Ahoy, I've written a first version of a mobile game engine in C++ -- currently only has support for 2D, getting to 3D soon. It currently runs on iOS and Android and I'm going to add support for Bada and WebOS soon. Also runs a game as a native application on Windows, Mac and Linux. It is still a raw version tho. Basically -- I'm thinking of licensing out this tech for a fair price. It would allow developers to develop high quality games for all mobile platforms without having to deal with porting of their games, while at the same time keeping the possibility of programming in C++. The money I'd make from this would mainly be used to pay for future mobile games I'm developing. I'd like to get some feedback from the developers and game companies on this board as to what key functionalities you'd like to see, which libraries you want embedded by default and how much you would consider paying for a license. Overview of the current functionalities that I've implemented so far (V1) - Runs on iOS and Android, Bada and WebOS added soon. - Uses OpenGL Es 1.1; also going to add a 2.0 renderpath before first release. - Resolution independant rendering - Allows you to pack your game resources into an archive - Gamestate management - Sprite handling with all the transformations - Smart pointers, some basic math libs - 2D collision detection - Touch handling; input is sent to the game on a per frame basis Todo (V1) - Font rendering (Almost done) - Implement use of texture atlasses - Add a physics library (Box2D, Chipmunk) - Add a scripting language (Lua?) - Add a networking library (RakNet?) - Perhaps a particle system A license would come with full support of course. I'll also be looking for some beta testers in the future, so should you be interested -- throw me an email at [email protected].
Sounds like you are well on your way. A particle system and texture atlas are must haves. Lua is also awesome. Would be cool if your engine was fully callable from Lua out of the box so devs could work mostly in Lua if they wanted.
It sounds like this is just a few hundred lines of code? I have a "game engine" that does all the stuff you've listed and its not an engine of any sort really, just a project template. I don't think many people would be willing to pay for this. If it were something higher level... A real game engine... I'd be a potential customer.
Yeah, the "paying for it" part will be tough for the OP with Cocos2D and Sparrow already out there, and Pixelwave on the horizon all totally free.
It sounds like you're a very capable programmer and it really all comes down to how well your game engine outperforms other engines on the market. Is your game engine going to be faster? Easier to use? Cheaper? etc, etc. If you're thinking of trying to capitalize on your skills, have you thought of making plug-ins for existing game engines? That is also an area very high in demand I imagine and you wouldn't have to build everything yourself.
@raleigh The codebase is a lot larger than a few hundred lines of code. I still have some work to do though. @robotmechanic I'm going for a developer friendly, easy to use and fast cross platform engine. I am planning on implementing a set of tools that makes it easy and fast for a developer to design and build 2D screens and interfaces. After I finish the 2D engine I'll probably build a world builder for the 3D engine. It'll be cheaper than current solutions such as iTorque and Unity. I can imagine that because the engine will support all major smartphone OSs that some developers would be willing to pay for it -- It gives you the chance to sell an additional amount of units of your game with almost no additional work.
Being an established iphone developer, I'd rather prefer some middleware tools solutions - there are little to none such things, unlike basic game frameworks. I.e. : 1. 2d skeleton animation (bones based anymation, recording ragdoll physics animation, 3ds max import/export) 2. Powerful WYSIWYG 2d particle designer 3. Animation/effects WYSIWYG editor 4. Nice and good WYSIWYG GUI editor 5. Cut-scenes animator 6. nice 2d game level editor, platformer/2.5d slasher like
Sorry, I forgot one IMPORTANT point! The existing free engines are iOS only. Your is multiplatform. That changes things.
