OpenEuphoria

Re: Writing An RPG Engine & Editor

• Posted by Patrick Barnes <mrtrick at gmail.com> Dec 26, 2004
• 445 views

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 22:49:06 -0800, Andy <guest at rapideuphoria.com> wrote:
> I am planning on writing an rpg engine and editor to go along with the engine
> I am wondering which language to do it in Euphoria or C++. I would like it to
> have these features 2D/3D Graphics, All that 3D stuff like Rendeing,Lighting,
> Buffering,Texturing,Blurring and whole bucnh of other features, I would also
> like to read a lot of file types, I also want the engine to be orignal, if
> I have to write my own programming libraries then I will. The Editor will
> allow for the user to create the game, also I want the engine or editor to
> be easy and powerful to use. I know this is a lot of work, and would take
> a long time to make, but it does sound good. One more thing, I would probaly
> need a team with this big of project. Well that's all I have for now.

You're not the first person to want to make a game. The problem is,
any commercial game made in the last 10 years has been the work of a
*big* team of people. Making a game is very complicated, even without
fancy graphics. If you want a game that looks better than 1994-era
games (2d, basic graphics), and is more than a simplistic
time-diversion, you're  gonna need to use the work of others.

So, what is out there? Well, for graphics, know that although a game
might be written in C++, the graphics part won't be. The graphics part
will be a combination of directX calls, graphics shaders, and
hand-coded assembler, with a little bit of C mixed in.

So, for graphics use someone else's graphics engine (Windows, not
DOS). Look in the rapideuphoria archives, there are lots of useful
things in there.

Now, an RPG contains a lot of data. Lots and LOTS and lots. You have
to store the format of a map, all the items in it, the properties of
those items, the interactions between those items, the things that the
player is carrying, any monsters in the map, any friendly NPC's, etc.
I suggest you use a database system that has been designed and built
already. There is Rob Craig's EDB system (look in the archives for
info about that), or if you're more confortable with SQL, someone's
written some libraries to access EDB with an SQL'like system. (again,
look in the archives)

Even with these libraries to help, theres a lot of work to do.... One
thing I do know, you're not the first person to be working on an RPG.
Look in the euforum archives, perhaps they'd be interested in
collaborating?

Lastly, graphics aren't everything. Worry about having a game that you
can actually play before you worry about eye-candy.



-- 
MrTrick