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[Garthy]

I'm not sure the interest that remains with my original question, but for what it's worth, this is what I've done and decided for now:

- I've set up an extra two machines, fairly basic installs, one with an integrated nVidia card in it, the other with a dedicated ATI card. This is to add to the software-only VMWare machine I was using already, plus an already-set-up Linux machine with a decent nVidia 3D card.
- I've used the pre-compiled samples for Panda3D and irrlicht. For Ogre, I set up and built the samples with Code::Blocks/mingw and MSVC++ 2005 (express). I also dropped in a hello-world-type demo of my own engine.
- After making sure that all the environments worked (correct DX version, VC++ redistribs, latest drivers, etc), I tried out the samples on each.

Now I can promise fans of each engine won't be too keen on what follows, but hey, you can only work with what you're given, and you can't win 'em all.

- The Ogre samples behaved differently across machines (eg. shadow demos), sometimes not working at all. They all crashed fairly consistently when the drivers were missing. When they worked, however, the Ogre samples were very nice indeed.
- Panda3D was fairly consistent but relatively unexciting (provided you stuck to GL). I tried to build the source and run the samples on Linux- it was not an easy job, and at the end I never got working samples, just segfaults.
- Irrlicht behaved reasonbly well on real hardware with proper drivers, but was the engine most-likely to freeze up randomly. Building and running the samples on Linux went well without significant difficulty. Unfortunately, the main demo ran at 4fps on decent hardware, and that is not a good sign. I had also not forgotten what happened when it was run on poor hardware.

The intention was to set up further configurations, but it would appear that I had already found out everything I needed to know.

For now, I plan to stick to my own engine, and to do so for the remainder of my development (if circumstances allow me- long story, another day). Near the end, before doing any serious polish, I plan to dust off these PCs and configurations, and get the latest versions of each engine again. I'll then try to break them all in similar ways. My guess is that by that point, at least one of the engines will be in a state where I am confident to make a leap toward it. If not, I'll stick with what I've got, and consider an engine shift a year after release, or two, or three, and so on...

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And now for something completely different...

I think the fun/tedious thing can really be applied across every aspect of development. I suspect that if you dig around in each area, you will find aspects that are fun, and aspects that are tedious and painful.

In my experience:

- Working on a 3D engine was fun because I designed and implemented a functional API that was simple and worked well, plus I could implement all the little tricks I had not been happy with with other engines.
- Working on a 3D engine was painful because of illogical card and driver quirks (different GL defaults, bizarre workarounds) take up so much time and you simply can't guess how they will behave across cards you don't have.
- Working on game logic is fun because I can translate my ideas into reality and seeing them work is quite rewarding.
- Working on game logic is tedious because replaying the first thirty seconds of a level that needs debugging over and over, dozens of times, ends up draining your will to continue.
- Working on low-level infrastructure is fun because you can spend some time designing, developing, and testing a component, and know it will be a robust building block for your future work.
- Working on low-level infrastructure is painful because you know that if you worked on a domain-specific solution instead it would take one hour, not two days.
- Game balance is fun because you can test out all of the things you have developed, you get to look for clever quirks and ways to exploit the system, and then find solutions to stop them being exploited.
- Game balance is tedious because after finding the perfect balance you end up finding some aspect that can be abused, nullifying much of your work. Also, testing the same thing over and over.
- Finishing a new game version is fun (well, satisfying) because you can look back at all your hard work and testing and know that it is a solid and worthwhile update.
- Finishing a new game version is painful because after two days of testing, you've just uncovered a show-stopper bug, and all that time was wasted because it isn't good-to-go. Back to the drawing board.

I imagine the same could be said for the easy/hard distinction as well.

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I think I can summarise my thoughts on the whole development thing as follows: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. If you do everything yourself, you will never finish. So development nowadays is all about compromise and tradeoffs.

As for single-day games, I've done such things before, but they've only ever been simple text-based things and C64 games- nothing very complex or special. To make something decent in the space of a day- damn, that's talent (and amazing tools!).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Eh, I don't think it's *that* difficult to make a game in a day. I'll make a game today (using Game Maker) and post it up. I haven't made a game in a day since And&, which I made back in 2000, so it might be interesting to try it again.

START TIME: August 1, 8:30 PM EST.

[Garthy]

Hey rinkuhero. I'll happily give your result a play. Knowing what you've done with Immortal Defense you're going to be good with GM- so if anyone is going to be able to pull off a single-day game with GM it'll be you.

I'm not so good with game-creation tools- I'm more of a ground-up person myself. I'd never be able to offer the same- it's just not within my ability, I'm afraid.

So, good luck. I'll be sure to check back.

EDIT: Where'd that extra "a" come from.

[ColossusEntertainment]

Though I wouldn't want to distract you from the demakes contest (if you're entering that?).

Nah, not entering that, I don't quite get it 

I've been thinking of adding 3D support to my Pixie engine anyway, and the whole point of the engine is that it should 1) be easy to use 2) always work.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I was wrong, I couldn't finish an entire game in a day. I did get off to a good start, but it's not nearly finished. Here's some screenshots:

http://pics.livejournal.com/rinku/pic/000rrt00
http://pics.livejournal.com/rinku/pic/000rs0fz

The premise of the game is that you have to set up the enemies in a top-down shooter (which costs resources to place, so you can't just use the strongest enemy everywhere) and then an AI-controlled opponent / hero attempts to navigate through your level. If you succeed in killing the intruder, gradually more difficult heroes will emerge, with better weapons, etc., but as you proceed through the game you gain access to stronger enemies to place and more resources to place them with.

Optionally I plan also to have a test mode where you can play through your own levels (or levels created by others).

But as you can see from the screenshots, I didn't get much done yet -- just one mission (one where the hero doesn't even have any weapons and just attempts to avoid the enemies), and four types of enemies -- a far cry from a finished game.

I'll try to finish up the game tomorrow or the day after and post it in the feedback forum then.

[Garthy]

Still pretty impressive though, given you only took one day to get that far and you probably weren't pre-prepped(*) to start. Most people would not have got that far.

Looks like you might have a couple of decent options from here- turn it into a two-day challenge, or turn it into a real game.

Whichever way you go, if you finish, if you post in this topic or drop me a line I'll be sure check it out. Otherwise, I'll have a peek in the feedback forum from time to time and with any luck will spot it.

(*) ie. had all your dev tools ready, were just waiting on a topic to begin.

[ColossusEntertainment]

Nice! 

It's not easy to get a game done in a day, so well done! I haven't attempted that myself, the closest I've come is when I entered a 48hrs competition to make an RPG.. it was only two of us that managed to finish on time though, and the game the other guy made was quite impressive:  http://rpgdx.net/showgame.php?project_id=383

It's very interesting to enter those types of very short competitions, in that it forces you to focus 100% on the game - there's simply no time to be precious about technology 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I once made an RPG in 24 hours too, but it was with the OHRRPGCE, which is very cookie-cutter (like M.U.G.E.N. and RPGMaker XP). The contest was actually for 48 hours but because my partner didn't do anything at all on his day except for the hero sprite the game was in effect made in slightly over 24 hours.

http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/game/and

Note: anyone who wants to try it out should optimally get the latest version of the OHRRPGCE game.exe player, the one it comes with is DOS and probably won't work on modern computers (doesn't work on mine), but if you play the .rpg file with the newest Windows-based OHRRPGCE game.exe it should work.

[Madnis]

http://horde3d.org/
http://horde3d.org/features.html

I would be interested in hearing what people think about this engine. It's OpenGL-based and has users running it in Windows, Mac, and Linux (32-bit & 64-bit). I've sent them a couple of patches to ensure 64bit Linux support or fix broken makefiles and the devs were quick to respond. The wiki is growing, and they recently added an extension for rendering terrain.

I find it very lightweight compared to Ogre. I had Ogre working pretty well on Linux/Nvidia, but couldn't stand that they had their own String, Exception, Input, etc... ... but whatever, I guess not everybody <3's STL. I prefer Horde's design: "just the graphics, ma'am". Their API also makes for easy bindings to other languages. I believe users have made bindings for C#/.NET, Python, C, D, E.... Just kidding. There is no E. Yet.

It is, however, unique from Ogre and Irrlicht in that it is a purely shader-driven approach (requiring at least SM 2.0)... a pretty far cry from the original request for having software-rendering fallback. You don't have to bang out all the shaders by hand (you can import, or use some of the predefined shaders), but there's no fixed pipeline for anything.

It is also, unfortunately, version 1.0.0 beta 1. So pretty much totally unproven. But it is supported by the University of Augsburg, for what that's worth.

... as far as 3d being more difficult... I would love to see a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike "For Indie Use Only" license on a big database of indie-generated models, textures, animations.... well, think about it. Share and share alike, remix, give credit, and everybody makes more games.