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[medieval]

just so you know:

The main Game Maker website is now http://www.yoyogames.com/make
and the community is http://gmc.yoyogames.com

[Dayv]

Now you can download Flesx SDK for free and compile to .SWF, you can use AS3 and Flex2 libs. for no cost

Does anyone have any experience of doing Flash the free and legal way.  Is it feasible or insanely difficult to produce a Flash game without the developer studio? oops just seen Cagey's thread

On another note, it might be a bit of an eccentric choice but you could write a game in SVG http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/.  It was originally touted as the open source answer to Flash, but I don't think it is anywhere near as fully featured.

Or if you wanted to be really eccentric you could use eSim RapidPlus. http://www.skymobilemedia.com/main.php?func=devtools

[dmoonfire]

I keep hoping the SVG+Javascript thing would take off. Or there would be at least a good portal library for rendering SVG, but it just keeps sputtering. I'm hoping for OpenVG now, but I want something that runs in C# (i.e. not C++), and on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

As such, I'm hacking things right now, but I keep hoping.

[Dacke]

I keep hoping the SVG+Javascript thing would take off. Or there would be at least a good portal library for rendering SVG, but it just keeps sputtering. I'm hoping for OpenVG now, but I want something that runs in C# (i.e. not C++), and on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

As such, I'm hacking things right now, but I keep hoping.

C#? Why?

[increpare]

Anyone ever have a gander at Clean games library?.  It's a very curious gamesmaker-style thing, that uses a functional language.  I haven't looked too closely at it yet, but it's certainly a novelty.

(I came across it while reading the thesis of the dude who did the Haskell quake engine implementation, Frag).

[Don Andy]

Anyone ever have a gander at Clean games library?.  It's a very curious gamesmaker-style thing, that uses a functional language.  I haven't looked too closely at it yet, but it's certainly a novelty.

(I came across it while reading the thesis of the dude who did the Haskell quake engine implementation, Frag).

Either I've seen this library before, or Charlie the Duck has been made in a lot of languages/libraries.

[Robotacon]

C#? Why?

C# is a heck of a lot straight forward than C++. If you're used to C++ perhaps you like it better but for anyones first programming language C# is hands down much easier to learn and just as powerful.

Still I've just gone back to C++ again because it's more commonly used.

[KungPhoo]

SEUCK for PC is a remake of the C64 "Shoot Em Up Contruction Kit" that can be used to make simple shooters.

[nihilocrat]

Novashell is a pretty nice game-making tool. You can totally tell that it's made entirely by one guy and the UI is a little odd, but it does what you need it to do. It is much more code-driven than GM or Construct or the others, so it's pretty friendly to programmers who don't feel like building an engine from scratch, but prefer to put their logic in real code, not some funny GUI logic constructor. This does mean, however, that it's got a sharper learning curve because you have to learn the API and its way of doing things.

I would include it on this list because it's fairly feature-rich and is cross-platform. I am currently developing two games in it, and one of them has a small enough scope that I might be able to release it soon.

The only thing more I would ask for is to include a 2D rendering system using openGL. I've read that Pyglet is working towards this goal so I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Pyglet indeed does this, but if you want to keep using Pygame for all the non-rendering aspects of the game, you can use Rabbyt to render to an OpenGL-enabled pygame surface.

[Overkill]

I think that Verge is another worthy addition, as a fairly robust game engine with a friendly community. It was how I learned to make games when I was in grade school!

Verge (2D)
Main Website: http://www.verge-rpg.com/
Community: Verge-RPG.com
Tutorials: Exploring Verge 3, On the Verge of Verging, vx library tutorial.
Cost: FREE!
Programming Required: VergeC or Lua (your choice).
Games of Note: Diver Down, Zeux World, Sully Chronicles (more notable for the fact it's one of the few indie games to actually have GameFAQs article)


And hey, for that matter, I'll mention another engine (that started as a spinoff of Verge), that has a few funky tech demos, and uses Python for coding.

ika (2D, simple 3D)
Main Website: http://ika.sf.net/
Community: ika.sf.net
Tutorials: Pending.
Cost: FREE!
Programming Required: Python

[Mr. Yes]

Wow, looking at the first post again, this needs some serious updating!

[Javilop]

IndieLib
Main Website: http://indielib.com
Faq: http://www.indielib.com/wiki/index.php?title=IndieLib_FAQ
Community: http://indielib.com/forum
Tutorials: http://indielib.com/wiki
Screenshots: http://www.indielib.com/screenshots/
Cost: FREE! & Open Source
Programming Required: C++

IndieLib is a c++ 2.5d engine for game development and fast game prototyping in a really easy way. Internally it uses Direct3d for hardware acceleration, but doesn't use DirectDraw or ID3DXSprite, it directly draws textures on polygons. The engine is focused in fast 2d rendering, but also allows you to use 3d models. The main IndieLib features are...

[Don Andy]

I've just heard about this one of my RSS feeds (sorry if it has been mentioned somewhere else in the forum before) but some developers from EA recently open-sourced an 2D prototyping engine they created, called Angel

Although EA employees created it, it's not affiliated with EA in any way.

[valkrin]

I haven't seen many indie games written in Java. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are puppygames.com. Is there a reason for this, or are there tons more that I'm not aware of? Java is rather easy to learn, inherently cross-platform and has some active and easy to use game development libraries such as http://slick.cokeandcode.com/. In addition, games written in Java can be deployed to Google Android. So what gives? Is there something that I am missing?

[increpare]

check out java4k

there's no especial reason why it's not popular over at tigsource.  it's just sort of how things have turned out; most people end up at flash instead (which is, as a platform, far more widely utilized in gaming).

[JohnH]

On SEUCK for PC: Wow, I actually sold a game using the C64 version, long ago back in the day.  Only a couple hundred dollars mind, but still, not a bad thing.  If the PC version is similar then it might be a nifty little tool, although I seem to remember the original version not allowing powerups.

In other news, unsure if it's been mentioned yet, but I just found out about Construct (http://www.scirra.com/), which is sort of like Game Maker but open source.  Uses DirectX so it's pretty solidly tied to Windows, but it allows for Python scripting in addition to its event-focused model.  I've not used it for anything yet though so I can't really vouch for it.

[RayRayTea]

The Quest thingy sounds interesting, but... 1300 euros for the most basic version and 9999 euros fot the VR version? Hehe I think I'm not the target audience...

[AshleysBrain]

Thanks for listing Construct, but for some reason a Flash quote is copied and pasted under it!

[deadeye]

Thanks for listing Construct, but for some reason a Flash quote is copied and pasted under it!

Yep, looks like the list needs a correction:

Construct (2D)
Main Website: http://scirra.com/
Community: http://www.scirra.com/phpBB3/
Tutorials: http://scirra.com/learn.php
Cost: FREE!
Programming Required: Some

Flash 8 is a complete development solution for 2D and even pseudo 3D (mode 7 / raycasting) games with all the tools for art creation and programming built into the software.  I found it to be as easy to learn as any of the Basics / Gamemaking software but has the added bonus of being able to export right to the web with the least number of plug-in or compatibility issues.  There's also growing support for Flash on mobile platforms and the ability to export to mobile (Flash Lite) is built-in.

The downside is that the price unfortunately will turn most people away but there is a 30 day demo and it shouldn't take longer than that to learn and start making games.

Might I suggest this as the description? 

Construct is a free, powerful, and easy to use development environment for both DirectX 9-based games and applications. Utilizes an event based system for defining how the game or application will behave, in a visual, human-readable way.  Among other features it has hardware acceleration, pixel shader support, a bones animation system, and makes use of the Box2D physics engine.  Several built-in behaviors and plugins make rapid prototyping quick and easy, but the framework is robust enough for large projects as well.

[december]

Also the price of GameMaker has gone up to $25 because dollar is weak.