Silent Hill 3

I just finished playing Silent Hill 3 again. I remember, back those days when my friend got this game and we used to play it during late nights in a room keeping all lights off . This game gave us goosebumps during whole gameplay experience. Now again after years, this game still scares me (though not much compared to past) but still creepy. No wonder Silent Hill 3 is one of my best Horror-Games. I loved its Gameplay Elements, giving more emphasis on solving mind catching riddles and not involving too much direct combat with enemies. Horror elements are well balanced with creepy sound effects and music. Soundtracks are awesome, composition by Akira Yamaoka is very good. Story of the game is also very good and is well narrated in a game. Environments are well designed according to plot. Monsters are also well modeled and designed. One thing that i also liked is the way cameras used in the game. Whole Gameplay is played in various camera angle shots, which i liked it and it well balances off with spooky environment and good background score. At start i found game controls uneasy but later i got hang with it so no issues for me. Game has got good graphics, well not like todays graphics as this game was made back at 2003. Heh and i liked the protagonist of the game very much, Heather . So overall its one of the best Horror Games ever made.
Gracias.

These days i am busy with lots of things. I am working on a Game for Mobile Phones. This project is based on J2ME. Currently i have given the game a name “LOST” according to story and theme. Here is the video of my project. Well the video is just a testing of gameplay mechanics, all graphics and images will be different in the original game. So just check out what i am working on.

Recently my friends suggested me to make games for mobile phones. I haven’t done any formal course for mobile programming so i did a some search on mobile game development on google and gone through some articles like The Clash of Mobile Platforms: J2ME, ExEn, Mophun and WGE

I have a Nokia N70ME handset and most of my friends have same kinda(specifications) handset. All of them are java enabled. I did a search on their specifications and found that almost all were midp 2.0 enabled. After doing some research on mobile gaming i chose J2ME for developing mobile games because majority of the phones of my target audience are java-enabled so i can reach to masses. Secondly, SUN provides you all the development tools for free. And thirdly i am more comfortable in java programming language so it would be easier for me to pick up things more fast and easily. So i am using netbeans IDE 6.7 with the mobility pack to write my app and its pretty productive and reliable. My next step was to find some good online tutorial to just get started, all basic things. I searched the google and found many useful stuff there:

http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/gameapi/

http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/game/

http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2005/07/07/j2me3.html

http://www.devx.com/wireless/Article/27167/1954

So i got many stuffs to get started making midp 2.0 games. It didn’t take too much time to pick up things. I got the concepts easily and started implementing them. I just started with testing codes like drawing images, moving them, rotation etc. After testing all those codes i decided to make very simple 2d side scrolling game. Then i searched for some free sprites on google and got some stuffs on world war 2 theme. Then i asked my friend to make some background images for me and he made some pretty good backgrounds. So then i was off to fly and started making the game.

This is my current progress on game and i am pretty sure that soon i’ll complete the game and upload here for the download.

This is my mobile game project that i am working. Soon i’l finish it. And important thing is that i am enjoying very much making game for mobile phones. I tested it on my Nokia N70 handset and it worked flawlessly. I am very excited regarding this project.

Gracias.

Game Engines are the core libraries which is used as the architecture to develop the game. It cuts down the pressure on development teams as all the complex coding is already written in the engine. The core functions that Game Engine provides are rendering(2d or 3d), physics engine or collision detection, sound, scripting, artificial intelligence. They provide all the core functionalities needed to develop a game while reducing the costs, complexities and time.

There are libraries that are developed to provide only one specific functions, called Middleware. Like Havok is a middleware which offers developers the foundation for creating realistic physics simulation.

Developers  license the engines like id tech, unreal to develop their titles. Some developers use their in-house proprietry engines created by themselves for their own titles. And their are also some free open source engines out there like OGRE, JMonkeyEngine.

Now i’ll discuss about some very well known Game Engines, Middleware And Engines used in making next-gen games.

Unreal Engine:

Unreal is a game engine developed by Epic Games. The games made by this engine are Gears of War franchise, Bioshock, splintercell, MassEffect and many other. This Engine has won the Game Developer’s Front Line awards in engine category for three consecutive awards. This Engine is Game Developer’s Front Line Awards 2008 Hall Of Fame winner. You can read Why Unreal Engine was the Hall Of Fame Winner.

Gears of War 2 made with Unreal engine

Havok

Havok is a physics engine developed by Havok. Havok offers developers the foundation for creating realistic physics simulation through efficient and optimized calculation. The Titles that used Havok engine are Crackdown, Assassin’s creed, F.E.A.R 2:Project Origin, Fallout 3, Halo 3 and many more. Havok won the Game Developer’s Front Line Awards 2008 in Middleware category. Read why Havok won the award ?.

Company of Heroes using Havok engine

cryEngine

Developed by CryTek is the force behind those killer graphics of crysis. They set a new standard for visuals. CryTek released a GDC demonstration movie for their latest all-in-one game development solution using cryEngine 3, premiered at GDC 2009 in san fransisco. cryEngine 3 is the first development platform for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, MMO, DX9/DX10 and includes cryEngine 3 Sandbox level editor and “What you see is what you play” tool designed for professional developers. 3 comes with significant feartures for consoles and next-gen game development.

crysis made with cryEngine

R.A.G.E (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine)

R.A.G.E is a game engine developed by a team called “Rage Technology Group” at Rockstar san diego. Rockstar has integrated a few third party middleware like euphoria character animation engine and Bullet physics engine. GTA4 was developed with this cool engine. Rockstar are working on a game Red Dead Redemption which uses R.A.G.E engine. The trailer of Read dead Redemption looks really cool with realistic horses, towns, prairies….with ralistic weather. R.A.G.E engine provides functionalities to handle realistic weather effects, complex A.I, large worlds..etc

Check this video of Red Dead Redemption, its jusshows you what R.A.G.E is capable of doing.

Grand Theft Auto 4 made with R.A.G.E engine

Naughty Dog Game Engine

This Engine is developed by Naughty Dog. This year naughty Dog showcased their upcoming title Uncharted 2 at sony playstation 3 conference, E3 2009 . I was awestruck by watching the trailer and demo. I had never seen such a cinematic game(demo) before, graphics looked so awesome and cool. Naughty Dog with Uncharted 2 really showed the world what Ps3 is capable to do. So i would say Naughty Dog maxed out the Ps3 with Uncharted 2. The demo showcased realistic environments, smooth animation-interaction, cinematic feel with cinematic camera work …seamless transition between cinematic and gameplay.

So there are other engines also that i haven’t mentioned like Valve’s Source engine which gave titles like half-life franchise, left 4 dead, Infinity Ward’s IW engine which gave Call Of Duty franchise(not all sequels), Ubisoft’s Anvil engine which was used for Assassin’s creed….and many more engines. I have just  quickly looked at just some good engines that took my interest. This post is not on best engines but tells about good engines.

Gracias.

These are the list of some top opengl based commercial games:

Call Of Duty 1

This game was developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. This game used the id tech 3 engine. Game is based on world war II. Its a first person shooter game. This game won the game of the year for 2003 from several reviewers.

Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines

Game was developed by Pyro studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Its a single player real time startegy game.

Doom 3

Game was developed by id Software and published by Activision. The game uses id Tech 4 engine. Its a first person shooter horror game. The Game was a critical and commercial success for id software with more than 3.5 millions copy sold.

Half-Life 1

Game was developed by valve software and published by sierra studios. The game used modified version of Quake Engine called GoldSrc engine which is able to render in both OpenGl and Direct3D api. Its a First Person Shooter Game. On its release, critics hailed its overall presentation and numerous scripted sequences, and it won over 51 PC Game of the year awards. It is considered one of the greatest games of all time. This game also set the benchmark in the field off Game AI(Artificial Intellegence) at that period.

Hitman: Codename 47

Game was developed by IO Interactive and published by eidos interactive. The game uses Glacier engine. Its a third person shooter game.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Game was developed by Epic games. The game used Unreal Engine 2.5. Its a first person shooter game. Game received positive reviews on release. It also received multiplayer game of the year.

Return to Castle Wolfeinstein

Game was developed by Gray Matter Interactive(Single Player) and Nerve Software(multiplayer) and published by Activision. Games usd id tech 3 engine.

PREY

Game was developed by Human Head Studios and published by 2k Games and 3d realms. The game used modified version of id tech 4 engine. Its a first person shooter game. It received positive reviews and was commercial success, sold more than 1 million copies.

Soldier of Fortune (Series)

First 2 game of the franchise was developed by Raven Software, published by Activision. The game used quake 2 and quake 3 engine.

There are many other opengl based games. But these are one of my favorites.

Gracias.

At present i am working on a 2d side-scrolling platform game. It started as a course project but now i want to extend it and make it large.

I have used java and slick library to make this game project. I have put the game demo on my blog page. The project is still in development process. So you can download and play it. Please give the feedback. I am still new to game development so feedback( both positive and negative ) will be appreciated.

So download the game from http://gaanza.com/games/ and play it

please comment your feedback and suggestions here.

it’ll be great help for developing this game further.

Gracias.

Okie still there are people who thinks java is slow for making commercial and serious games and java is just for casual games. But here i’l show you that java has lot more potential to make serious games.

So now how to get started ??? What libraries or tools to use for making more efficient games ?? There are two libraries which gives you a lot more features to create real time graphics. You can make amazing cool games using these libraries. And what are these libraries ?? They are LWJGL (light weight java game library) and JOGL (java OpenGL). These two libraries gives you the power of opengl graphics library.

LWJGL

The Lightweight Java Game Library (LWJGL) is a solution aimed directly at professional and amateur Java programmers alike to enable commercial quality games to be written in Java. LWJGL provides developers access to high performance crossplatform libraries such as OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) and OpenAL (Open Audio Library) allowing for state of the art 3D games and 3D sound. Additionally LWJGL provides access to controllers such as Gamepads, Steering wheel and Joysticks.

So Is there any game made using LWJGL ??

Yes there is AAA tiltle that has been made using lwjgl. Its TRIBLE TROUBLE by oddlabs, an amazing cool 3d real time strategy game. You can read my post on this game.

source: http://tribaltrouble.com/screenshots?id=14

Okie so now where i can find the lwjgl tutorials:

lwjgl tutorial site 1

lwjgl tutorial site 2

(Note: i’ll keep updating the tutorial sites of lwjgl )

JOGL

Java OpenGL (JOGL) is a wrapper library that allows OpenGl to be used in the Java programming language. JOGL is the Sun supported set of Java class bindings for OpenGL. Using OpenGL through JOGL, you will be able to make cool games or model situations that could be too expensive to create.

So any game made with JOGL ???

Yes. Its called JAKE 2. It is the port of Quake 2 game engine from id Software. Here is the screenshot from their ( bytonic Software) site:

source: http://bytonic.de/html/screenshots_1.html

Okie now i will tell you about some available good engines to make games. All the low level stuff has been done for you. You have to just use the library and take off.

First i’ll start with 2d game engines:

1) Slick 2D : This is the best java 2d game engine based on LWJGL available now. Its an free and Open Source 2d game engine. Many cool games has been made using this game.

2) Golden T Game Engine (GTGE) : Its an advanced cross-platform game programming library written in java programming language.

3) Stencyl

4) JGame

5) PulpCore

Now 3d java engines:

1) jMonkeyEngine : This is the one of the best and popular java 3d graphics engine available now. Its an free and open source engine. JME (jMonkey Engine) is a high performance scene graph based graphics API. Some videos of game made with jMonkeyEngine.

2) Espresso3D : Its an open source high performance real-time 3D engine for the Java(tm) programming language. It aims to be a complete solution for your application with OpenGL rendering, OpenAL audio, collision detection, input, and rendering support.

3) Xith3D : Xith3D is a Java-based 3D engine, centered on gaming.

4) JCPT : jPCT is a free 3D engine/API for Java. Here is one screenshot of games made with JCPT from there site.

source: http://www.jpct.net/screenshots.html

Okie so thats it. I hope i have give you enough basic info on starting making games with java. So now you make a choice and get started.

Gracias.