Game software?

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:42 pm

Hiya,

Anyone have any knowledge of how to make a simple game? Like, a 2D platformer?

I played this game; DON'T LOOK BACK available on http://www.distractionware.com and I totally digged it and since then I've been trying to find out if there's any simple development kit or template I can use to create a custom game.

I'd use Adventure Game Studio (www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk) to make an old Lucasarts-type adventure game. I used to use it when I had Windows, I have Mac now and its not available on the OS.

Would Flash be the best option? I don't have the program and not quite sure how to use it. I'm in the middle of another project now so this is perhaps a dangerous distraction, but I'm still interested in this avenue.

I see Nifflas (http://www.nifflas.ni2.se/) who makes pretty cool freeware games uses Macromedia Fusion, but again, not available for Mac as far as I know.

Don't want to make shooting games or anything too violent. More interested in atmospheric and story-telling qualities.

Meep,

Mike

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:01 pm

GameMaker is coming out with a mac version.

http://glog.yoyogames.com/

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 12:49 pm

I've developed a few Flash games in the past. Actionscript is easy to pick up -- give it a go, if you don't have a deadline over your head. You can probably pick up a cheap copy of Flash 8 on eBay, and the FlashKit site is an excellent resource for help and reference...

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:32 pm

The YoYo Game Maker page has some tutorials.

I'm craving making an 8-bit adventure game...well, not exactly 8-bit, but if you can hark back to the days of 640 x 480 resolution...Sam & Max Hit The Road, The Dig, Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle... more for nostalgic reasons than anything else but the bug has bitten me hard.

Might end up just making an animated play-play version of a game in AS...not as cool though. Lacks that interactive element, but hey.

Been doing some pixel work, and I used to use Adventure Game Studio for PC which was great old-type Lucasarts adventure game type stuff, but not for Mac

I've tried Game Maker, haven't given it a full go yet, must say I've searched all over the place to find out if I could get AVGS (http://adventuregamestudio.co.uk) to work on Mac short of running Parallels or BootCamp in which case I'd need to buy Windows and me no likey Windows.

Anyways, I'll think more about this when I have the time.

Thanks for the replies.

dazza101 · Post by **dazza101** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 4:33 am

I haven't tried it, but Baja Engine is a Mac & Win game development environment (donationware) - it uses LUA scripting for game logic.

Another cross platform (freeware) tool is Panda3D - it uses Python for game logic and development and you could definitely use this for a platform game.

p6r · Post by **p6r** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 9:23 am

You can make your own games without a line of code with The Games Factory 2 or Multimedia Fusion 2... (will be available for Mac soon !)
Look at this website : http://www.clickteam.com
On the english forum you will find a lot of great people to help you or .mfa files to edit and see how to do.

Don' t forget to download the demos to test. And don't hesitate to ask the authors who are very sympathetic if you have any questions...

6R

dazza101 · Post by **dazza101** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 3:56 pm

I forgot to mention before, that one of the best resources on available game engines and development systems is DevMaster.net - check out the forums and the engine database - very helpful!

tinnycan · Post by **tinnycan** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:07 pm

http://flixel.org/ is great for those types of games, its lightweight and free (with flash develop)! Lots of great help and tutorials in the forums. The only downside is it takes "strips" for graphical information, no sprite sheets yet. But you can use an application like "glueit" to make strips.

brucegulick · Post by **brucegulick** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:35 pm

Power Game Factory (http://www.sawbladesoftware.com/)

Gamesalad (http://gamesalad.com/)

Unity (http://unity3d.com/)

TheChewanater · Post by **TheChewanater** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:37 am

GCC? What else could you need? It's also the only free software mentioned on this page so far.

muffysb · Post by **muffysb** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:12 pm

I was blown over by VERGE 2.5 way, way back. At the time it was awkward, DOS-based, and difficult to customize beyond a "Final Fantasy" style of game, but it looks like it's come a long way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verge_%28gaming%29

Even though the wiki page (and the site's own FAQ) say there are no Mac development tools available, the Mac download seems to now contain those tools.

And it's free!

aleXean · Post by **aleXean** » Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:49 pm

Yo Mikdog, I know this is the wrong topic to post this in, but last night I was watching the Yankee game ( baseball ) and I saw this commercial....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ-CDE_r_wg
.... legit...

Either use flash ( and download http://flixel.org/ ) or check these out :

http://www.torquepowered.com/products/torque-2d

http://www.adobe.com/products/director/

TheChewanater · Post by **TheChewanater** » Tue Apr 06, 2010 2:53 am

muffysb wrote:Even though the wiki page (and the site's own FAQ) say there are no Mac development tools available, the Mac download seems to now contain those tools.

Whereas GCC is supported on every platform known to man.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Tue Apr 06, 2010 6:05 am

http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Game_Engines
http://gpwiki.org/index.php/Tools:Progr ... ring_Tools
-G

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Wed Apr 07, 2010 3:39 am

MikDog:

Construct, found at http://www.scirra.com/, is really the best and non-programmer friendly open source 2D game software I've ever experienced, (and I have looked copiously). It was inspired by Multimedia Fusion, (ClickTeam), but the makers of Construct have greatly improved upon the Multimedia Fusion premise.

It uses a visual form of programming and even the hard core coders feel it is powerful enough for all 2D game behaviour.

Lots of good forum support and you will find many others there that have also got that nostalgic drive you mentioned.

It's free and very stable - not much to lose on that front.

Greg Smith

Game software?

Game software?

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