topic note: why the hate on Grim fandango, it's a game from 97 and it looks nice, it has better graphics than new S&M games.

[Monsieur OUXX]

"You need to stop being lazy".

Am I dreaming or what?
I've spent 5 years trying to develop an OOP module for AGS, for the record. Thousands of lines of code. So thanks for insulting me frontally.

But that's not the point. Many people here seem to believe that one can achieve anything you want with just motivation. That's not true. How many vaporware games? How many abandonned killer apps? Scripting won't fix the production pipeline issues. It won't fix the scalability issues. It will sabotage the maintainability.

I thought my gameplay through. I've made artistic and gameplay choices that require state-of-the art rendering, and scalability. I'm not asking questions randomly.

You seem to believe I'm pissed. I'm not. I was asking a genuine question : "How come such an engine is not there?". It seems to all come down to a bad timing (Wintermute 2 and DAGE under production). That's unfortunate.

However, the late hateful answers indeed made me pissed. So I'll just say : I'm getting more and more tired to come accross people -- whatever the forum -- who are convonced that reinventing the wheel is the solution to everything, and that refusing to do so is laziness. That's being extremely naive, and that can bring only failure.

[Monsieur OUXX]

You mentioned that Crystalspace, Unity etc. are generic engines, but if you look at the ofrums you'll probably find everything you need, somebody already probably coded it. UDK is now in v2 and it has a cool scripting alternative, but, at least to me, the pipline is kind of complicated (and with that note Reality factory has a really messed up pipeline) and also, 90% games look very samey (Arkham Asylum, UT etc.)

You can try YoYo Gamemaker if you almost no coding whatsoever, also has stuff already made to make a point and click game.

And on a bit off topic note: why the hate on Grim fandango, it's a game from 97 and it looks nice, it has better graphics than new S&M games.

Thanks for the constructive answer.
I'm not satisfied with Grim Fandango because : 1/ It's not 3D but 2.5D, and 2/ It overcomes the problem of 3D quality by using a cartoony style.

[Ali]

And on a bit off topic note: why the hate on Grim fandango, it's a game from 97 and it looks nice, it has better graphics than new S&M games.

At the risk of going further off topic, I guess that was in reference to my comment. There's nothing but love towards Grim Fandango from me. The design for Grim Fandago is some of the best in any adventure game.

However, the graphics (both pre-rendered backdrops and realtime characters) are simply not up to much compared with 2D adventures from 1997 or recent 3D adventures. The blockiness and intersecting polygons are very ugly, and while it was well suited to the skeletons, it worked poorly for characters like Glottis.

Here are two dialogue setups for comparison: