FIFE - a cross platform isometric game engine

[elander_]

Very impressive. That looks a lot like syndicate:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/syndicate/screenshots

One of my favorite Amiga games.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Thanks for the feedback

Other people mentioned the Syndicate reference as well. Let's see into what this example game turns later

 

[mvBarracuda]

We've made it! The 2007.2 release is on the server and we're all happy that it shipped in time.

Download
* Source package (Linux, Macintosh): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/F ... rc.tar.bz2
* Win32 binaries: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/F ... _win32.exe

Screenshot


Important changes since the 2007.1 release
* Removed the rather difficult to maintain lunar.h bindings in favour of SWIG.
* Replaced the Lua scripting support with Python. Now the main loop runs in the scripting language. For the 2007.1 release the main loop still ran in the engine side and the Lua library was embedded into the engine. By utilizing SWIG game creators can add Lua support back to the engine again if they have the need for it.
* Metamodel refactoring. This resulted in a better engine structure and a decreased number of dependencies between the engine modules. Furthermore bi-directional dependencies were removed completely.
* Improved engine modularity. Our aim is that you can cherry-pick specific engine modules of FIFE and just use the ones you really need for your game.
* Pathfinding integration. Exchangable backends so you can already replace the currently rather simple linear pather with a more sophisticated system.
* New 3d geometry system. Camera supports now tilt, rotation and zoom. Geometries are affected by camera adjustments, but in addition to that, layers can contain separate scale and rotation.
* New event channel module. Scripts have full access to mouse, keyboard & widget input.
* New MVC architecture pattern. The whole engine has been refactored to follow a model - view - controller pattern. This leads to a cleaner engine module hierarchy compared to the engine design that was used before.
* Improved action-based animation system.
* A techdemo to give game creators a starting point. This is a common undertaking of the Zero-Projekt team and FIFE.

Read the full release news update:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/en ... 0/10/16.23

 

[cardtrick]

Congratulations! This seems like a really huge step for you guys, and it's the first time I can imagine indie developers looking at your engine and deciding that it's complete enough for them to use. If you guys get the map editor and such finished, I think you'll start to see some real, serious interest in building games with FIFE. Best of luck, and keep up the good work.

EDIT: Also, that screenshot looks fantastic. It's rare for a single screenshot to make me want to play a game, but that one accomplishes it. Great choice for promoting your engine.

 

[Higher Game]

The techno stuff doesn't mean much to me, but that sure is a nice looking screen.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Thanks for the kind feedback

First basic editor tools might "already" ship with 2007.3. We're currently discussing what new features should be part of the release. Stay tuned, I'll let you know if anything has been decided. Or even better: evaluate the current release and let us know what features should get featured in the upcoming 2007.3 release in your opinion.

 

[Black]

God damn, this looks hawt. Keep up the good work gentlemen.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

congrats on the pathfinding,

could you explain the camera tilt function and what it does?

when will 2007.2 be made into a binary?

 

[The Lord Of The Flames]

First basic editor tools might "already" ship with 2007.3.

Sounds great. Editor tools will be a big step. Would it be possible to provide an editor that doesn't require any scripting knowledge. My hope is, that FIFE turns into framework/tool that allows everyone to create their own games, thus igniting a new age of indy rpgs.

 

[Gwendo]

Looking good. Can't wait for the tools that will allow people without (or with little) programming knowledge build something nice.

 

[Gwendo]

Note: I can't uncompress the file (win32). An error message appears, saying it can't open the file as an archive. ?? I don't have 7zip, but it should self-extract, right?

 

[mvBarracuda]

congrats on the pathfinding,

could you explain the camera tilt function and what it does?

when will 2007.2 be made into a binary?

Check out <FIFE>/utils/geometry_twister.py. That is a python GUI application that explains how the new geometry system works.

The win32 packages already come prebuilt Slenkar. There is no fife.exe as we build the engine as DLL now and load this DLL into Python. Check out <FIFE>/engine/swigwrappers/python/_fife.pyd. That's the FIFE DLL, renamed to the .pyd file extension so python can wrap it up.

Editor tools will be a big step. Would it be possible to provide an editor that doesn't require any scripting knowledge. My hope is, that FIFE turns into framework/tool that allows everyone to create their own games, thus igniting a new age of indy rpgs.

The editor tools are meant to help the game creators to turn their content pieces (graphics, sounds, dialogues, scripts) into a consistent game. However you'll still need to script certain aspects, there is no way around that if you don't want to sacrifize flexibility.

We'll provide SVN snapshots when the first editor tools code can be found in SVN, so you can give us direct feedback concerning the editor.

If you're working on a large game project you'll have somebody who knows Python anyway so that should not be a showstopper. For one man teams: Python is quite easy to learn and we plan to provide proper documentation to ease getting started with scripting.

Note: I can't uncompress the file (win32). An error message appears, saying it can't open the file as an archive. ?? I don't have 7zip, but it should self-extract, right?

Yep, it's a self-extracting 7zip archive. I did compress it with 7zip 4.53 (beta), LZMA compression method, ultra mode. You can get 7zip here if you don't want to run .exe files that you've downloaded from the internet directly:
http://www.7-zip.org/

 

[elander_]

First basic editor tools might "already" ship with 2007.3.

Sounds great. Editor tools will be a big step. Would it be possible to provide an editor that doesn't require any scripting knowledge. My hope is, that FIFE turns into framework/tool that allows everyone to create their own games, thus igniting a new age of indy rpgs.

My experience is that visual programming languages can be as hard to grasp as any scripting language (the ones that use little wired boxes instead of script functions). There's always a little programming practice required to create dynamic behaviors but the scripting language used is Python which is very easy to use and very popular.

 

[cardtrick]

My experience is that visual programming languages can be as hard to grasp as any scripting language (the ones that use little wired boxes instead of script functions).

Ugh . . . dear God. I hate those things. "Programming" in LabView is one of the most painful experiences that I regularly have to subject myself to.

 

[Naked Ninja]

I'm presonally fond of 1st person 3D but congrats, that looks very impressive. Please, someone make another syndicate wars :D

 

[rpgcodexusername]

this is confusing, on sourceforge 2007.1 was the latest binary.
I unzipped it and there was a bunch of DLL's. I dont know how to get started at all. The readme didnt help.
What do I do next?

 

[Gwendo]

I've downloaded the file again, and it extracter with no problem now.

The problem now is: where are the binaries? I thought the release included the binaries, but it seems that we have to build those ourselves and install a python thing...

 

[mvBarracuda]

Please read the README:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/en ... 6.23#Win32

The Win32 package ships with precompiled binaries. Simply unpack the package to location of your choice. After that you'll need to install ActivePython 2.5 to run the techdemo: http://downloads.activestate.com/Active ... 32-x86.msi

Move into the <FIFE> and start the techdemo.py script. You can simply double-click with your mouse on it. It should be automatically associated with the Python interpreter after installing ActivePython

EDIT: Just saw that I already answered this question before.

The win32 packages already come prebuilt Slenkar. There is no fife.exe as we build the engine as DLL now and load this DLL into Python. Check out <FIFE>/engine/swigwrappers/python/_fife.pyd. That's the FIFE DLL, renamed to the .pyd file extension so python can wrap it up.

 

[almondblight]

Damn that looks good. Any idea when the Mac OSX version will be available compiled?

 

[mvBarracuda]

Damn that looks good. Any idea when the Mac OSX version will be available compiled?

This morning one of our IRC channel visitors, donbachi, was able to build FIFE on his Mac. The patch for it should be in SVN quite soon. We have no idea yet how long it will take to create universal binaries for Mac. However as soon as there are any updates on the Mac front, we'll let you know

 

[Mr Happy]

I would play that game in a second.

 

[Severian Silk]

FIFE is vaporware.

 

[Keldorn]

The GLORY of isometrics !!!!!


WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!



IOW, I approve HEARTILY of the path you have taken, and I shall vote for the new iso-traditionalists spiritually and monetarily. Boycotting the 3D-FPS-EYE-CANDY-ACTION-MMMMOOOORPG clickfestian sham-scam is a MUST for those who support genuine CRPG'S, I might add.

 

[The Lord Of The Flames]

The editor tools are meant to help the game creators to turn their content pieces (graphics, sounds, dialogues, scripts) into a consistent game. However you'll still need to script certain aspects, there is no way around that if you don't want to sacrifize flexibility.

We'll provide SVN snapshots when the first editor tools code can be found in SVN, so you can give us direct feedback concerning the editor.

If you're working on a large game project you'll have somebody who knows Python anyway so that should not be a showstopper. For one man teams: Python is quite easy to learn and we plan to provide proper documentation to ease getting started with scripting.

I know both C and Java, so I don't see any problems with learning Python.
My question was more about quest and dialogue development. Writing a dialogue tree without any programming should be possible. Same goes for simple script events (touch the stone and a npc walks into the room, or a door opens,...). Such Tools would allow non programmer/scripters to create their own games. And the more people are able to create their games the better.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Thanks for the support Keldorn It's good to see that there is quite some interest in the project after the recent release.

I know both C and Java, so I don't see any problems with learning Python.
My question was more about quest and dialogue development. Writing a dialogue tree without any programming should be possible. Same goes for simple script events (touch the stone and a npc walks into the room, or a door opens,...). Such Tools would allow non programmer/scripters to create their own games. And the more people are able to create their games the better.

We agree that easy to use tools would be great for non-programmers. ATM there are no editor tools in place at all so the current focus is to bring some first basic tools into the SVN. With the help of community feedback we can surely try to improve the usability of the tools

Our Mac programmer did recently commit his patch into SVN. There are still some issues to resolve but if nothing goes wrong we should have an Intel Mac build of FIFE ready for testing quite soon. Any volunteers who run an Intel Mac and would like to help by testing it?