Hi Philip, Exactly my point. In a sense the AGM is too simplistic a game development tool because it is extremely limited in what you can actually create with it. You are not able to modify the enemy AI or use any kind of if type conditional statements to change the behavior of any game elements. This is a huge drawback as you know conditional statements are absolutely essentual for creating games where there are several random variables involved.The point and click game development tools don't give you that kind of control over the games creation and behavior. Which was one of the reasons it failed to impress game developers such as me. I understand some users desire to have a simple point and click all in one game development tool, but such a thing isn't realistically feasable if we want the developer to be able to create new and unique types of games. I think what you are doing with BGT is really the best compromise possible. You have a scripting language with special modules/add ons that helps simplifies the process of game development while not giving up any features in the process. I think in the end I'll probably end up doing the same thing with Genesis as well. There really isn't any better way to do it. I don't know about you, but ever since I mentioned I was working on the Genesis Engine I often get asked if he/she will have to know any programming to use it. Like you if I go with a scripting language for scripting the engine the end user wouldn't necessarily have to know how to program to use it per say, but they would have to learn how to use the scripting language which some might find a little daunting. That may put people off from buying it as they wouldn't be able to pick it up, point and click a couple of times, and have a new game. It still may require some scripting by hand to create a game which is a big turn off for the common computer user, but is necessary to have a fully featured game engine.
Cheers! On 3/14/10, Philip Bennefall <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > A good summary, in my opinion. The problem I have with a, shall we call it > clicky-pointy tool is that it's ridiculously limited. Somebody asked on the > audio game maker forum how easy it would be to make a sports game (I think > it was basketball or socker or something). The response was, the engine > doesn't support making a ball at this stage... I'll say no more. > > The way I'm doing it in Bgt, as I mentioned previously, is to build a > powerful base that is capable of making pretty much anything. I still have > to add a few things such as file IO, some processor demanding AI that can't > be done so well through the script, parsing directory trees, encryption and > decryption of files and strings etc, 3d vectors and advanced math, > eventually networking and so forth. Though over-all, the core of the engine > will stay unchanged and the only thing that will be added is extra modules. > These, the script writer can simply include and use as though they were > functions and classes that they had written themselves; #include, in other > words. This will enable me to go as high level as I could possibly wish, > even to the point of providing almost finished games where all you need to > do is make a few tweaks to variables and supply sounds. This, however, would > not be a good foundation for a core which is what the audio game maker tried > to do. In short, I'm trying to provide the best of both worlds; extreme > simplisity if you want it, and complete control once you've mastered the > language operation enough. > > Kind regards, > > Philip Bennefall --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
