Hi Thomas,
Agreed 100 %. We had a discussion on the private beta team whether or not we
should have high level wizards for making different styles of games but it
was a unanimous no in the end as far as I remember.
And as for whether programming knowledge is necessary... I've been asked the
same question more times than I can count, and the short answer I give is
that yes you do need to have an idea of how scripting works, which is like
programming but 10 times easier. The fact of the matter is that a game is a
program like any other, and so one cannot make a game without programming.
Then how easy or difficult the programming is, that's a science in itself.
Smile. I can only try to make it as simple and user friendly as possible,
which I'm hoping to achieve not only by having an extensive text
documentation but also by providing it in a readily accessible audio format.
Kind regards,
Philip Bennefall
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Ward" <thomasward1...@gmail.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 9:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Genesis Engine was Retro Gaming
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 <phi...@blastbay.com> 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
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