Hello everyone. This si my first post here. I need some advice on choosing the platforms and technologies to use for a new adventure game / engine that we want to develop commercially. Also, if you have any advice regarding to developing commercial games in general (which type of game is better to develop from this point of view, sites to publish them, etc). We've been thinking about an adventure game and an engine with it since this will be most fun. But we're not sure what platforms and technologies to use. Some languages / frameworks considered: 1. C++ / DirectX | Ogre 2. C# / XNA, DirectX 3. Python / Ogre? 4. Java / JMonkey | Ogre? What do you think? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks alot! Ovidiu :)

This is better than than that debates tend to not be too useful.

So, what are your requirements? Do you want to run on xbox? on Linux?
What do you know already?

PC and Windows. I guess it would be good to have it work on linux as well. Also, how important do you think it is to have it work on Xbox?

Quote: Original post by ovidiudolha
PC and Windows. I guess it would be good to have it work on linux as well. Also, how important do you think it is to have it work on Xbox?

EXTREMELY important. Since this is your first ever game and you aren't sure which language to use, make sure that it is compatible with Xbox so that Microsoft will look at buying it from you. No need to limit your profits to just PCs "and" Windows.

Honestly, if this is your very first game as a company, don't even waste your time thinking about consoles. Develop for the windows market only, and then plan to branch out to other segments on your later games.

From the options you listed? All things being equal I would recommend C# / XNA, as it's probably the easiest option (plus you get Xbox support "for free").

I would strongly recommend against building "an engine". Just focus on your game.

Quote: Original post by Andrew Russell
I would strongly recommend against building "an engine". Just focus on your game.

If you take nothing from any other post. Take this to heart.

Quote: Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Quote: Original post by Andrew Russell
I would strongly recommend against building "an engine". Just focus on your game.

If you take nothing from any other post. Take this to heart.

What do you mean? I've been working on my Ultra-Mega RPG engine for only 10+ years now, and I'm already at least 10% done with it [grin]

Unless you have a large team and big budget, I also recommend against making a whole engine yourself. While the term engine can be vague, as not every engine is the same, a pure rendering engine concentrates on loading, animating and rendering models, loading and rendering terrains, lighting and stuff like that, while a complete game engine might also include networking, artificial intelligence, sounds, input control, scripting, collision detection and physics.

You already listed 2 engines in your list: OGRE and JMonkey. Since I've only used OGRE I can't say which one is better, or if perhaps another engine like Irrlicht is better. Most engines are cross-platform, the game with OGRE we made some time ago could be ported to Linux in 1 day. You should take a look and choice one that fits your requirements and then start building the game around it.

Thanks for all the replies!

I see there are different opinions regarding compatibility to xbox. We're actually looking now for the combination which would help develop easy and fast. I guess XNA would be a good choice for that.

If we would use Ogre, we would need to integrate sound & input support with something else. Also, do you guys think it's a bad idea to use Ogre with C# or Java? It probably has some limitations, also the performance might be affected, but for an adventure game it's probably not all that important.

What do you think?

Many Thanks,
Ovidiu