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Freedom is something many of us are fortunate to have in abundance, economically, physically and in many other ways. It's also something we demand in games. I remember the launch of one of my all-time favourite games; Carmageddon. Taking racing games such as Pole Position and Out Run off the track and into a free-to-roam environment was an incredible experience. Not only did the environment become free, but the rules - or lack of them - did too. Annihilating the opposition (or some of you may recall other more gruesome strategies) was just as valid as crossing the line first.
In other genres, simple paths in games like Kings Quest (technically a CRPG), with their fixed sequence and solutions to puzzles gave way ultimately to the likes of World of Warcraft (an MMORPG). From single player, linear quests we progressed to vast realms where you and thousands like you have the freedom to walk, run, fight, trade, construct and destruct wherever and however you like. Each time the outcome can differ, if you can actually reproduce the same scenario twice in succession.
Freedom now comes in another form, and that form is Freedom Engine. You'll read about the finer details later in this newsletter, but it is fair to say that freedom has arrived for games programming in a new guise. It encompasses freedom to program, freedom to publish, freedom from financial constraints and most importantly of all, the freedom to unleash your creativity and convert it to reality.
Alongside the headline act we have numerous new games to report on, from the realms of AGK, DarkBASIC Professional and FPS Creator. You can also catch up on the first three weeks of the Ultimate Coder Challenge, as well as all of the regular features.
Until next time,
(1) Freedom Engine (2) FE Q&A (3) DBP (4) Ultimate Coder (5) Carnage (6) Survivalism (7) FPSC News (8) Mix Mix (9) App Developers Group (10) Retro Racing (11) IDF 2012 (12) Space Dust (13) From the Forums (14) Facebook (15) The Game Creators News
Freedom Engine Supercharges Game Development for Ultrabooks and Smartphones
Game developers around the world will soon have an online outlet for their creativity and ingenuity regardless of their financial resources. Launching in beta form on September 12th, Freedom Engine promises to provide a full suite of development tools combined with an easy-to-use scripting language that will allow developers of all abilities the freedom to create virtually any game they desire and deploy their creation across a variety of platforms at no cost. The online toolkit will be featured at this year’s Intel Developer Forum taking place September 11-13 in San Francisco.
“There are literally millions of passionate game developers all around the world yearning for a way to bring their ideas to life,” explains Lee Bamber, CEO of Freedom Engine, LTD. “Freedom Engine offers everyone, regardless of their financial resources, an opportunity to create and deploy the fantastic concepts they’ve been dreaming up and share them across social media. In particular, we want to give indie and hobbyist developers the deployment resources they’ve always felt were out of their reach.”
"Freedom Engine offers everyone, regardless of their financial resources, an opportunity to create and deploy the fantastic concepts they’ve been dreaming up and share them across social media"Lee Bamber
Freedom Engine includes all the building blocks developers need to create fully immersive games. Sprites, sound effects, music, collision detection and 3-D commands are all available in this beta release, with 3-d physics to be added at a later date. These tools are accessible via a scripting language specifically designed to give developers the power they need to create truly complex titles, and the simplicity to make coding a snap.
“It’s also an honor and a privilege to present our platform for consideration at the Intel Developer Forum,” Bamber continues. “We truly believe Freedom Engine has the potential to change the way games are developed today, and we can’t wait to share this concept with the broader development community.”
With Freedom Engine, development and deployment is a startlingly simple process. Users merely navigate to http://www.freedom-engine.com/ in any WebGL-enabled browser like Chrome or Firefox, register, and start coding. When they would like a preview of their efforts to date, they simply press Play to view their game in a preview window. They can then continue coding or deploy their creation to multiple platforms. Only HTML 5 is supported in this beta release, but deployment to Windows, Android iOS and Mac will be added in the coming weeks and months.
Windows Freedom Engine apps will take full advantage of the Ultrabook feature set. This includes support for all Ultrabook sensors such as the gyroscope, accelerometer, compass and ambient light sensor. In addition, developers and players can make full use of multi-touch touchscreens under the Windows 8 operating system. Multicore Box 2D physics, 3D commands, and DirectX 11 custom shader support will give developers the power and precision to create stunningly realistic gameplay environments.
Developers may create and deploy titles on Freedom Engine at no cost. 10 megabytes of storage is included free of charge. 250 megabytes of storage is available for a monthly fee of $5 USD. To learn more and sign up for an account from September 12, visit: http://freedom-engine.com/
We have anticipated many of the questions you may want to ask about Freedom Engine, and have presented them here for you.
Everything you need to know about both DarkBASIC Professional and FPS Creator development can now be found via Lee Bamber's Tweets. You'll get to hear about every bug fix and feature as it's implemented.
Start following Lee now to get the latest news about your favourite development tools as it happens.
This highly popular Special offer is still available to you, proving to be the best package deal we've ever created: Dark Game Studio, Dark Physics, Dark Lights, Dark AI, Extends and a whole lot more for an incredibly low price of $49.99. Save over $170!
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The Ultimate Coder: UltrabookTM Challenge, has officially kicked off, where six developers compete head to head to code apps for next generation Ultrabooks. Lee Bamber and TGC have been invited to take part, and are blogging their progress each week. Here is the profile laid out on the Intel challenge website:
Lee is building an app from scratch for a UK confectionery company that sells a well-known brand of candy called Love Hearts. The sweets are popular with young female teens and working women, so the app will appeal to those demographics with daily prizes, including games, extra messaging features and ideas for what to send loved ones. Lee and the TGC team will create the app using AGK, their proprietary development framework. To engage female Ultrabook buyers, TGC plans to add Ultrabook features to the PC-version of AGK so it will perform far better than other standard apps.
The good news for AGK developers is that the language will be pushed to the limits and beyond, as additional features are implemented to rise to the challenge.
You can support The Game Creators throughout the competition by engaging in the "Who's Rocking it this Week" poll on the challenge website. Here is a summary of the challenge so far, with links to the official blog and the judges responses:
When Intel asked me to write an app, in just six weeks, with a mission to tap into every facet of a next generation pre-production Ultrabook, I started to giggle.Lee Bamber
In week one, Lee has posted details of the team, the design phase, and the thoughts behind the prototyping of Love Hearts ®, the ambitious attempt to combine social messaging and gaming into a single fun and surprising experience.
Here is what some of the judges have had to say on the progress in week one:
“Prepare yourself for a journey into the wonderful world of the software developer.” says Lee Bamber of the Game Creators. His dedicated blog is here and introduces his ideas, the technology, the development kit, the ‘drop dead gorgeous’ Ultrabook, the app design and development methodology. Lee will be developing on the Ultrabook itself. I like Lee’s openness. The coders have a lot to gain by winning but I want them to share their methodologies with the readers as much as possible so we can all learn and benefit. The more developers that are inspired to write applications for Ultrabooks through this competition, the better it will be for everyone.
Steve Paine
I am expecting, and maybe hoping, the veneer of gentile competitiveness to fall away quickly and settle down to a nice exciting game of psych. Lee, for example already has an app-in-a-box application that will enable him to write his apps in Basic and target 7 different platforms. He’s using Basic. To write the ultimate app on the ultimate notebook in front of millions of developers. You can see the sorts of mind games that have already started.Chris Maunder
In week two, Lee has posted some exciting details of the Love Hearts ® app itself. We can see how it will include seamless linking to Facebook and Twitter, amongst other personal networks. Taking rewards to the extreme, the app will shower the users with a whole range of goodies that can be kept or shared. Children of the seventies and eighties will realise that the concept of revealing your admiration through sweets has made an ingenious transition to the world of the twenty first century youth...and adults still young at heart.
I should be able to operate the app entirely from the touch screen, swiping and touching my way through every feature. If my keyboard fell off tomorrow, my app should carry on regardless.Lee Bamber
Lee is tailoring the experience to the Ultrabook features, which will ultimately benefit the numerous other platforms available through AGK.
The touch screen will be used to maximum potential, with "tap to unwrap" being the principal method of progressing through the various gifts. There is a great deal of thought going into the implementation of the Ultrabook sensors, to make sure they are functional rather than there "just because we can".
Judge Chris Maunder has picked up on the major technical hurdle uncovered this week:
I am a little worried, but also grinning a big grin, when he discusses a major issue with Windows 8: a Metro style app cannot use OpenGL. So he's going to write his own OpenGL library in DirectX 11. That's so awesome."
Chris Maunder
In week three, everything that anyone ever knew about Windows development was confined to the bin, and Lee has started to rewrite life as we know it. Fortunately he has documented Life (version 2) in the Ultimate Coder blog, to save a lot of time and energy for likeminded developers. As promised in the previous week, the AGK OpenGL-based commands now have a neat interface to the DirectX world of WinRT. The mammoth 14 hour coding session that leads to this breakthrough is available as a time-lapse video.
Again, the judges have given their opinions, here is just one of them:
"As has been a theme, Lee is tromping through with steel shod boots where angels fear to tread. The man is crazy, and I dig that about him. If you are looking to develop Windows 8 applications, follow Lee's blog."
Chris Maunder
The competition continues and we will keep you updated through the news site and of course via Lee's Blog.
Carnage is now on Steam Greenlight, where you can help to turn it into a published game on the Steam Platform. Steam Greenlight is a new system that enlists the community's help in picking some of the next games to be released on Steam. Developers post information, screenshots, and videos for their game and seek a critical mass of community support in order to get selected for distribution. Steam Greenlight also helps developers get feedback from potential customers and start creating an active community around their game as early in the development process as they like.
Help make Carnage a reality by pledging your support now!
Carnage is a near-futuristic multi-player game show where clone warriors blow chunks out of each other for our own sick entertainment. Set in an arena housing a horde of blood thirsty spectators, the player must please the crowd with excessive gore to make good TV. Frantic combat and strategic skirmishes both have their place, as well as creative use of weapons and arena booby traps to provide maximum spectator enjoyment.
Can your clone horde reign victorious in the arena? Or will you just contribute to the growing stockpiles of dog food?
Carnage can also be found on the TGC Forums here.
Survivalism is set in a Gothic cathedral, where hoardes of zombies are trying to destroy the altar! With a truck-load of high-powered and experimental weaponry, you must try to survive and hold the altar as long as possible! Mixing elements of the Tower Defense and FPS genres, this survival-based neo-Gothic style video game is sure to challenge your strategic skills whilst being able to unleash mayhem on the undead!
The game features the essentials of any Tower Defense game, with an overview map to plan your strategy and place weaponry. There are numerous categories, from handheld guns and devices, to obstacles and explosive mines and barrels. The setting is a Gothic-inspired sanctum, beautifully decorated from ground to rafters.
James Blandford is the developer of this game, due for release mid-September 2012. It is coded using DarkGDK and the project has been ongoing for the past 7 months, in amongst exams and an internship at Criterion Games. You can expect to see this game soon on IndieDB and various other sites.
Follow the progress of Survivalism on the Game Creators' Forums.
This month we highlight two games worthy of attention, including one which has latched on to an internet phenomena, and now ranks amongst the most talked about incarnations of Slenderman. But first, let us introduce Touch of Fear.
Steven Kane; just another ordinary 36 year old employee at U-Corp - part of the 'quantum leap' project (aptly named after the TV show). I was being paid to work as part of a small team, trying to discover the truth behind time travel! Time travel I hear you say...I know, I was dubious at first, but, we really found something. John - the guy that leads the team - has had us working day and night ever since that first trial was successful. He says the next trials should involve humans, but, we all know that the FDA would never approve such an idea.
John pulls me over to one side to have a quiet chat and we agree that we need to move the testing further. I put myself forward as a guinea pig. I agreed to meet him late that night at the labs.
We had discussed the possibility of sending me forward ten minutes where I could leave a note... no time like the present (excuse the pun) I arrive at the U-Corp building that night...
Touch of Fear is produced by Unfamilia using FPS Creator, and you can feed back on the game, and follow any future enhancements in the dedicated forum post here.
Slenderman is a strange internet legend; a concept that has grown from many points across the internet to become what it is today. But tomorrow, Slenderman may be something different again.
This FPS Creator game by Marc Steene and Wray Burgess is based on the indie game 'Slender' by Mark J. Hadley (AgentParsec). It shares the same gameplay elements as the original - you must collect 8 pages while avoiding the enemy. There are some differences which will make playing a somewhat unique experience - different AI, new sounds, and a different environment. And for anyone who gets 8 pages...there are 3 surprises waiting in store!
Read more and feed back on the forum thread. You can also read a review of this increasingly popular game on the Indie Games website.
This offer has proved so popular amongst new users of FPS Creator and those that simply want 9 new model packs at a fanatstic price, that we just let it run and run! Get FPS Creator and 9 Model Packs for an incredibly low price of $29.99 USD (€22.00 EUR, £19.99 GBP). This deal includes:
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MIXMIX is a spelling puzzle game with a twist. You start with a random pool of 64 letters, and every time you use a letter to form a new word, it advances to the next letter of the alphabet. Use an A and it becomes B, B becomes C, and so on. Your ultimate goal is to create one ten-letter word. There are three levels of difficulty, and you can play a timed game, or a free-play game with no time limit. Spelling medals are awarded at various milestones as you advance.
This game is the latest in a number of apps developed by Rich Derscheimer using AGK.
You can download MixMix from iTunes now. Rich is also the developer of AGK Particle Sandbox.
The monthly ADG newsletter for August has naturally focused on one man...
November 2010: A very simple message is posted to The Game Creators forums:
"A few of us are publishing games on multiple platforms and I thought it might be a good idea to pool our resources and experiences. Also we could ensure that our Apps get properly Beta tested."
Within 18 months, the poster of this message is working for The Game Creators. That poster is Steven Holding, founder of ADG.
This one simple post was the inauguration of The App Developers Group, now a thriving community of like-minded developers. The public face of the group is baxspace.com, but behind this lies a hive of activity as games are developed, tested to destruction and published through the website and numerous marketplaces across the internet.
Since the establishment of the ADG, Steven has forged and published over eight apps, authored developer tutorials and has even represented The Game Creators in the "Hackathon" programming event hosted by Cadbury.
From day one, Steven has been joined by many fellow developers. This growing, high-spirited group of developers maximized their benefits by "pooling resources" and "sharing experiences".
Activity in the ADG received a boost upon the release of The Game Creators cross-platform development tool App Game Kit (AGK). Suddenly, the members of the ADG were no longer restricted to developing for Windows and were given the opportunity to compete in the Android, iOS, Samsung, Meego and Blackberry markets. Steven embraced and mastered AGK, continuously releasing numerous code snippets and tools to ease the development for AGK developers such as his Character Workshop utility; as well as providing a helping hand to those who asked. Due to his enthusiasm and extensive knowledge of AGK, The Game Creators handpicked Steven to represent them in Cadbury's Hackathon, a software development competition.
Following Steven's admirable participation in Cadbury's hackathon came news that shook both the ADG and TGC developer communities; The Game Creators had a new addition to their team. Steven stepped into his dream career of programming games saying "I'm looking forward to hammering AGK to its limit over the coming months. Working on it full time will also give me some useful insights that can help the rest of the community too."
We wish Steven well as he dives into his new role and eagerly await the pearls which are to follow.
This article was presented in Issue 10 of the ADG newsletter. We welcome all independent developers to join us, the pre-requisite is simply that you are anxious to share experience and resources with the rest of us.
Get the game on Google Play now. At the time of writing, you can also download the entire Retro Racer soundtrack for FREE on the developers website.
For those who are reading our newsletter State-side, you may be pleased to learn that TGC will be at the Intel Developer Forum this year (IDF) from the 11th September through to the 13th. You will find us at various stands throughout the three days, and of course we will be Tweeting at every bar and restaurant so you can track us down for a quick pint and a chat.
Get your jet pack on and head into space in this brain teasing space puzzler! Get your space man back to his ship in this FREE version of Space Dust, developed by Digital Stone Media using AGK.
Use your jet pack to propel you forward, but be careful… you can only move in a straight line! Plan ahead and think outside the box to unravel the solutions to these brain teasing puzzles of increasing difficulty.
Upgrade to the full version for more levels, wormholes, asteroid belts, black holes and more!
Sometimes as coders, we just need a quick fix to a problem, without worrying about the intricacies. If you need a quick fix for sorting data, then here it is. Neuro Fuzzy has posted this solution in the Code Snippets.
Pharelax has posted his isometric map editor for anyone wanting to delve into this arena. Alongside the editor source code, you'll also find a set of isometric tiles from OpenGameArt.org where you'll find lots of other resources.
Join over 4,500 fans on TGC's Facebook page to keep bang upto date on news, user projects from the forums and discussions.
We're keen to hear from all our avid users and we always love to hear what you've been upto with the tools we sell. So if you have something you want to share with the wider TGC audience why not post it into the TGC Facebook page?
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"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln