[casual_games] Game Authoring Language

Mon Aug 8 15:19:38 EDT 2005

Message    I personally think that for this kind of development, which language to choose is mostly a personal opinion, the one which one feels more confortable with. Both Java (or anyone else) and C++ could be fine to develop a casual game. Most games are historically programmed in C++ just because a simple problem: games are the kind of application that should get every single cycle from the CPU and use it as well as it can be. Now, games such as casual do not require great computers to run, which leads to the following problem: 

        You could use JAVA, blitzbasic, or any higher development environment, though making your game need a little better computers. You will lose some potential customers which just don't have a computer fast enough to run your games, but you'll make your life easier, using java or some 3D library for example to enhance graphics, have particles, alpha blending, hardware rotation / scaling. 

       On the other hand, if you have enough experience with any language you could use it as well as any other, but there are some little things that you are not able to handle in C++, such as looking easily inside of STL structures and such things, which I don't know JAVA, I suppose that it does this fine. But these little things will bother, a lot, while developing your game.

        In my personal opinion, I prefer to leave out some features that don't make a GREAT difference, such as alpha blending graphics for ALL the images, mostly 2D graphics through the video card (3D). That's why I think that using SDL is the best option (also, wrapped through DirectX 5, should run in most customers computers). 

    This would be for the difference between C++ vs any other languages. For JAVA in particular, I have some doubts to use it... Should the user download the JAVA environment so he can use the game? Because it is huge and most users would prefer just to try another easier game. Another thing to have in mind is, will the user need to download the latest drivers to be able to play the game? I think that we should aim to the most basic hardware, with no drivers update or framework needed, if possible.

    Of course, I am saying this, supposing that the game is simple enough so that you shouldn't need anything else than the basic stuff to run the game. If the game gets bigger, or more complicated, or you want to make it 3D or something like that (I can't imagine a 2D game that should * NEED * nowadays hardware to run) then go for it, use the things you'll need. But try to avoid requirements if possible, just to get as most audience as possible (don't kill yourself to try to reach those 2% with 286, but if the difference is about 30% or something like that, you would like to think again about it). Perhaps some customers hardware's stats available would be something good to have to make a good decision on which tools to use.

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Wade Tinney 
  To: 'IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List' 
  Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 3:14 PM
  Subject: RE: [casual_games] Game Authoring Language

  Hi Adeo-

  Are you evaluating technologies for online multiplayer, or downloadables, or both? 

  We probably won't use Java for downloadables (we are increasingly committed to Torque 2D and 3D), but *might* use it for online multiplayer, especially if there were better libraries available. Currently, we are using flash for online multiplayer clients. 

  Wade

  Wade Tinney
  partner, game designer
  Large Animal Games
  http://www.largeanimal.com
  wade at largeanimal.com

    -----Original Message-----
    From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Adeo Ressi
    Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 1:04 PM
    To: casual_games at igda.org
    Subject: [casual_games] Game Authoring Language

    At Game Trust, we have been evaluating various casual game development technologies, including ActiveX, Director, and Java. It is our opinion that Java may be the best way to go, especially considering the cross-platform capabilities. Java also has a massive install base, great client/server capabilities, fast performance, and ways to optimize load times for online play.

    The downside to Java is a lack of strong development libraries for games, though Sun is actively working on this. Java has some problems with sound handling in the most recent JVM versions, which can be addressed in your code. Ultimately, different games suit themselves to different languages, which is why we try to support them all.

    Game Trust has a number of 2D and 3D Java development libraries that we have used internally for casual games. We have been thinking to make these libraries Open Source in conjunction with Sun. It would take us a couple months to polish them up. 

    I am wondering what people think about Java, and if anyone thinks that having a strong set of Open Source Java development libraries would help them?

                Adeo / Game Trust

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