Indie Friendly Development Tools

[villain of the story]

Here's an "XNA RPG 2.5D Game Engine" using XNA with an amazing rendering trick to make 2D look and act like 3D:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6ISVaM5Ww

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtYvNEmmHXE

 

[Davaris]

There is another Dare to Share offer. It closes October 2.

This time it is a City/Building Generator called Urban Pad.

http://www.gamr7.com/init/urban_pad/special

 

[ChristofferC]

Also, I'd suggest to start with C++, not because I'm all old-school and stuff, but because you will get a deep understanding of how every programming language works.

No, no, no. Start with any language but C++. C, Python, C#, Java... But not the hodgepodge that is C++. If you want to get a deep understanding of how programs work, read one book about digital electronics and computer architecture, one book about operating system design and learn some assembly and C.

edit: oh fuck I just responded to some really old post. oops

 

[Oriental European]

I'm gonna buy C4 for my 3D FPS game. I have experience with levelmaking and modeling, plus nice idea for a simple but entertaining game.
I like that C4 has clean C++, awesome terrain editor, easy creation of menus and stuff, real-time lightening, nice collection of effects, p.easy adding of texture maps, lot's of scripting examples.
I didn't like Torque's interface and Unity's shebang with 3 script languages.
Also, C4 is only 350$.
I use Blender for modeling, Paint.NET for textures, CorelDraw for concept art and blueprints.

 

[SCO]

Here's an "XNA RPG 2.5D Game Engine" using XNA with an amazing rendering trick to make 2D look and act like 3D:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6ISVaM5Ww

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtYvNEmmHXE

this was like sex

VD, there's a new reason to delay Age of Decadence.

 

[Wunderpurps]

Now that I think about it more, I'm not really sure I'd want/need complex scripting that's tied in to the engine anyway. Most/all of what I'd want to be tinkering with on-the-fly would be fairly high-level game concepts, that'd have little to do with the specifics of the engine.

So really, why would this hold up your project, and why would you possibly start a 2.5D turn based squad game by messing around with shaders?

Starting is probably the hardest part, but it's so much work to make a game like that. If it's all in torquescript it doesn't seem likely to work out too well.

 

[Davaris]

All licenses for the The C4 Engine, have been changed to perpetual updates. That means you only pay once and get all updates free.

Perpetual updates are back!
http://www.terathon.com/forums/viewtopi ... =2&t=11392

 

[LiWe]

your hands. especially when the going gets lonely.

 

[Surf Solar]

this was like sex

VD, there's a new reason to delay Age of Decadence.

Holy moly , this is nice. Hope that guy eventually releases it or sells licenses for it. I'd love to lay my hands on that.

 

[Haba]

Holy moly , this is nice. Hope that guy eventually releases it or sells licenses for it. I'd love to lay my hands on that.

No updates for ages, so seems highly unlikely.

Why isn't there RPG Maker for old school western RPG's? I'd kill for a good engine with ready made tools. Simply don't have the time any more to build everything from the scratch.

 

[Flatlander]

Why isn't there RPG Maker for old school western RPG's? I'd kill for a good engine with ready made tools. Simply don't have the time any more to build everything from the scratch.

This is something I have been wanting to do for ages, but the problem is that the WRPG genre is much more diverse than its J counterpart which tend to have very generic settings and mechanics.

Which kind of gameplay should the hypothetical WRPG Maker support, Black Isle style isometric, free roaming 3d, old school step-by-step pseudo 3d, Darklandsy CYOA? What about combat system and rules? Party or single player? Class or skill based? And so on... Each decision has a significant effect on the implementation of the engine and is likely to turn away part of the target demographic.

With JRPGs you just need a basic top down exploration mode and a simple blob combat system with a basic support for scripting and superficial customization like replacing "mana" with "nanopoints" etc. and everyone is happy.

 

[Surf Solar]

I guess a standardized Iso engine with open structure to do things like the IE engine would be nice. 2,5 it has to be. You know, the FOnline engine I am working with has all this, but the documentation for it is either in russian or english ones are very poor. It's a shame, since it's a very easy to use engine, I'm sure one could make such shaders like in the video linked above aswell there.

 

[Haba]

This is something I have been wanting to do for ages, but the problem is that the WRPG genre is much more diverse than its J counterpart which tend to have very generic settings and mechanics.

Which kind of gameplay should the hypothetical WRPG Maker support[--]?

I'd say something simple with the potential for additional complexity and polish in it.

I.e. simple 2D top-down sprite based engine. A few main features that at least I'd love:

- Turn-based combat system (action point based)
- Basic AI for combat
- Party support
- Combat scripting system (events and triggers)
- Basic skill/stat system in place
- Ragdoll inventory
- Save/load
- Customizable GUI
- Dialogue engine (branching dialogue, skill checks , simple scripting)

Simple like in RPG maker, so creating assets is not expensive and doesn't take technical skill. Scripting and basic systems in place so you can create as advanced combat systems and complex storylines as you choose to.

If you add shaders, lightning and weather effects and whatnot, you can still make attractive looking games.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Yeah it's a bit weird that someone hasn't made rpg maker focused on wrpg, I think there's a good market for that.

RPG Maker is really easy to use and as long you invest time and have some good ideas it's easy to make a decent jrpg with it, combat can be made h'n's instead of jrpg turn based but that's a lot of work and other wrpg features aren't supported anyway or require lots of scripting.

 

[Goliath]

What would an RPG maker programmed by BlackCat look like? Unimaginable? Unfortunately not..

Haven't tried it, but the website is hilarious: http://maker3d.tk

Personally, I refuse to run anything made by that person on my computer, but if YOU want to try..

 

[Cassidy]

What would an RPG maker programmed by BlackCat look like? Unimaginable? Unfortunately not..

Haven't tried it, but the website is hilarious: http://maker3d.tk

Personally, I refuse to run anything made by that person on my computer, but if YOU want to try..

Fan-Made Final Faggotry VIII. Think about it Andyman Messiah!

Now on a serious note. Is FIFE dead? If yes, that is a pity because I haven't heard of any progress on it for a long time.

 

[Goliath]

Is FIFE dead?

http://fifengine.net/

Nov 3, 2011
FIFE: 0.3.3r2 Released!
After releasing 0.3.3 we quickly started getting reports of some issues with it. We decided that because 0.3.4 is a ways away that the best thing to do would be to release a fix release for 0.3.3.

Doesn't look dead to me.

 

[Goliath]

I am working on my game again and two useful tools I am using right now are:

Character Maker Pro

Mappy

These apps are great time-savers if you do really old school stuff like I do i.e. 2D top-down grid-based maps and art.
Character Maker Pro makes creating suitable tilesets easier and then you can load said tilesets into Mappy
and "paint" your game maps. Mappy can export your painted maps into all kinds of formats. Personally I love the fact that
it can output simple C arrays (both 1D and 2D) of tile numbers because I can directly use that format. My game is supposed
to feature handcrafted maps and thanks to Mappy I think I won't have to write my own map editor. That saves a lot
of time!

 

[LoPan]

The list is rather lacking in good and solid, and dedicated, pixel art drawing programs.

My input in this would be GraphicsGale and Aseprite. They are both excellent for pixelart, with Aseprite being the superior animation editor and GraphicsGale being more comfortable with larger images, and they are of course both entirely free.

 

[barker_s]

There's a nice giveaway on the Unity webpage ending April 8th. They're releasing basic Android and iOS dev tools for free - here . Might be worth checking out.

 

[chewie]

Is FIFE dead?

http://fifengine.net/

Nov 3, 2011
FIFE: 0.3.3r2 Released!
After releasing 0.3.3 we quickly started getting reports of some issues with it. We decided that because 0.3.4 is a ways away that the best thing to do would be to release a fix release for 0.3.3.

Doesn't look dead to me.

Note: no fife release != fife is dead

release candidats are pretty rare in comparison with the work that is going on, better places to check for activity are the svn tracker & the irc-logs

 

[mvBarracuda]

On a related note: FIFE-based game Unknown Horizons have been accepted as GSOC mentoring project the 2nd year in a row. Last year one of the GSOC students improved FIFE's rendering code and wrote a texture atlas generator for FIFE.

So it looks like at least another UH student will work on a FIFE feature over the summer so we're looking forward to that:
http://www.unknown-horizons.org/devblog/63/114/Our-second-GSoC/

 

[Davaris]

News just in. The as yet unreleased Version 2.9 of C4 Engine, is running on Linux.

 

[Davaris]

Here is a demo of a new animation plugin tool, made by a C4 user, that is coming out soon:

Animator - Alpha 03


Normally you would do all of your animations in an external 3D program and load the animation files in. However, this plugin works inside the C4 world editor.

I don't know if this will be free or not, but his previous plugins have been free, including his fbx importer plugin for C4. I know I would pay for it, as it looks like it is a quality tool.

Edit:
On looking at the video again, it doesn't work in the world editor. It seems you click on the parts you want to animate to create a model and then you move from the world editor into his plugin.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Davaris, you are a well of useful info good sir!