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[Minty]

Hi everyone this is my first time posting on this forum, sorry if I posted this in the wrong section :x .

Now Lets get down to bidnizz 

To sum things up I took a year of C++ in high school, making games and such as well as learning the basics of C++. Then later I experimented with Palib a C++ library used for creating nintendo ds games and applications. I then used Palib for about a year until I got busy with school. Basically for the rest of the school year I didn't touch any code until now where I feel like I should get back into it but am not sure which approach to take.

I've been looking at the different game engines and languages and now coming back its hard to weed out my options. Half the engines I looked at are dead and the other half haven't seem to have produced anything decent.

I would just code straight C++ but I would rather use something like PaLib for PC because it made it easy to do things like load gfx and use basic mechanisms. Also I want to focus on 2d Games so that knocks out all the 3D engines or libraries. I took a look at Allegro but a lot of the games created with it look pretty trashy...Or perhaps I should go back to Palib, however I didn't like being limited in my coding techniques due to lack of resources (A nintendo ds). So what's your advice I have a basic/semi-advanced understanding of C++ and would like to expand on that to make 2d games,are any libraries or engines to make my job easier? What's your opinion on what I should do/use?

[TheLastBanana]

Well, here's an example of a game made in Allegro that does pretty well:
http://www.datarealms.com/
Really, Allegro is essentially an engine for loading, generating and displaying media, as well as detecting keyboard and mouse events, and it's geared toward game programming.  You can do with it whatever you want - the level of "trashiness" is entirely dependent on how well you can design games.
If you're looking for something that provides an engine for you and makes resource management easier, you might consider Game Maker.  It has its fair share of bad games too, but people like cactus, and games like Spelunky and Iji show you just what Game Maker can produce with a little effort.
In the end, though, it's not so much the engine you choose as your own skill that's going to determine the quality of your game.  The more you know about game design and the more effort you put into it, the more likely you are to make something good.

[Minty]

Wow your game looks amazing I guess I will look into Allegro, thanks for your advice and your reassurance! Your description of Allegro was exactly what I was looking for and your game shows just how far you can take it. Would Allegro.cc be the main place for support and tutorials?

[oahda]

SFML.

Portable, uses OpenGL and is free and open-source.
It allows you to easily scale, rotate and blend graphics, and has a built-in view system.
It's object-oriented and very easy to use. It even has support for custom shaders written in GLSL.
It also plays sound and provides threads.
Oh, and networking.

[TheLastBanana]

Actually, Minty, it's not my game, it's Data's.  I make content and such for it, though.
Admittedly, I'm not particularly experienced in C++.  I'm using SDL right now, which isn't too bad for the rudiments of game design, but OpenGL or DirectX are pretty important once you need things like rotation and hardware acceleration.

[Cimpresovec]

I think you should go with SDL. Check LazyFoo's site, he has great tutorials about it. For the starters, it is a great library. When you will need more power then go for OpenGL for graphics.

[facepalm]

SFML.

Portable, uses OpenGL and is free and open-source.
It allows you to easily scale, rotate and blend graphics, and has a built-in view system.
It's object-oriented and very easy to use. It even has support for custom shaders written in GLSL.
It also plays sound and provides threads.
Oh, and networking.

If you want something simple but powerful I'd also recommend SFML. Compared to SDL I found it much more intuitive and nicer to use. Last time I checked it out it had some limits like only supporting GLSL shaders, having render-to-texture that didn't work on older comps etc and that's basically why I'm writing own engine at the moment. But I think SFML still knocks out many other options. Just think about rotating sprites in SDL..

Game Maker is one option but making anything more complex (Cortex Command) in it you're pretty likely to face performance problems.

[Cimpresovec]

Rotating sprites in SDL really is a problem. There is a extension but it is really bad in performance. You can't do the rotation real-time. However I found my own ways to rotate things. Well the choice is yours.

Learning GML after learning c++... I think it is a waste of time. Game Maker is really good but when you already made games in C++, then stick to it.

[Minty]

Ok, so I'm leaning towards SFML, SDL and Allegro... Looks like I'm seeing equal recommendation for each...Now I have to knock it down to 1 choice... Please if you have any further comments/bad experiences/good experiences with SDL, SFML and Allegro let me know so I can make up my mind  

@redreaper132 Yea i sort of feel like becoming familiar with Game Maker would be a waste of time sense I have a decent understand of C++. Not to discredit amazing Game Maker games like Spuelunky

[oahda]

Ok, so I'm leaning towards SFML, SDL and Allegro... Looks like I'm seeing equal recommendation for each...Now I have to knock it down to 1 choice... Please if you have any further comments/bad experiences/good experiences with SDL, SFML and Allegro let me know so I can make up my mind  

Don't ever use SDL drawing operations. If you are going to use SDL, use it with OpenGL (which most definitely is not always the simplest).

The thing is, that SFML is the only true C++ library of these. The other two are C libraries.
SFML would be good practice on using classes and OOP, if you still have a need for that.

Otherwise, it's just a very nice structure.

[Mikademus]

Ok, so I'm leaning towards SFML, SDL and Allegro... Looks like I'm seeing equal recommendation for each...Now I have to knock it down to 1 choice... Please if you have any further comments/bad experiences/good experiences with SDL, SFML and Allegro let me know so I can make up my mind  

Make the same mini-game (or some test) in each, like a ball that will bounce off the screen edges and you can influence with mouse and keys. It should be about 50 to a hundred lines and will tell you much about how each alternative suits your style and needs. The test does not have to be fun or useful, it should only be about allowing you to learn something about each alternative so you will feel comfortable with your selection.

[Minty]

Make the same mini-game (or some test) in each, like a ball that will bounce off the screen edges and you can influence with mouse and keys. It should be about 50 to a hundred lines and will tell you much about how each alternative suits your style and needs. The test does not have to be fun or useful, it should only be about allowing you to learn something about each alternative so you will feel comfortable with your selection.

Yea I'm headed in that direction right now I just read some basic tutorials on allegro and sfml.

[tapir]

Another great thing about SDL is that the unstable (pretty stable if you ask me) branch supports iPhone (static linking costs money) and there is a port for Symbian too. So if you decide you want to publish your game for mobile platforms, you're half way there.

[Mikademus]

Make the same mini-game (or some test) in each, like a ball that will bounce off the screen edges and you can influence with mouse and keys. It should be about 50 to a hundred lines and will tell you much about how each alternative suits your style and needs. The test does not have to be fun or useful, it should only be about allowing you to learn something about each alternative so you will feel comfortable with your selection.

Yea I'm headed in that direction right now I just read some basic tutorials on allegro and sfml.

Cool! Feel free to post your test here to share and discuss!

[mcc]

Make the same mini-game (or some test) in each, like a ball that will bounce off the screen edges and you can influence with mouse and keys. It should be about 50 to a hundred lines and will tell you much about how each alternative suits your style and needs. The test does not have to be fun or useful, it should only be about allowing you to learn something about each alternative so you will feel comfortable with your selection.

Yea I'm headed in that direction right now I just read some basic tutorials on allegro and sfml.

Cool! Feel free to post your test here to share and discuss!

I for one would be super curious to see something like that.

[Cimpresovec]

Yea a test would be great. Some more notes from me on SDL. I use it only for event handling but in the past I also used it for sound and graphics. The graphics handling is SDL is weird, everything is based on sprites, also no primitives. So after a few games I had to move to OpenGL. Which wasn't hard since I found a really great SDL+OpenGl tutorial. The site is dead but the first few tuts will do the thing. About the sound, I never really used much sound but it is good for some background music, but now FMOD does it. But for event handling it is great. You'll see after the test.

And I don't really mind that SDL is C based, it works nice.