ZGameEditor: Freeware tool for creating 64 kb games

[harrypitfall]

I'm going to a same approach, using DelphiX as a root... and i'm really want to use OpenGL.
I use javascript as script...

[VilleK]

Thanks for the supportive comments

Does your realtime audio synthesizer work without directsound?

Yes it also works with SDL-audio. So when the runtime is compiled with the define ZZDC_SDL it uses the platform-independant unit ZPlatform_SDL.inc which use SDL. This is tested and the audio works on Mac and Linux.

About Coco I use this version: http://www.tetzel.com/CocoR/
This is a command line tool which I call from a batch-file (m.bat).
So I edit my definition file Zc.atg with a texteditor and then run the batchfile that generates the delphi-files I can link to my program.
See the files in ZzDC\tools\ZDesigner\expr-folder in my source.
Coco is a very good tool, however compiler/parser writing is difficult and I had to do a lot of reading before using the tool.

[arthurprs]

I'm going to a same approach, using DelphiX as a root... and i'm really want to use OpenGL.
I use javascript as script...

what are you using for javascript? windows script engine?

[wodzu]

Well done. I hope that plenty of people try out this software. Maybe PGD could run a competition: create a 64K demo with ZGameEditor? Good luck.

I second that!

[VilleK]

I'm bumping this old thread to announce the release of ZGameEditor version 1.9.9!

ZGameEditor is a free game authoring tool that generates native high-performance stand-alone compact executables for Win32, Linux x86 and OS X. Now 3 years after initial release ZGameEditor has reached version 1.9.9 and it's the most feature packed update yet!

ZGameEditor is an ideal tool for experimenting with procedural content generation techniques and developing OpenGL-applications. Make games, demos and screen savers using advanced graphics features such as multiple render passes, render targets and shaders. Instant GUI feedback of your changes. No waiting for build times!

ZGameEditor is 100% Free Open Source software. Full Delphi/Freepascal source code available.

New features in 1.9.9 include:

• render to texture
• multiple render passes
• web-connectivity
• string support in scripting language
• calling external libraries

And also many other improvements and changes!

Download ZGameEditor here:

http://www.zgameeditor.org/

[JSoftware]

Quite impressive! Have you thought of using Crinkler or other compressing linkers to make the executables even smaller?

[Colin]

wow - is all i can say..... that last post with screenshots, it looks very professional, do you have any experience with directx? if so at some point i may contact you, i would be interested in paying you todo some work for me.

[VilleK]

Thanks!

JSoftware: I don't know if Crinkler works with Delphi object files but an compressing linker would definitely make a difference. Currently ZGameEditor uses Upx-compression by default and this generates somewhere around 30kb executable for a minimum ZGE-project.

Colin: Sure I have some DirectX experience too! Let me know if you need anything done, but I'm quite busy so I can't promise I can take on another project.

[JSoftware]

The only thing that's a little special about crinkler is that you need to use import libraries, which freepascal at least doesn't support out of the box.

I had to hack the rtl a bit, but when that's done I generate a 1kb executable instead of a 24kb(with upx)

If delphi generates normal PE COFF 32bit objects, then it might be possible

[VilleK]

Good work generating a 1kb exe from Freepascal I'm using Freepascal to compile the ZGameEditor runtime-module for Linux and Mac platforms, but I've used Delphi for Windows because it generates a more compact binary. Perhaps I should try Freespascal on Windows as well.

I'm using a preprocessing step before compression where I remove parts of the runtime that I know is not used for the current project. For instance if a user has made a project in ZGameEditor that doesn't use Web-connectivity then I know that the class TWebOpen will not be needed in the runtime. I then use the Delphi generated map-file to zero out the area in the runtime that the class occupies. This does not modify the runtime size but increase compression ratio because of added redundancy.

With Freepascal and Crinkler I could instead distribute the obj-files of the runtime and when generating an exe from ZGameEditor I would create a list of the object files needed based on the current project and use Crinkler to link and compress.

If you have an example on how to use Crinkler with Freepascal then please post here or PM me, thanks!