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

[Anian]

I know next to nothing about programming, but Lua seems pretty easy to learn and use for scripting.

[Monsieur OUXX]

I know next to nothing about programming, but Lua seems pretty easy to learn and use for scripting.

Thanks for providing constructive comments anian! But let's not go further that way -- This thread is more about "putting all the components together" or "what's the best out-of-the-box solution" than about "what's the best scripting language".

[Ali]

Ali, is there any way you'd share your tech demo's source code?

Yes!
http://www.filefront.com/17644874/blender_adventure_demo.zip

WASD to move, left click to interact, right click to examine. Spacebar to open inventory and F1 to switch to fixed camera.

Hopefully all the dlls you need are there. It was made in Blender 2.49 cobbled together out of other scripts available online. I'm afraid the inventory system is not actually working properly: the objects appear in the wrong slots, and I couldn't work out why!

[Monsieur OUXX]

http://www.filefront.com/17644874/blender_adventure_demo.zip

Thanks a lot! I'll fiddle with it. Blender Game Engine offers great native features for Adventure Games, like clothes physics, water effects, etc. Wouldn't it  be gredt to see Roger's hair and space cadet's uniform flot in the wind? ;-)

As some of you have noticed, I've been snooping around on several forums : Crystal Space, Blender and DAGE.

It turns out that the game called "Yo-Frankie" (code name "Apricot"), which was supposed to be some super tech demo for both Blender Game Engine and Crystal Space, ended up using only Blender Game Engine, because they couldn't get Crystal Space to work. LOL.

Wherever I go, everybody agrees that Ogre3D has the best real-time rendering. Blender's real time rendering, Irrlicht, etc. are always slightly behind. It's no big deal, but, eh, in terms of maintenance it means that Ogre3D will still be ahead, even in 5 years. That's important too.

[Monsieur OUXX]

@Ali, @others :
Here's a mid-level World Editor + advanced rendering system based on both Blender Game Engine and Ogre3D. It also includes physics, and I suspect it includes sound (even 3D sound):
It's fully cross-platform (including iPhone) and has a BSD-like license (free+redistributable).

The project is very recent but also very active.

Gamekit:    http://code.google.com/p/gamekit/

I'll have a look at how good is the rendering (they say it's for "fast prototyping"), and if it can make easier the steps you found hard to achieve in your tech-demo, Ali.

What I particularly like is that the scripting can be made with C++, Lua or even logic blocks -- a native feature of Blender (I don't care myself but that would be great for artists who want to make simple point-n-click).

[Ali]

I remember reading about this project on BlenderArtists, before YoFrankie. (The fact that those guys gave up on Crystal Space was one of the things which put me off it too.)

I didn't know they'd released anything, so thanks for posting it!

[Monsieur OUXX]

I didn't know they'd released anything, so thanks for posting it!

I downloaded their "ready to use" package, started Blender, oipened the "momo" .blend file, clicked on Game-->Start... and got "The application encountered a problem and needs to close"
EPIC FAIL!
I'll go on their forums and snoop.

[Monsieur OUXX]

OgreKit definitely looks like an incredible base for a generalist point-n-click games engine.

Things that have an incredible potential but that you don't see at first glance:
- The 3D modeling tool is part of the game editor (and vice versa)
- The game logic can be made of "bricks" (ANYTHING, from collisions, to mouse movements, to surfaces behavior, etc.)
- You can cutomize your stuff in C++ (at a relatively high level!) or in Lua.
- You can write plugins for Blender to integrate all point-n-click editor features into the GUI.
- They're very active
- It has Ogre3D, so it will look good until the end of times.
- It has the MIT license (you can use it to make commercial games!)

Also, check this out : Maratis.
It's brand new, it's from January.
- It has the GNU license
- It looks like it's what Sketchup is for 3D modeling: very clear and yet relatively powerful.

Big things are happening in the game editors world. We feel the shockwave of the Indie games rebirth (the tools to make them are flourishing everywhere).

@Ali: If I create a SVN repository to start trying building a proof-of-concept on OgreKit, would you be interested?

[Sslaxx]

Maratis does look quite an interesting little tool. Note that it's the editor that's released under the terms of the GPL - the core engine is using the zlib license. GLFW is either being used or going to be incorporated (to facilitate ports to other OSes e.g. Linux). It also uses Lua.

[Monsieur OUXX]

it's the editor that's released under the terms of the GPL - the core engine is using the zlib license.

It's not too much of a constrain, is it? All you have to do is to say in the credits and the readme that the game was made with Maratis.

GLFW is either being used or going to be incorporated (to facilitate ports to other OSes e.g. Linux). It also uses Lua.

I'm not sure I get your point. Are you saying that at the moment it's using something else internally? Whether or not it's using GLFW, the developer doesn't really care, does he? How is GLFW bbetter than what they're using right now?

[Sslaxx]

it's the editor that's released under the terms of the GPL - the core engine is using the zlib license.

It's not too much of a constrain, is it? All you have to do is to say in the credits and the readme that the game was made with Maratis.

GLFW is either being used or going to be incorporated (to facilitate ports to other OSes e.g. Linux). It also uses Lua.

I'm not sure I get your point. Are you saying that at the moment it's using something else internally? Whether or not it's using GLFW, the developer doesn't really care, does he? How is GLFW bbetter than what they're using right now?

It's not about "better", it's about cross-platform compatibility, for the runtime at least.

As for constraints, unless for some reason you use the editor's code in your game, it isn't at all.

[Monsieur OUXX]

It's not about "better", it's about cross-platform compatibility, for the runtime at least.

Ah, OK! Sorry.

As for constraints, unless for some reason you use the editor's code in your game, it isn't at all.

Everything alright, then.

[Sslaxx]

Oh, and regarding what you said concerning OGREKit - I'd be interested, for one at least.

[Koplin]

http://www.visionaire-studio.net/cms/welcome-2.html

Although its 2D, Visionaire is very powerful. A Whispered World, Kaptain Brawe, and the Zak McKraken remake were done with it, aswell as a few really nice looking upcoming games.
Apparently there will be support for 3D characters in the next release aswell.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Yeah I've come accross Visionaire and forgot to post here. I still don't know what to think of it. At the moment it still seems to be some sort of twin brother of AGS, but the purpose of this thread is more to investigate the ability for 3D.

[Khris]

Although its 2D, Visionaire is very powerful.

?

I've never liked Visionaire. Apparently, since version 3.X, it supports scripting (Lua afaik), it used to have an Interaction Editor like thingy only.
I'm not sure to which extent (2) can be solved with scripting but here's why I prefer AGS any day:

(1): While it supports native 1280x960 (which AGS doesn't, yet), it does a bad job when it comes to 320x2X0. So people who think 1280x960 looks way better than 1024x768 and on the other hand don't need powerful, yet easy scripting are very welcome to use it.

(2): Since the homepage currently proudly features a Monkey island style template (which is a joke, compared to ours, btw), that's a perfect opportunity to point out a big flaw: say I was to put a door in my game and I want to set it up so that a right-click open/closes it. All I do is name the door "door>v" and add a couple of lines of code, linking the door to a global variable.
That's all I ever need to do; even if the door starts out as locked, a right-click, which here produces "open door", will automatically fail since the door is locked.
Not so with Visionaire though.* A) I have to include the whole right-click behavior manually, not just once, but for every door, and of course the look action for every other object (also handled by the AGS template automatically).
B), opening the door with a right-click is a completely separate action from selecting "open" and left clicking the door. Thus, if the door might be locked, I have to code all the "is door locked" stuff twice.

In short: no siree, thank you very much, no more Visionaire for me.

Twin brother my ass

*If anybody who knows this to be false wants to correct me, feel free to do so! I'd be glad to hear Vis finally came around.

[Ali]

@Ali: If I create a SVN repository to start trying building a proof-of-concept on OgreKit, would you be interested?

A bit late to reply...

I think I might be interested, but I'm not 100% clear on what a SVN repository is. Could you explain the idea?

[cat]

I just know that DOTT2 have switched from Visionaire to Wintermute because of the scripting issues.

[Anian]

Anybody tried to do something with Maratis?

[Ascovel]

The Journey to Kelabra was made with Visionaire - I don't think the engine needs any more recommendation than this.