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- zaratustra
- Super-Dot
Tools
Hey, let's have a thread listing all of the rapid game development tools we know about! I'll keep the list updated.
- Klik N' Play (freeish, terribly buggy, beloved by all)
- Construct (free)
- Scratch (free)
- BYOND (free, networked)
- Novashell (free, crossplatform)
- Scrolling Game Development Kit (free, Windows)
- Scrolling Game Development Kit 2 (free, Windows)
- Adventure Game Studio (free, games vaguely crossplatform, editor Windows-only)
- Game Maker (free lite version, Windows)
- Ray Game Designer 2 (free, 3D)
- ZGameEditor (free, 3D, crossplatform, procedural)
- Processing (free, Java)
- MegaZeux (free, textish, platforms?)
- ZZT (DOS, even more textish)
- VERGE (free, RPG-oriented, crossplatform)
- Multimedia Fusion / The Games Factory
- Unity (MacOS editor, crossplatform deployment)
- DS Game Maker (Nintendo DS)
- AMOS / STOS (Amiga / Atari ST)
- Garry Kitchen's GameMaker (C64)
Anything else worth looking at?
Novashell
Novashell (http://www.rtsoft.com/novashell) (cross platform)
ExtenDS
ExtenDS (http://invisionsoft.co.uk) has been touted as a way to "Make DS Games in the style of kilk and play." (Quote from dev-scene.com)
No wonder I never found this in my searches before. They misspelled Klik!
XtenDS has been replaced...
...by DS Game Maker. The link should really be updated.
I have done so! Thanks for
I have done so! Thanks for the heads-up.
Welcome! Novashell looks
Welcome!
Novashell looks pretty cool, actually. I like how the game source isn't just one giant binary blob, so that there might be some hope of actually using it collaboratively.
Deep Creator
Deep Creator Is pretty good, and can generate games with a very light HD footprint, but it's just too expensive for it's own good ($1995.). The absoulte maximum price of any software program, under any licence, should be $200. And that's even the full price of some cheapo Linux desktops. :P
Ray Game Designer 2
Ray Game Designer 2 is another good one. The only problem is that it hasn't been updated in forever, and unless you speak french, you won't get much help with it.
oops moved
oops moved
processing!
Does http://processing.org/ count?
I guess "rapid" is in the eye of the beholder ;-)
ZGameEditor
ZGameEditor, for making games that are 64kb in size.
Can't believe I forgot about
Can't believe I forgot about MegaZeux.
So I picked up a box
So I picked up a box labelled "Independant Games" the other day, and inside was a little program called The Scrolling Game Development Kit that looks pretty interesting. Also interesting-looking is the sequel.
Microsoft just released an
Microsoft just released an Alpha of a clipart-tastic browser-based Popfly. The clipart is ENORMOUS and the user-created games are atrocious. Trying to edit the graphics crashed my browser.
popfly is dead.
popfly is dead.
Just FYI, Gary Kitchen's
Just FYI, Gary Kitchen's Game Maker is available for more platforms than just the C64. I know an Apple II version was released, and I've heard mentions of it being available for DOS, Amiga and Atari ST.
Just FYI, Gary Kitchen's
Just FYI, Gary Kitchen's Game Maker is available for more platforms than just the C64. I know an Apple II version was released, and I've heard mentions of it being available for DOS, Amiga and Atari ST.
Just discovered Game Editor,
Just discovered Game Editor, which looks vaguely interesting / nauseating. It's interesting in that it's got a Klik & Play-style map editor, and can build games for Windows, Linux, and a bunch of mobile platforms. There's certainly no shortage of trainwrecks being offered up by the community.
It's nauseating in that it uses C as its scripting language. Apparently if you don't pay for a license, your game is automatically GPLv3, so I'm guessing it bundles gcc and generates a bunch of C code.
Now, I could imagine a scenario where using C as a user-facing scripting language might not be an awful idea. For example, if you had the philosophy of building useful abstractions to minimize the opportunity for the user to shoot themselves in the foot. Instead, the philosophy seems to be that the user should write a bunch of repetitive code until their game works. They actually advocate cut-and-pasting giant functions full of nested switch statements which contain the entire logic of how the player moves just so that your character can wear different costumes!
It's apparently the choice of sixty-year-old women, though.
Re:
this is breaking my brain
I mean I understand not
I mean I understand not wanting to explain sprintf to people, but then perhaps you should consider supporting the concept of groups of animations.
If you want more pain check out their documentation on 8-way movement and moonwalking. Glurrggh.
The Shoot-em-up Construction Kit remake?
I saw this mentioned in Trainspotting, but no one replied or put it here.
http://seuck.glbasic.com/
Scratch EXEs
Scratch owns and is great for making trainwrecks, except for that you have to upload and play your creations to their buggy website.
Luckily I found a tool on the forums that will convert them to EXE's, for unawful distribution.
http://chirp.scratchr.org/dl/ChirpCompiler-setup.exe
Works with any version of scratch, and the projects I tested it with work fine. Might be handy to add it next to the Scratch link up there.
Being a Mac OS user kind of sucks now...
...more than it used to, anyway.
Do the EXEs made rely on an external .sb file, or are they just standalone?
If their standalone, do you think you could include the .sb file in the archive for non-Windows users like me? It just feels weird and kind of unfair to shut out some owners of Scratch just because you put your game into an EXE.
I'm probably the only person here who doesn't have Windows, aren't I? :P
Sure, that'll be no problem.
Sure, that'll be no problem. I'm just putting my games into exe's because I don't want to upload it to their site, and I don't want people to have to download scratch itself to play the games.
I cant vouch for this yet
I cant vouch for this yet but "Small BASIC":
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx
If you want to make a
If you want to make a Pinball, VISUAL PINBALL is the way to go. Scriptable in Visual Basic.
http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=4561
Apparently there is a new version called FUTURE PINBALL, too:
http://www.futurepinball.com/
I like FreeBASIC, similar to
I like FreeBASIC, similar to the old qbasic included with ms-dos but modernized. Interfaces with C libraries and includes a qbasic style graphics library that can be used to make trainwrecks or masterpieces.