SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 How do I make a game?  Quick look at lots of different tools  Discuss pros/cons of each  Will not tell you what is the right tool

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Flash  Ubiquitous on the web  Everyone has Flash, everyone uses Flash  Vector or Bitmap images  Video  It’s pretty great

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Flash  Ubiquitous  Cheap  Huge developer community  Fairly powerful  Only good for web  Can be used for download  Can have poor performance

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Director  Around since 1996  Like Flash but better  Real-time 3D on the web  Extensible

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Director  Fairly powerful  Very mature tool  Affordable  40% install base  Most ubiquitous web 3D  Very mature quirks  40% install base  Lack of recent updates

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Java  Code once, run anywhere  C++ like syntax  Runs on phones and in-browser

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Java  Code once, run anywhere  Fairly ubiquitous  Syntax familiar to programmers  Not really run anywhere  Big & painful install  Performance can be an issue  Decreasing in popularity for client

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Virtools  Advanced web-3D  Background in Virtual Reality  Making in-roads for consoles

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Virtools  Most advanced web- 3D  Quick prototyping and development  Game industry focus  Expensive  Near 0 penetration  Very small userbase

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Unity  New web 3D technology  Fairly advanced features  Lots of active development

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Unity  Extremely focused on game development  Very active development  Built for solid web 3d  Wii support  Still fairly new  Near 0 penetration  Mac only authoring

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Torque  Based on Tribes engine  Primarily 3D, but decent 2D support  Indie focused in spirit  No web-support

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Torque  Very indie focused  Decent feature set  Several versions  Inexpensive  Source Included  Decent console support  Large community  Newest features have higher system requirements  More expensive for console development  Documentation

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 PopCap Framework  Engine behind all of PopCap’s games  Built around the needs of casual game developers  Freely available

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 PopCap Framework  Free  Extremely well tested  Good 2D support  Limited to 2D  Feature-set primarily based on PopCap’s needs

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007.Net / XNA  XNA is Microsoft’s platform Not really a tool .Net is a programming language  Gaining more support

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007.Net / XNA  Great for new PC’s and Xbox  Lots of support from Microsoft  Numerous languages available  Some performance hit (probably negligible)  Windows & Xbox only  Framework is big

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Console Engines  Vicious Cycle  Unreal Engine  Virtools or Unity (Wii)

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Game Creators Club  Right now just for indies  Pro version coming soon  Cheapest way to get onto consoles  Lots of support behind tools  Unknown developer community

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Multiverse  Generic MMO-tools  Worth considering for indie-MMO  Want to become the ‘browser’ of MMO’s

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 SecondLife  Interesting space  Building tools within tools  Beware the hype

SSMIC Game Development Workshop - Brian Robbins June 21,2007 Technology ?’s