Posts from ‘Tools’ Category

Handmade Hero

By: Derek Yu

On: December 17th, 2014

Handmade Hero is a project by Casey Muratori to program a “complete, professional-quality game” from scratch using C, C++, and assembly language and document the entire process through a series of videos. According to Casey, every line of source code will be explained on camera, and people can follow along live on Twitch, every weekday at 8pm for about an hour or two (the project began on November 17th). The videos will also be archived on YouTube.

Although it’s unclear exactly what kind of game Handmade Hero will end up being, Casey says that the project will take at least into 2016 to complete. Before the release, however, people can pre-order the game for $15 and receive access to the full source code. Also, two years after the game’s release, the source code will be released into the public domain.

For more information about the project, see Casey’s announcement on his personal website.

PuzzleScript

By: Derek Yu

On: October 16th, 2013

Heroes of Sokoban
Heroes of Sokoban, by Jonah Ostroff.

PuzzleScript is a simple, open-source game engine by Stephen “increpare” Lavelle that allows you to easily create turn-based puzzle games using a unique scripting language. The engine is HTML5-based and games can be built and shared (along with their source code) straight from your browser. The graphics, which are composed of 5×5 tiles, are also designed within the editor, in the same manner that levels are defined.

There are already quite a few clever games in the burgeoning PuzzleScript gallery, showing off the flexibility of the engine, as well as its ease-of-use – although some of the developers are seasoned indies (like Terry Cavanagh, Joseph White, and Stephen himself), quite a few of them are from first-time creators (like Jonah Ostroff, who made Heroes of Sokoban, shown above).

Kickstart This: Sui Generis

By: Derek Yu

On: November 9th, 2012

Sui Generis is the name of a new RPG from Bare Mettle Entertainment. Well, it’s really just a tech demo at this point, but the engine and toolset behind it are extremely promising, offering powerful physics simulation and impressive procedurally-generated terrain at the click of a button. Combat is also physics-based and while it currently looks quite wobbly (drunken is perhaps more accurate), it seems like great fun, too.

RPG players have a lot to look forward to these days from the indie game development community, with lots of small developers bunkering down for the long-term to develop their dream games. Dwarf Fortress, Age of Decadence, Grim Dawn, Kenshi, Starfarer, and the candy-coated Cube World all show a lot of potential. Hopefully Sui Generis will join them in seeing a successful release some day.

Also, this is probably as good a time as any to announce that Kickstarter has finally opened its doors to the UK.

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Grimrock Dungeon Editor: Steam Beta

By: Derek Yu

On: September 13th, 2012

Legend of Grimrock, by Almost Human

After four months of hard work the Legend of Grimrock team has released a level editor beta for their first-person dungeon crawl. Due to Steam’s rapid updating capabilities, the editor is currently only available for players who own the Steam version of the Grimrock. To try it out, right-click on “Legend of Grimrock” in your Steam library and select properties. Then click on the “Betas” tab and opt-in to begin downloading the editor.

Almost Human says that it will be available for all distribution platforms after the beta is over.

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LabChirp

By: Paul Eres

On: March 17th, 2012

LabChirp by Labbed is, like Bfxr (which we posted about previously), a tool for synthesizing sound effects. LabChirp is lesser-known than Bfxr/Sfxr, and each program has options the other program doesn’t. I’m not an expert in sound generation at all (although I have used both programs quite a bit, and create the sound effects for my games using them), so here’s my ignorant appraisal of it:

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Zelda Classic Quests

By: Derek Yu

On: February 4th, 2012

[This is an overly enthusiastic guest article by vinheim that was originally posted to TIGForums. Zelda Classic is an enhanced remake of the original Legend of Zelda that runs custom quests built with ZC’s editors.]

Hey TIGers, prepare your anus for a waaaaall of text.

I bet some of you who’ve played the Legend of Zelda series and enjoyed it are probably thinking “Damn, these are incredible, it doesn’t get better than this!” or “There’s no way a LoZ fan game could compete with these.” Well I’m here to tell you that you are completely wrong and it gets better. Much, much better.

I’d like to introduce two types of LoZ fan games. For the rom hack games, I’ve made some short reviews on [a TIGForums] post. There’s one post near the top and another near the bottom. Don’t worry about the negatives, the gameplay makes up for it.

Second, for the Zelda Classic games, which may as well be the pinnacle of gameplay in the history of videogames since forever. These quests take the core engine of LoZ, add some additional functionality, graphics, and music through scripting and the level editor and let their creativity do the rest. One of the unique functionalities is how people have emulated side-scrolling screens.

Here’s some of the best I’ve played. Assume that graphics, gameplay, sound, and exploration is already awesome and the story is mediocre before reading the additional comments.

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Stencyl

By: Derek Yu

On: May 31st, 2011

Stencyl is a newly-released, free game creation tool that comes with a suite of drag n’ drop editors to simplify the development and publishing of Flash games. There’s a big emphasis on collaboration – StencylForge and StencylTalk let you easily share resources and chat with other developers while you work on your project. For designers who are not so fond of drag n’ drop interfaces, there is a “code mode” for Stencyl’s game logic editor that can be used in conjunction with its simplified “design mode”.

The engine is based on Adam Saltsman’s Flixel library and it uses Box2d for physics. The logic editor is based off of the educational programming language Scratch.

Super Meat Boy Level Editor (Beta)

By: Derek Yu

On: May 9th, 2011

Players who own the Steam version of Super Meat Boy have access to the new level editor (look under “Tools” in your Steam Library). For more info, head to the SMB website.

Game Engines

By: Derek Yu

On: April 30th, 2011

There’s been quite a bit of news recently regarding game engines and game creation tools:

Monocle Engine – Monocle is a promising open source 2d game engine that’s being developed by Alec Holowka and Matt Thorson. The creators are inviting developers to jump in and help out.

CryENGINE – In an “open letter to the Crytek Modding Community”, Crytek’s Cevat Yerli announced (via Crymod) that a free CryENGINE SDK will be released to the public in August 2011. This free SDK will be well-documented and kept up-to-date with the advances being made to CryENGINE 3. Developers looking to sell their work digitally will be offered “an innovative low-cost licensing model”.

Adventure Game Studio – After 14 years, Chris Jones has released the source code to AGS, a popular tool for making point and click adventure games. It’s being released under the Artistic License 2.0.

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as3sfxr-b

By: Derek Yu

On: February 24th, 2011

as3sfxr-b, by increpare

Increpare has modded Tom Vian’s Flash port of sfxr, a simple sound effects creation program by Dr Petter. Aside from the improved interface, as3sfxr-b adds a number of new features, including a playlist of created sounds, triangle waves, and the ability to share sounds with friends via a link. Increpare is currently taking suggestions for the app at this TIGForums thread.

Links: Tom Vian’s Flash Port, sfxr