My game engine

**phibermon** · 28-08-2011, 10:28 PM

Sorry to keep on making this point but I feel it's important : Delphi XE2 uses FPC. all the 'features' that mean a damn to a pascal game developer are thanks to FPC, not XE2. IOS support? FPC. 64bit support? FPC. Mac support? FPC.

Firemonkey is impressive and will no doubt be useful, but if you're not using it for menus etc then all you're doing is using FPC with delphi as your IDE.

Buy XE2 for firemonkey, buy it for superior database client development, buy it for superior Windows 32bit performance, buy it for superiour debugging.

but cross platform game development? just use FPC. they'll be using GDB on other platforms. either that or they've been very naughty and not submitted FPC changes back to the community.

->

EDIT : Others have stated FPC is only used for IOS support or more specifically ARM support. It is reasonable speculation to say that if this is the case, you can expect the IOS intergration to be of a superior production quality (no messing about) when compared to what's currently available in the FPC community. Also, if it is their native toolchain for x86-32, x86-64, having a complete 32bit+64bit runtimes for windows + OSX? that makes the XE2 compiler a serious concideration for me. Linux support would of sealed the deal but alas, Kylix scared them off...

**WILL** · 29-08-2011, 01:06 AM

I like your engine Relfos. In fact I think it could be good enough to liscence out to people. At $100 a license per game title, that's a damn good deal. Especially since it will manage just about most of the aspect of people games.

Now features are an issue, you'd have to list them off for people to make an informed opinion to be fair.

In case noone knows, or it wasn't mentioned yet, Sushi Quest was developed with FPC NOT Delphi.

It may have started development with Delphi at first but it would have then been ported over to FPC eventually to get the current iOS support. I presume that the engine will be somewhat compiler-independent?

My preferred dev platform now is Lazarus with some of Stoney's setup tweaks, but that's because I plan on starting cross-platform development for all my projects with SDL and OpenGL as it's base.

I looked at your engine to consider it should I make a sequel to Garland's Quest (if I ever finish the damn game lol) and if it would work for a puzzle game akin to Eggerland or something more action-based like Polar Panic.

My areas of concern would be performance, code bulk & customization/functionality; Will it run smooth on an iPad 1/2 or iPhone and Mac/PC alike? Also, as I like to build my own game engine to make things lean, how much overhead will I have to deal with? Lastly, how much can I customize and what functionality it built-in and what can I add?

I am still very interested in this engine and would love to get an iOS game out there this might be a technology I'd like to use at some point. My choices are based upon the above set of questions and a list of features/API used. It would also be nice if it were able to be compiled right out of the box onto the iOS platform. I think a lot of people would got for that as it's an exciting new platform for development.

**vgo** · 29-08-2011, 11:44 AM

I'm definitely interested and I'd gladly pay $100 for it, any chance for a demo?

My own engine is in need of a major rewrite and I just don't have the time nor interest for it.

**Stoney** · 30-08-2011, 09:33 AM

I personally wouldn't pay for an engine, especially for there are so many libraries and frameworks available even if they're not Pascal.

If fixing the bugs for iOS would make the difference of it being free (with a MPL or MIT license, everything else would be beside the point imho) I would gladly volunteer for that task.

**WILL** · 31-08-2011, 06:19 AM

I think there is one crucial thing that Relfos forgot to do in his initial post and thats post this video.

It gives a good preview of what game mechanics it boasts. This is what the game engine can do, not just display graphics and playback music. Anybody can make their own framework. I can see applications for platformer/puzzle gameplay using a Zelda-style perspective view. That said, what game engines give you this kind of functionality, built-in for free?

This trailer alone makes a strong case, for me to consider using it for a Garland's Quest game. Considering the kind of world and game play I want for my own game series. (in the planning stages, I have to release the first game before all that)

Again I'd ask... what are the list of features that would come with said engine? I'm more interested in game mechanics than mere graphics and sound specs. Though OpenGL, OpenAL and SDL would be nice. I know it'll work for iOS(fixes required) which means I could port to Windows and OS X easily in the future.

**czar** · 31-08-2011, 09:53 AM

That is a cool video. I am not a fan of these types of games but it certainly looks pretty good. Looks quite polished.

**Relfos** · 31-08-2011, 12:49 PM

Actually WILL in terms of mechanics, the engine is not tied to a specific genre (as you can in the other video with the kart game).
The engine basically offers a framework with everything that is required to build a game (graphics, input, audio, network and so on), so that programmers can concentrate on just writting the gameplay code.
I will try to write a complete feature list later

**azrael11** · 31-08-2011, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by czar

What will be free? Delphi XE2 - the starter edition will be available from day on for $100 (I believe). And from what I understood cross platform will be in the starter version.

Nope 100$ Nope IOS and MACOSX in starter version... sorry

Take a look at this.... http://www.greymatter.com/mcm/embarcadero-shop/delphi