I am making my first game (using Delphi 6) and before I even start on the engine I want to get the utilities out of the way (like the map maker) and I was wondering if this is the way to go, or should I worry about the actual engine first?

Well i think it would depend on the game... What kind of game are you making?

An RPG.

I reconmend editor first, THEN game.


-AfroFire

I''m not talking about the GAME, I am talking about the game''s ENGINE.

This is a TOTAL newbie asking this, What exactly is a game engine, or a 3D game engine?

The engine of a game is what makes the game run. But it''s NOT the game. You use it like you would use an engine in a car, you can have same engine but different cars.

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You know your game is in trouble when your AI says, in a calm, soothing voice, "I''m afraid I can''t let you do that, Dave"

For example, you could tell the engine to make your sprite to walk 12 steps left, then do two backward hand-springs, 5 cartwheels to the left, then top it off with a tripple summersalt off the balance beam, instead of re-programming that everywhere in your game. Or your engine my have a map class.

MaMap := Map.Create;
MaMap.LoadFromFile("C:\maps\mamap.map");
MaMap.DrawToBuffer(Surface,X,Y,Width,Height);
MaMap.Free; // Because we''re not lazy programmers

Whereas if you didn''t have an engine you''d be having lots of fun trying to redo that every time it is needed (which is a lot) in your game.

whats the MaMap.free for??
Newbie

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www.westernwars.com
www.ebgaming.com

[edited by - MathewS on July 1, 2002 5:39:27 PM]

map.free() is there (presumably) to release/delete the memory the map was using (the pointers and other stuff assigned by map.create() ). If you don't do this kind of thing, you're liable to get memory leaks and other assorted nastiness.
AnthonyTW made the comment about lazy programmers because this is the kind of thing that so-called "lazy coders" tend to skip, and thus cause needless hassle for themselves and particularly other folks trying to clean up their messes

[edited by - NeverSayDie on July 2, 2002 12:29:27 PM]