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

[mode7]

Dear Esther, was epic. A perfect example for interactive art. now that the remake is coming i cant wait.

I did some modding way back in the HL1 days and some tests with hl2. It is easy to use but the coding with all the entities gets very confusing with complex things. And if you need more functionality it means going right to the source (no pun intended).

[straydogstrut]

I hope that clarifies things a bit.

It does, thanks! All the chunky capitalised keywords helped my feeble mind digest the information too;-)

Here's another one that looks quite interesting: Shiva3D. It can build for multiple platforms, has a kind of drag and drop GUI editor and supports creating and using plugins even in the free and basic editions (but for sharing plugins, you can only export signed plugins which you need to buy a Verisign licence for). Licence/Edition comparison. It seems kinda like Unity although the PLE seems more generous on the post-processing effects, shadows and render to texture effects that you need to have Unity Pro for.

It has a bit of an odd looking 'modules' concept - compared to just using objects and scripts directly in something like Unity - but overall it's still drag and drop as far as I can tell. Worth a look though.

[Anian]

Here's another one that looks quite interesting: Shiva3D.

I think you meant this: http://www.stonetrip.com

[Monsieur OUXX]

Shiva 3D ( http://www.stonetrip.com )

For the record: This has no free license.

[straydogstrut]

Here's another one that looks quite interesting: Shiva3D.

I think you meant this: http://www.stonetrip.com

Thanks, didn't realised I'd botched the link. Will fix.

For the record: This has no free license.

Not for publishing, no, but the price of the basic edition is very reasonable IMO.

[Igor Hardy]

The Myst: URU engine has just gone open source!

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/07/myst-online-goes-open-source/

[Ali]

I thought it was worth reviving this topic to mention that development on DAGE has stopped, because the Pauli author got a job. (Good news for him!)

He's considering releasing the engine open-source, which I thought might be of interest to some of the folks around here.

[Sslaxx]

I hope that he does, it was pretty early days for DAGE but it definitely looked like it had potential, and it'd be a shame to see it die now.

[Mustafa]

Can we have a rating and a short summary again on the engines? Like how and why you rate it? There are added many more since I saw the last one.

[Monsieur OUXX]

The summary is pretty much still the same as I did a few posts ago.

In the meantime I've kept thinking about it, and Blender+OgreKit is really powerful, I keep finding new reasons for that:
- The Node Editor provides a GUI for people who can't program.
- Blender natively embeds video-processing features... Like Rotoscoping!!! http://goodspiritgraphics.com/software/tutorials/blender-tutorials/blendertut1/

[Monsieur OUXX]

Well, to elaborate....Take some of the music libraries out there, like FMOD.  FMOD handles all the heavy lifting (ie, all the code to import a music file, load a music file, and stream a music file are done for you).  All you basically have to do is import the library and make some function calls to load and play a tune.

This same approach could be done with an adventure game library, except it would likely benefit from a GUI BUILDER app to accompany it that would export the finished gui designs in a format the adventure game library can import and understand.  So basically you'd use this GUI BUILDER, which is an app made to design all your adventure game guis (verbcoin, verb bar, cursor states, inventory) and then you'd export that as a file much like a music file.  Then the library would interpret this file and allow you to do things like DISPLAY the main gui, seize control over the mouse for point and click, and other things.  The library could be as simple as just displaying a gui on the screen or as complicated as doing all the heavy lifting an adventure game would require APART from what a typical engine offers (rendering, objects, music, etc).  Basically you'd have a very specific library for a very specific type of game that provides only the bits not typically offered in a generic engine like Ogre.

Specific things I could see the GUIBUILDER doing:

1.  Allow you to import graphics for cursors and establish their properties (what each one does) and save/load them in an encrypted .csr file (or whatever).

2.  Allow you to import graphics for inventory items and establish their properties (what they do when used, looked at, etc) and save/load them in an encrypted .inv file (or whatever).

3.  Allow you to import graphics for images, buttons, and so on for the main gui, design them, and then save the entire gui (graphics and all) as a separate .gui file (or whatever).  The editor would allow you to do basic pushbutton states that the library would understand (like if you assign a button to randomly change the player cursor, when you load the gui up in the game and click on the button it will do so).

Obviously you could expand the functionality if you were designing this, but the goal of the GUIBUILDER would be to allow you to create content that is adventure game centric and not as easily done through direct coding means.

Oh, by the way, nobody replied to that but it's very interesting. That's my quest with existing engines. ProgZmax, you baffle me: Sometimes you're on the side of : "do everything yourself, GUIs are for sissies", and there you're on the opposite side   I loved that post.  

The editor would allow you to do basic pushbutton states that the library would understand (like if you assign a button to randomly change the player cursor, when you load the gui up in the game and click on the button it will do so)

In my opinion this is the one thing that is constantly overlooked and underestimated in engines and libraries: The state machines, and the handling of their related events.
However that's extremly important because that's where the said library would meet the underlying graphic engine.

Each engine (let's say Source, the UDK, Blender, etc.) has its own set of events and ways to manage them. Defining events that are universal enough (e.g. "mouse click", to give a simple example) is essential.

[Ali]

This is interesting, though slightly baffling to me.

I'm okay with scripting as far as the basics go (and all the games I've made are pretty basic). But I'd have no idea how to handle an inventory system effectively, and all my attempts have been disastrous. Dialogue trees are completely beyond me, I just don't know how they'd fit into an engine.

I'm probably repeating what I said earlier in this thread, but if there was a way of scripting those features in Blender then with the addition of Ogre it'd be an excellent choice for making really pretty 3D adventures.

EDIT: I suppose I should have posted this Blender Action/Adventure Game in this thread:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8n-NgOYr0

[Monsieur OUXX]

I'm probably repeating what I said earlier in this thread, but if there was a way of scripting those features in Blender then with the addition of Ogre it'd be an excellent choice for making really pretty 3D adventures.

Your approcah is not as different from ProgZmax's as you think, he just has a bigger, wider plan on the long run:
- You suggest to script the Inventory Management directly into Blender
- He suggests that a clever person codes it in C++, and makes it a DLL. Then (as I picture it) this DLL be called using Blender's script through a simple wrapper. The benefit is that any other app can do the same, would you want to do so. You could see this DLL the same way as a plugin in AGS, except it would be compatible with any other Editor/Engine.

[Ali]

I was blind, but now I see!

Now I understand it, that's a great idea. Where can we find these clever people?

(My only reservation would be platform-independence, if I'm right in thinking DLLs are Windows..?)

[Monsieur OUXX]

(My only reservation would be platform-independence, if I'm right in thinking DLLs are Windows..?)

He meant "libraries" in general. I said "DLL" to make it clearer.
Also even before talking about libraries he's dealing about general description standards.

About the "clever people"... If we code it in Blender it's then easy to do a quick-and-dirty conversion into C++ and to compile it as a library. In adventure games most logic relies on collections or related (inventory, characters, dialog trees, etc.).

Anyway at the moment I'd like to have something work with Blender.

[Ali]

Sounds cool. I'm no programmer, as you can tell, and I'm ridiculously busy with a film right now. However, if I can contribute 3D assets or experience with Blender at some point in the future I will!

[Monsieur OUXX]

Gamekit now comes with a Lua IDE => One more win.

Also, Blender is super easy to compile. the code is rather complex but for simple UI modifications it's manageable.
EDIT: That's not needed as all the UI can be tweaked using Python scripts. The only exception might be the Splash screen.

I've created a Google Code project, called "mao-mao-ags", but there is nothing in it yet.

[Sslaxx]

I've created a Google Code project, called "mao-mao-ags", but there is nothing in it yet.

What will that be?

[Monsieur OUXX]

What will that be?

What we've discussed so far:
- Editor: A downgraded Blender (meant to be 100% point n' click oriented, and much easier to use)
             License: Same as Blender (GPL, I think)
- Game Engine: an out-of-the-box version of Ogrekit, to run the game you've made. Ogrekit is cross-platform.
             License: Same as Ogrekit: MIT (that means you may use it for commercial games)


http://code.google.com/p/mao-mao-ags/

[Ali]

The latest version of Blender has just introduced pathfinding via navigation meshes:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Nicks/Gsoc2010/Docs

Apparently it allows for obstacle avoidance as well as 'seek' and 'flee' actions. I haven't had time to experiment, but I thought it was somewhat relevant to this ol' thread.