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Game Engines
Here is a list of game engines that you can use to develop games. These engines are intended
to make game development easier, although even the best engines will have its limitations.
Its difficult to make an engine thats both very flexible, and very easy to use. Still, if you are
new to programming and want to make games, trying out one of the engines below would be a good place
to start.
Torque
http://www.garagegames.com/
A high-quality game engine with support for indoor and outdoor 3D environments, fully featured GUIs, scripting, networking, and more. It is
also very reasonably priced. Also, the source code is provided to those who purchase licenses to the engine, so you can add whatever features you
might need.
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RealmCrafter
http://www.realmcrafter.com/index.html
One of the only attempts I've seen at making a reusable MMORPG engine. It runs on Blitz Basic, so I'm a little suspicious of it, but it looks
promising. I guess we'll have to wait for the demo to see how good it is.
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VERGE
http://www.verge-rpg.com
A non-commercial game engine geared towards RPGs. Has built-in support
for multi-layered tiled maps, custom character animations, and robust scripting
using a specialized language called VERGE C, which uses C-style syntax. This
engine doesn't commit you to any kind of rules-system. In fact, many of the best games developed with VERGE aren't RPGs at all. That also means you have
to implement the rules-system (including battle system) yourself (or use one someone
else has developed).
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IKA
http://www.ikagames.com/
This started as a windows port of the VERGE engine. The engine was eventually renamed to "IKA" because
some people using VERGE didn't like the direction IKA was taking. I've never used IKA myself, but the
screenshots look promising.
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Sphere
http://aegisknight.org/sphere
A surprisingly well developed RPG game engine. Supports lots of features, including network
play. It uses ECMA script (which is better known as Java script, but I call it by its original name
because it really has nothing to do with Java). Like VERGE, you'll have to implement your own rules-system
for this, or find one someone else has developed. Also, I find ECMA script awkward, but it probably works
for beginners.
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Neverwinter Nights
http://nwn.bioware.com
A commercial RPG game that supports player-created modules and content. It has a
very advanced and robust world builder tool that you can use to create your own
modules. Last I checked, there are over 2500 modules available for download, along
with hundreds of custom graphics and scripting packs. The only downside is that
you are limited to using D&D 3 style rules, although you'd be surprised with the kind
of flexibility you can get through scripting.
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