Posted on February 21st, 2010 by Carlos Camacho
CRM32Pro is a free SDK written in C++ and built on top of SDL that facilitates the creation of cross-platform games. Begun in 2001, the SDL-based SDK is perfect for quickly creating games in 2D with the option to use OpenGL to develop games in 2D/3D. For Mac OS X, the SDK offers:
- Supports x86 versions: 10.3, 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6. Uses Quartz, X11 and OpenGL as video backends and coreaudio.
- Support GNU C/C++ 4.x versions.
As mentioned, CRM32Pro supports OpenGL to accelerate 2D blitting operations. Other notable features include scaled surfaces with smooth filter, GUI, optimized collision system between sprites and surfaces, and automatic smooth sprites movement (using interpolation). The included editor however seems to be Windows-only.
Related Links:
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
SDL is a free cross-platform multi-media development API. SDL version 1.2 now builds on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Eric Wing posted a good rundown on the numerous changes. This release is intended to clean up the bug list for SDL 1.2 and lets the developers focus on new development for SDL 1.3! General fixed include the following:
- Fixed flicker when resizing the SDL window
- Fixed crash in
SDL_SetGammaRamp()
- Fixed freeze in SDL_memset() with 0 length when assembly code is disabled.
- Added
SDL_DISABLE_LOCK_KEYS environment variable to enable normal up/down events for Caps-Lock and Num-Lock keys.
- Fixed audio quality problem when converting between 22,050 Hz and 44,100 Hz.
- Fixed a threading crash when a few threads are rapidly created and complete.
- Increased accuracy of alpha blending routines.
- Fixed crash loading BMP files saved with the scanlines inverted.
- Fixed mouse coordinate clamping if
SDL_SetVideoMode() isn’t called in response to SDL_VIDEORESIZE event.
- Added doxygen documentation for the SDL API headers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 19th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
Dev Hub is running a contest aimed at SDL programmers. The contest’s aim is to make a side-scrolling shooter. The contest is open to all game developers, and has requirements similar to uDevGames. The grand prize is $200 with a deadline of September 1, 2009. If this contest has perked your interest in learning more about SDL, head on over to Bright Hub for their series on SDL tutorials — and yes, they even teach you about parallax scrolling.
Related Link:
Posted on August 10th, 2009 by Simon Read
Overview
After completing my previous game New Star GP I was considering replacing the racing cars with space ships and putting weapons in the game. It seemed like a fairly simple way to reuse the code that I’d spent the previous three months working on and quickly create an entirely new game. Meanwhile I had been playing PuppyGames’ Gravitron which I’d purchased through Steam and was mulling over the prospect of making a similar retro style game. It suddenly hit me that I could create the combat racing game with a neon vector look. Throw in some cool explosions and a techno sound-track and hey-presto, I’d have Geometry Wars meets Wipeout.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 30th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
0 A.D. is a free, cross-platform, under-development, 3D, historically-based, real-time strategy game. If you’ve played or seen Microsoft’s Age of Empire series, then you’ll have a good idea of this RTS game. The developers recently announced that the code available as GPL and the art content is available as CC-BY-SA.
here’s roughly 150K lines of C++ for the game engine, and another 25K for editing tools. Gameplay scripting uses JavaScript. We build on top of low-level libraries (OpenGL, OpenAL, ENet, …), not an existing game engine (like OGRE). The code isn’t all extremely clean or extremely modular or extremely well-written. It’s been written by a wide variety of programmers, and it’s far from a “completed” codebase. We want to continue cleaning things up as part of the normal development process. We’re not averse to rewriting entire subsystems if that’s the most effective way to make them satisfy our requirements. But in many areas it’s quite solid.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 16th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
Cross-platform game creation tools seem to be on our agenda this week. Today, we highlight Atmosphir, a free Nintendo-like 3D adventure game and creation tool. In a nutshell, this is a 3D platform game with a very slick level editor. The level editor allows you to create new maps (worlds) and populate them with custom characters, challenges, platforms all without programming. This is done by dragging and dropping bridges, platforms, doors, objects hazard props in a 3D isometric view — very intuitive and LEGO-like. Atmosphir runs on the Mac and PC and plans for consoles are also in the works. Although it is strictly single-player game, the developers are working towards adding multi-player options in future versions.
Related Links:
Posted on July 15th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
Verge3 is a 2D game engine focused on making it easier to create 2D RPGs, similar to games from the Super Nintendo and Genesis 16-bit era of gaming (or earlier). Recent versions of this free project has added the ability to use Lua to script Verge games. VergeC, or just VC, is the C-like scripting language that is used to create the various aspects of Verge games, such as map events, menus, inventory, battle system, etc. verge3 is comprised of two applications, MapEd3 and ChrMak5. MapEd3 is the Verge3 Map Editor. It is a development tool that you can use to create and edit custom maps for Verge3 to use. You can edit and place tiles, set up obstructions and events, and do other map-related stuff. ChrMak5 is a character maker that creates Verge3 .chr files. This is an image file with a set of character animations on it. Unfortunately, these two vital tools are not currently available for the Mac, but have been under development for some time. There is however a SDL-based playable of a tech demo called “The Sully Chronicles” that runs on the Mac. fmod sound library is utilized to play all music and sound effects. The SVN does contain an Xcode project for adventurous C++ programmer who wants to help accelerate the Mac OS X release of Verge3. Please note that the tech demo will cause some chaos to your desktop icons.
Related Links:
Posted on July 15th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
Platinum Arts Sandbox is standalone 3D Game Maker and 3D Game Design program currently based on the cube 2 engine. This open source application allows kids and adults to create their own video games, worlds, levels, adventures and quests. The developers claim that it is easy enough for kids to use but powerful enough for full game projects. Side-scrolling and RPG games can be made and it even features a powerful scripting language as well as the ability to import md2, md3, md5 and obj model formats. Version 2.3 adds:
- New 3D sidescroller Mario like mode
- Hotkeys that make it easier to save games, add materials
- Maps now generate cfgs on save! Also many various map tweaks
- Tons of under the hood bug fixes and features
Sandbox runs on Mac, Linux and Windows and contains code project files for VS, Codeblocks, Linux makefile and Xcode.
Related Links:
Posted on July 6th, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
Cafu, formally known as Ca3D-Engine, is coming to Mac OS X. Cafu is a 3D engine that boasts multi-player network support and cross-platform portability. Written in C++, it currently runs on Windows and Linux (GCC 3.x and 4.x). Features include:
- First engine ever to combine light-maps with dynamic lighting effects!
- Radiosity-based, physically correct lighting.
- Dynamic, shader-driven, per-pixel lighting for both worlds and models.
- Support for ATI and NVidia programmable GPUs and shaders.
- Employs fmod for all sound, audio and music effects.
- A powerful Graphical User Interface (GUI) System (or short: GuiSys) is integrated with the engine.
- Can directly import models in ase, mdl (Half-Life 1) and md5 (Doom 3) model file formats. (Importers for 3ds, lwo, obj, mdl2 (Half-Life 2) file formats are in preparation.)
- Provides continuous-level-of-detail, permitting very large out-door scenes.
- Supports Scripting based on the Lua programming language!
- Full support for curved surfaces (Bezier Patches) as seen in Doom 3, from the CaWE editor through preprocessing to dynamic lighting and shadows.
While not open source, Cafu licensing is within the reach of most indie developers. Be sure to drop the developer a note if you wish to encourage or help him speed up his Mac port.
Related Links:
Posted on July 1st, 2009 by Carlos Camacho
nettuts+ has posted an article aimed at new iPhone developers. It covers making a webapp with a variety of tips, covering things such as: “must-haves”, usability guidelines, testing/debugging, pitfalls, and performance issues. The first tip is a one line statement to tell the browser to scale your page in such a way that will make it fit nicely on the iPhone. Next, the author shows how to hide the address bar. Continue reading on net.tutsplus.com. While we are on the topic of handy snippets and tips, GameDev.net has an article of Handy PC/Mac OS X Snippets for Indie Development. Such articles are very helpful, and I’d like to ask the community to submit their own handy quick tip and code snippets. Send them along with a quick explanation and we will publish the best 10.
Related Links:
Since 1998, iDevGames has been educating, supporting and enhancing the community of game developers that develop video games for Mac OS X & iPhone. Subscribe to our