graphics library or game engine?

ShrewdSpirit · 2015-06-30T05:33:12

Hello. This is my first post in GameDev forums, so I'm so sorry if I'm asking this in wrong place. I need some help to start coding my game! I'm going to create a 2D isometric game that is multiplayer and supports making own deidcated servers. The plans for the game are done and it's coding time for me! The problem I have is I really don't know what library or engine should I use for making the game. I want to use C++ and Lua (Don't think I'm one of those who know C++ but have no idea what classes are!) so I decided to pick SFML. Many say I cannot make both the engine and the game alone. It will take a long time, but I love to learn something and also make a good game that others can play. Thats why I like to make the engine myself. But sometimes I think it's a better idea and a faster solution to use an existing open source game library or a small game engine that's written in C++. For that I like to use Godot Engine which is the best thing I could find. Any ways, I talked so much! I want to know which one do you experienced guys prefer for making such a game (Except the networking stuff which is a separate project, I don't care if networking is supported by the engine/library)? Using a multimedia library like SFML, a library like Irrlicht or a 2D game engine that is written in C++ and is free and open source? Also keep in mind that I want to learn something and make the game in a short time, less than a year! Writing a game engine from scratch is a hard and long process and I don't think it can be done alone, using an existing game library helps a lot but they require many more dependencies to install and I couldn't find a free and open source one. And the game engine is the simplest thing to use, only the stuff that aren't supported by engine can be done separatedly in C++. For the game engine, Godot is the best choise and I won't change my mind about it! So yeah, that's all! My English is a bit weak so I'm so sorry if my words was a bit confusing or incomprehensible. I appreciate your help and ideas about this

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Started by ShrewdSpirit June 29, 2015 07:41 AM

11 comments, last by ShrewdSpirit 9 years, 6 months ago

ShrewdSpirit

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June 29, 2015 02:50 PM

Sorry for the late response!

@MRQ Oh, right, I meant making an engine for the game, not a game engine that can be used to build any kind of game. But I think even doing so takes so long >_<

@Eck Yeah, it's my first time trying to make a good game, I've made a maze game 5 or 6 years ago using Game Maker but that wasn't a good thing :(

And also you are right, it happened to me a lot that writing a program without knowing the framework or tool caused in a messed up code and headache. Thank you so much for the link. Isn't Irrlicht only used for 3D stuff?

@ninnghazad I have no problem in implementing the networking (not multiplayer! just using sockets and how to manage them, like in a upload/download or chat application, I've never implemented multiplayer but it should be easy as it's just about sending small amounts of data and receiving them back, server handles all of those ...)

Also the game I want to make is a RPG open world game, which users can run their own deidcated servers and have their own map, levels, missions, etc and everything is scriptable using Lua or AngelScript. If you have ever used SA-MP or MTA, you should have an idea how it should look like! The only things that I have to implement are these:

Loading and managing resources, rendering stuff, embedding Lua or maybe AngelScript, multiplayer and networking base so users can download content whenever they connect to a server, APIs for having access to the game from Lua. So if you sum it all up, it will be like a framework that players have to make their own game logic and content in a scripting language. So the game itself is nothing but a renderer and resource manager! That's all about it.

But as you guys adviced, I should start making something smaller and easier without multiplayer and add more features to it.