The time will soon come to choose technologies to develop your game. While I would encourage you to do your own research and identify an appropriate technology for the game you would like to produce, I am happy to suggest technologies that are fairly easy to learn and useful for quickly building games.
For this course I would recommend the following:
| Product | Price | PC | MAC | In Lab? |
|
|
Free | Y | Y | Y |
|
|
Free Trial | Y | (not yet) | Y |
| FPS Creator | ||||
| Free Trial | Y | N | N |
You may also want to consider modding a basic game if that environment is closet to what you are looking to prototype. Your best options are without too much training are:
I have a list of easy prototyping tools I provided my former students, if these options do not appeal to you.
The useful excerpt is as follows:
" At this stage, your prototype is an audition for your game concept. These can be fairly closed auditions, and they can require us to use some of our imagination to substitute characters, worlds, etc.
Awesome Game Creation: No Programming Required and Make Amazing Games In Minutes by Jason Darby explain how to use some of these game development tools. The books are better suited for people without game art experience, but a few chapter excerpts might get you going faster than web resources.
ClickTeam: GamesFactory 2
- No programming required, sprite based game development from Clickteam.
- "The Games Factory provides everything you need to manufacture Arcade games, Platform games, Adventures, Screen Savers, and much, much, more. You simply click on an object, drag it to the play field, and click on the action it should perform. We supply all the heroes, monsters, powerups, and other objects you need, plus the sound and music for your games. Of course, you can easily add your own, custom items if you choose. "
The GameCreators: FPS Creator (Windows XP), FPS Creator X10 (Vista only), The 3D Gamemaker
- Click and drag 3D FPS creation in a few minutes. Yes, really, in a few minutes.
- "Create an FPS game instantly with the intuitive 3D editor. Drag and drop walls, lights, doors, enemies, ammo, weapons and more - all with pixel perfect precision, and watch as they intelligently link together. Then with one click of the mouse, play your game!"
- The 3D Gamemaker was big news four years ago, but as with everything but X10, the graphics are a bit "aged." Age is good for wine and meat, and more than fine for prototypes :)
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