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Is There Life Beyond DirectX?
Zangief asks: "Almost any gamer has, at some point, the idea of making their own game. I am no exception, so I've been playing around with SDL, which appears to be the logical decision over the craziness of DirectX. However I have also noticed that other alternatives, such as ClanLib. There is something else? Are there any other libraries, dev-kits, or tools that would be good for indie developers?"
There are engines already built and out there, completely open for your use. Some of the best-selling games over the past couple years have been Mods built onto existing game engines. Why fuck with SDL/DirectX/ANYTHING when you can start off building a game, instead of an engine?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
SDL seems like the only choice. Unless you specifically want/need DOS support, or a few other platforms other libs will get you, SDL supports a large number and has gone beyond the critical mass of 1) things that use it 2) developers interested in it and 3) employed developers who spend time caring about it (Even if it's in their off time :)
SDL has also of course been used for a number of commercial games, I've used it myself with regard to two ports - One from windows which already used SDL and was extremely easy to port, and the other from Mac OS (not X) that was difficult to port and we added SDL to that so it can just as easily go to windows, BeOS, etc.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
Sun has recently started paying more attention to java as a gaming platform and has been pushing java along with OpenGL as their solution.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
There's an SDL port to KOS, a small operating system which runs on the dreamcast. So most of your experience with SDL will translate into an easy path to developing for an actual console.
Everything will be taken away from you.
If you're looking for something better than Direct3D, you should check out the Q engine by Qube Software.
:)
Q 3D Engine
(FREE DOWNLOAD for Windows & Linux)
You may be interested to note that this is produced by some of the same engineers who produced Direct3D. Can't be that bad then eh?
PS I once worked for Qube, so I'm probably biased.
Depends. Linux might be a better market to develop games on. It has a bunch of users are might be interested in a game. The origional Galatic Civilizations was a good game, but wouldn't have gone near as far if they targeted Windows instead of OS/2. By targeting a small system you can get a large percentage of users, while targeting windows means you only get a small percentage of a large number. Depending on how things work our exactly the latter can be much less than the former.
Remember there are few linux games. Those who run linux may be willing to buy a few games, and they only have a few games total to buy, so they can buy most of them. With Windows you have many different games to choose from, so those willing to buy games only buy a small number.
If you are making the next doom or MYST (by which I mean a game that explodes and everyone gets it, not any partular catagory of game) then target windows because you will get more sales. If you are making a standard game you have to set realistic expentations. Why would a windows person buy your ok game vs some other ok game? With linux it is why would someone buy your ok game vs not buying a game at all.
This is a marketing decision. If your expectations are reasonable you can make better decisions than if they are wrong. Of course it goes both way. If you make a game that could explode except it is limited it to linux you just lost a lot of potential sales.
Cross platform development makes a lot of sense. You target one platform, and once the game is out you do market research. Find that something else would make enough sales, and you port to that. In theory it is easy, in practice a little more difficult.