Game Development Tools
Commercial Tools
Game Engines
See also Devmaster 3D engine database.
Not that long ago, the only obvious choice for a low-cost game engine
was Torque and most of the expensive ones were developed specifically
for a game and licensed for secondary revenue by their developers,
such as Monolith (Lithtech), Epic (Unreal), Crytek (CryEngine), Id,
Valve... Netimmerse and Renderware were notable exceptions, although
RenderWare was not a complete game engine but a renderer.
Now Renderware is gone (sold to EA), NetImmerse is Gamebryo, and several low-cost game engines are available. Qube provides a free Windows binary and charges for Mac and console versions of their engine. Terathon. Cipher costs only $100, with source code. Garage Games and Unity run on both Windows and MacOSX and offer indie licenses. PTK is free for freeware games. Shiva authors on Windows and publishes to Windows, MacOSX and other platforms.
Unity has a web player, as does Virtools. The Shockwave player also has an embedded physics engine and so can be used for web-based 3D games.
If you have a lot of money, you can license the "big" engines like CryEngine and Unreal (although the Unreal Developer Kit is now available with non-commercial/indie licenses).
Physics
The aforementioned engines focus on graphics, and you need more than graphics to run a game. Simple collision detection and physics simulation is doable on your own, but anything complex is best left to middleware. Hence the popularity of physics engines such as Havok and PhysX.
Mobile
Game engines for mobile phones include X-Forge, Mascot Capsule, and Superscape
Audio
The RenderWare suite of products had RenderWare audio, but that's gone. The Miles Sound System has been around a long time, but these days FMOD is popular and integrated in a number of game engines including Unity and CryEngine. WWise also has growing popularity.
AI
Simbionics is a behavior development tool. Pathengine and Kynapse specialize in pathfinding and path following, and Havok also provides such a tool. Xaitment provides pathfinding and other AI tools. Euphoria provides dynamic motion synthesis.
GUI
Software engineers and GUI designers with experience in other domains might wonder why they have to invent their own user interface systems from scratch. Anark sold their game UI kit to nVidia, and RenderWare's Flash-based kit didn't really catch on, but ScaleForm's Flash player is integrated with engines such as CryEngine and Gamebryo. The appeal of Flash-based middleware is that you can make use of Flash software (and developers) to build GUI's (but note there are some differences, e.g. Scaleform offers a CRI-based video support and their own component library). Awesomium is a newly-commercialized in-game web browser.
Network
Middleware for network games includes Raknet, Quazal, SecurePlay and StreamBase
Vendors who cater specifically to the DOD game community include Mak Technologies, (network middleware for distributed interactive simulation), Boston Dynamics (human simulation), and Multigen (content creation).
Multiverse is a hosted platform for massively multiplayer online games (MMOG's).
SmartFox Server is a Java-based game server originally supporting Flash and now other clients. OpenSpace is an extension for 2D isometric worlds. Shockwave Server offers dedicated hosting.
Netdog is a C++ server and networking library.
Hero Engine and Bigworld are full MMO engines.
Icarus Studios and Monumental Games license their platforms.
Social Gaming
GameSpy supports social gaming on multiple several platforms. OpenFeint, Scoreloop, and Agon Online provide social networks for iPhone games.
Mod Kits
If you can't afford the huge license fees for the complete game engines from
Epic,
id,
Crytek,
and
Lithtech,
you can still use those engines by creating game mods.
CryEngine
mods are discussed on
Cry Mod.
Mods and information about modding Unreal can be found at Planet Unreal. The official Unreal Developer Network and the unofficial Unreal Wiki also have information on UnrealScript. Third-party tools script editing tools include WOTgreal, an inexpensive UnrealScript IDE, and UnCodeX, an open-source UnrealScript class/code browser and documentation generator. The Atari Community and 3D Buzz host forums on Unreal modding.
Virtual worlds can be modded, too. For Second Life, see the official wiki and the LSL Wiki.
There's also a World of Warcraft Wiki.
Open Source
If you're ready to dig into some code, there are plenty of open-source
games out there -
bzflag,
TORCS,
Flight Gear,
LGames,
Macdoku
and
Open Frag.
ScummVM
runs the
LucasArts
adventure games.
SIO2
is a 3D engine for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Cocos2D
is a 2D engine using Python and running on platforms including the iPhone.
For card games, check out Cards, Poker Source and Poker3D.
Open source 3D engines include Genesis3D, Ogre, NeoEngine, Yakes, and Irrlicht. Delta3D is developed at the MOVES Institute. Nocturnal is an initiative supporting open source game development tools.
The Open Dynamics Engine, the Tokamak Physics Engine and Bullet are open source physics engines. Open Steer is a C++ library for steering behavior. The Newton Game Dynamics SDK is available for free. Chipmunk is a 2D physics engine.
SIO2 is an open source 3D engine for the iPhone.
PaperVision3D and Sandy provide 3D Actionscript libraries. APE is an Actionscript 2D physics engine. Open Source Flash lists other open-source Flash projects.
