Easy 3d platformer/puzzle Engine?

Azimn

Hey guys I have to create a demo of a game I am designing. It is a platformer/puzzle game where the player switches to a "design mode" to create gadjets like The Spore creature creator orbanjo kazooie, nuts and bolts, or even fantastic contraption. Then switches back and can use the gadjet in the platformer mode.

I am not much of a programmer but I can follow tutorials if they lay it out for me. I am a 3d artist/animator so content is not an issue. I am hoping to find something that is simple enough to use and has as little amount of programming as possible.

I am looking at ShiVa right now, and possibly Unity or Platinum arts sandbox. I have used NWN and UnRealEd editors in the past and even played with multiverse and a dabble in torque. I also found something called AntiryadGx and something called Esperient.

Anyway any help would be great I want to use this assignment as a chance to show my art skills but I also need the game to work as best I can, Oh and I will be using 3ds Max for the content.

Thanks!

Lamont

Id' say pick up Shiva if you've already used it a bit. You want something with as much WYSIWY(sometimes)G, easy to get data into and has plenty of documentation. There really isn't a "platformer/puzzle" engine out there unless it's for making clones. Most of these off the shelf engines have tools, demo's SDK's to show you a basic genre type to get you started.

Good luck.

numo16

It seems like unity can do platformers decently, and autodesk even has a couple of tutorials for working with max and unity for a platformer

http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials?word=unity&where=1&software=1&tutotips=&level=

Azimn

Well Thanks guys for the posts, I did look at Unity but I think I might go with Flash and just use prerendered sprites. I guess we will see if that works!

Lamont

If you have an XBox 360 and $50 you can get TorqueX 2D and 3D and dev games for XNA.

Richard Kain

If 2D gameplay is fine, you might consider the Scrolling Game Development Kit. (version 2.0) This is a fairly light-weight suite of game development tools focused on simpler 2D titles. It is great for platformers, and can be used for puzzle games as well. It has a visual IDE for editing and sprite / scene management, and the gameplay can be extended through C# coding.

If something more Actionscript-focused is to your liking, you might try the PushButton Engine. It is an engine being developed by some of the original developers of Tribes. (including one of my personal industry favorites, Jeff Tunnel) It is a heavily component-driven engine. It should do well for a platfomer, it even comes with an example for a rudimentary platfomer. (as well as the components necessary for platforming-style hit detection) I would imagine that extending it for a puzzle game wouldn't be that difficult. It uses Flex's mxml format for scene management and level set-up, and Actionscript 3.0 for designing custom components.

If you have ever used Python, you should definitely take a look at the Blender Game Engine. The Blender Game Engine features excellent support for the Bullet Physics library. Collision detection and integration with game logic are very easy to handle. This is a good solution for developing a 3D game with 2D gameplay. On the other hand, it would definitely be more bare-bones in terms of coming up with the basic rules. (Blender doesn't come with any examples for pre-built games)

Minos

Do you know Flixel? It might be exactly what you are looking for since you are going with flash.

http://flixel.org/

Check out the example games included, they are awesome.

Richard Kain

Oooooo...I had never seen Flixel before. Now I have a shiny new toy to play with.