Sorry your browser is not supported!

Hello

I have been doing research on trying to find a game engine for a beggininer programmer, at the same time affordable. I am checking out 3dGameStudio right now and from here DBPro. This site sells quite a few game engines.

I did find authoring systems but that takes the challenge out of making a game and u dont really learn anything from clicking and dropping things to make a game.

I found some free game engines but i prefer putting some investment into my work.

With so many game development software saying they are the best. It makes it hard to find one that is the best for me.

Help!!

They lie, DBPro is the best .

I honestly think that for learning game development in a helpful and positive environment, you came to the right place.

All you really need is a willingness to learn and some patience, try the trial of DBPro, check some tutorials out, and see how you get on. It's free, and even when it's not free it cheap. I program for a living, so I know a good few languages, but I'd choose DBPro over anything else for hobbyist game development.

It's all about knowing what you're looking for, I stumbled upon Dark Basic a few years ago and have loved it since, it's a programming language that's quite easy to learn, but I wouldn't call it a game engine, because when I think of a game engine, I expect the game component to be together, like with Torque, Unity, 3D Game Studio etc. though DBP is designed for game creation, you use it to build up the game engine or make up the game as you go along. So it's programming central. The good think about more engines/tools is that they come with a trial and tutorials to test out.

If you're willing to program your game from the bottom, I'd recommend DBP or Dark GDK (Essentially Dark Basic in C++), Leadwerks seems fairly decent too (that can be used in C++, BlitzMax and other languages) it has a good set of tutorials on site, though it doesn't give you a demo you can program with (though you can play with their level editor for 30 days) look at the tutorials and you can see the way in which Leadwerks works.

I myself have been searching for a game engine - as much as I enjoy DBP, I like having certain jobs cut out. With game engines you'd be using editors and scripting to build your game and each engine works differently. In the time I've been looking I've tried different ones, so I'll give you my opinion on each of the ones I've tried properly (others I've not tried in depth because I've been put off by them).

Torque Game Engine: I jumped onto this one quick, heck I bought it, a few things to note: the scripting language is difficult to get the hang of, there's a lot of resources and a lot to get your started, though the manual is very in depth and it's one of those engines where you'd need to be a nice big thick book to learn from or take a course. You build everything within the game exe file and scripts, you can rebuild the game file in C++ and edit the engine, but that's more advanced stuff. It'll only import with its own file format, most of the mainstream 3D apps can export to it, and it has a free map modeller that export specifically for it (called Torque Constructor) but you kind of need to own one of the programs for other kinds of object, Milkshape is the cheap solution.

NeoAxis Engine: An engine still in development, but it has enough features to build a decent game and people already are, it comes with an editor, the scripting is done in the editor and comes with plenty of examples to use as a reference, there aren't many tutorials or much documentation. My main gripes were: .mesh import (I don't have a program that can export to this, though all you need is Milkshape 3D for this, a valuable and cheap tool to have, though I don't have it) and the editor, though the editor is good, I did not like how you navigated objects in a scene, it kind of hindered scene building.

Unity3D: the one I'm most impressed by, I'm still trying out its 30-day trial, it has many drag and drop elements and perhaps the most well though out...though drag and dropped assets will have scripts associated with them, the app already comes with a few scripts to use and the Lerpz tutorial project adds even more, but it's not too difficult to script your own. The good thing about Unity is the beginner's tutorial, which too is well thought out and quite in depth, yet practical, it steps through certain aspects of the engine and how it works by stepping you through creating your first game, called 'Lerpz Escapes' it provides all of the media you need to complete it, you just need to go through the pdf document and build it. The editor is intuitive, the scripting is not too difficult to understand, I've not found it at all difficult to pick up and it has features to save time and effort - for example you can test your game inside of the editor, it'll debug it for you there and then, you don't have to edit individual objects or scripts in the scene, you can go direct to the asset and change values. When you create variables in a script and set them up right, then they'll appear as an option in the editor, so you don't always need the scripts to set the variables. I quite like it and am contemplating purchase. It has decent support for 3D modellers, it tends to like the .fbx format, the games you make can be built for Windows, Apple Mac and Unity3D web player, so high-quality 3d games can be play through your browser. My advice is to download the trial and try it.

Unity 3D for all the reasons Seppuku said.

Leadwerks is nice and it has some beautiful lighting capabilities (all dynamic) but in my opinion it is still a WIP. I own a copy and whilst you can produce a fully working game with it, there are still some things missing.

DBPro and DGDK are pretty nice to use too (download the trial versions like Van B said) especially DBPro because it has loads of useful plug-ins, although these are being ported over to GDK slowly but surely.

Unity FTW!

As I'm playing around with Unity, here's some stuff I've been doing today. I've gotten most of the way through the Lerpz tutorial and now I've decided to do some experimentation - as I've always wanted to do a turn-based RPG I thought I'd see if I could script those elements (As it uses Lerpz models I thought I'd call it 'Lepz RPG') - I'll just show you as a sample of what the engine does and what the scripting looks like:






The script I'm currently making for the Turn Based RPG battle...it's basic, needs work and a little messy:




And the trigger code (when the Copper and Lerpz meet, it goes to the battle scene)





On first appearance the code looks difficult and you might need a little prior knowledge of programming before attempting it, but the Lerpz tutorial and sample scripts are helpful enough.

I'm making an online browser FPS with Unity. It's so simple to code respawners, weapons etc. My artists adore it, because all they need to do is save the .max file (not export) and the engine does the rest for them.

I like the pipeline too, if you modify one of your models it automatically reloads in Unity. Such a nice piece of software to work with, I will be buying the pro license next month.

It really is good, I probably could kick out a simple game of my own before my trial runs out, I've gone for the whole turnbased RPG style battle, though simple and crappy, probably could turn into a Lerpz RPG with room for improvements if I buy the damn thing. All of the issues I've had with other engines or things that have put me off them have been solved in this.

I think this conversation is probably helpful for the guy to check it out, seriously dude, download the 30-day trial, follow the Lerpz tutorial (on the website) and you might love it. If it's not what you're looking for, other engines are around, some of them already mentioned and it might be worth checking out demos for everything and pick the one you're most comfortable with. Don't do what I did, get ambitious about one piece of recommended software, buy it and then find you don't completely agree with it (I've given up on learning how to program and script with Torque).

I did download the trial, I was playing around with the example terrain. Im right now working on the 3d tutorial from the website.

Its nice this engine can use c#. Ill be starting school in a cpl days on C# so its almost like a win win situation if I like the engine I mean.

Thats what i did with torque when I was first getting into game development. with the everything I got for Torque I could have gotten something better for close to same price.

You should take a look at the C4 Engine too, it looks pretty sweet. I'm just messing around with it now.


C4 Engine

DBPro is great if you want to learn to code in a safe environment, and rapidly create games. By safe environment, I mean you don't have to worry about memory leaks and all those internal problems you have with more advanced engines. You can make a game riddled with bugs, but when you make it crash, it's always easy to figure out what you've done wrong. There are no really cryptic rabit holes when debugging.

Having said that, it's still a full on programming language, so it takes time and dedication to use it. However, when you've mastered it, it's so quick to develop in. For example, I've been using DB in some form since '99 so would regard myself as very well versed. Right now I'm working on a project, and every day I have added a new weapon, new power-up, new special effect or something. The coding and effort required to make something from scratch probably can't be equalled by any other "start-from-scratch" engine (i.e. one that doesnt have drag and drop etc).

Of course, as with any language, the ease at which you can add/change things depends on how well you've structured your code, but still, DBP provides an environment that is potentially lightning quick to develop in.

Downsides are, you don't get raw horsepower, and you need to buy some of the plugins to get the most out of it.

For a game engine suited for indie's, I too recommend DBP as a great way to get into 3D programming. PlayBasic is also amazing and *fast* for a 2D engine. In fact looking at their forums will show you that the more adventurous are using it to make 3D games even, but for 2D, no BASIC language can beat PB at the moment.