Engines

IF YOU MUST

I didn't say they should or anything, I just said that if some goon gets the crazy idea to make a Mario engine, he might as well make it for MMF2 instead.

Yes you could. That's what an engine is supposed to be like.


The problem however is, that it seems that the focus of MFGG has shifted towards making ENGINES instead of GAMES.
If you make an engine and make at least one game out of it, it's ok and it's best to not release the engine afterwards (and especially not BEFORE your own game is finished), unless you're modifying it the way you said above.
If you make another SMB3 engine that is neither better nor different than the existing 236 ones, you're wasting your time though (unless you use it to train yourself. But it's not needed to make those open-source.)

mario fangine galaxy

Let's remove all template-like engines from this site! And ban everyone who even tries to submit them!

Well the engines we already have are not bad, actually.
We just need to discourage people from making more of the same kind.

Well, the Mario Platformer Engines are the Engines being overdone. There are hardly any Mario Kart Engines, Mario RPG Engines, C++ Engines(I see none), etc. I think that if you want to make engines, only let people you trust to change Parts have the source. That should reduce the clones by a bit.

Honestly, I could not agree with you guys less. I think this is a clear case of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

We are all using these game making programs (GM/MMF/TGF) because they make the act of creating games easier. If using someone's engine speeds that process and makes it easier to reach that goal - then I say go for it.

Everyone here started out as a noob. No exceptions. You learned by doing two things:
1. Experimenting on your own (trial and error)
2. Looking at (and in some cases borrowing) other people's code

While experimentation is good, there is nothing wrong with trying out the code written by someone else. I doubt anyone here would be making the games they are today if all you were handed was the game creation software. Without looking under the covers of a few engines (well-written or otherwise), your learning process through trial and error would produce products of lower quality.

If your argument is that most of the games on this site are created with only a few different engines then I say "so what?" There are a lot of people that will play different games using the same engine. Heck, look at the MOD community (and I don't mean the wider MOD community - I mean the community which specifically writes ROM MODs for Mario games).

If you don't like playing games with the same engine then simply require the game creator to specify where the engine came from. It's that simple. Then, you can ignore games written with older or non-custom engines.

As for suggesting that people who make engines should not make them open-source... well, I think that is a horrible idea. The more engines the better, I say. I've looked at a ton of engines and written several myself. Just about ALL of them function a little different. And that's a good thing! Do you have an engine you want to share? Heck, I'd be happy to look at it. You can always learn something new.

Also, "How To Tutorials" are not a replacement for engines. A "How To Tutorial" shows you how to do one specific thing (by design). Which is great. But, the problem is that some "How To Tutorials" do not work well together. They just don't integrate with any sort of finess and require a lot of fiddling. That's where the engine comes in. It integrates a number of features and shows how they work as a single unit. For the noob, why not start with someone elses engine. Not everyone is looking to spend months ramping up before they have the skill required to write their own custom engine.

Have we reached the zenith of perfection with the engines we have on MFGG? Is that why you'd ask people to not submit their engines with a big "we DO NOT NEED YOURS." Give me a break. If someone does something better than me then I would be very appreciative if they'd make it OPEN SOURCE and post it. That's what community is about. It's not about holding secrets. It's about sharing. We all benefit from open source and to recommend that engines be left to their creator is simply to not see the true worth of a site like MFGG.

Okay. I've said my piece. Flame on.

Nice 5 month bump!

Dear JessBowsers,

you should really not bump old topics such as this one.
As for engines: You seem to miss the point of the problem.

Open source is not bad. However a full game released in editable form does not encourage people to learn from it. It encourages people to simply take the finished work of someone else and submit it as their own game.

We still appreciate engines/tutorials if they have only very basic stuff in them.
But we do not want a complete "make a game over night" tool kit, because quality will suffer from it.


I guess however, since you made such a lenghty post I can aswell keep this topic open because discussion seems to be on again.

Guinea,

I'm not typically in the habit of bumping old topics. And, I'm certainly not out to troll. However, when I read the thread and felt just about complete disagreement with every post in the thread - I thought it okay to offer an alternate position on the topic.

I don't think I missed the point of the thread at all. As a matter of fact, everyone came through loud and clear.

When you say things like "...a full game released in editable form does not encourage people to learn from it." I have to say things like "I disagree". A game released in editable form shows not only how components are developed - but also how the components are put together to form a larger whole. I think it is essential to a budding independent developer to see both "how tos" and "complete games". Sure, you'll have a few folks who'll take the engine verbatim and use it to construct their own games. But, there will also be those game development enthusiasts who take that engine, learn from it, and build something better (or, at least different). Who are we to say that open source engines should not be freely available to those who seek them out.

When you say things like - "We still appreciate engines/tutorials if they have only very basic stuff in them. But we do not want a complete 'make a game over night' tool kit, because quality will suffer from it." it makes me wonder. Do you speak for yourself or for all of the admins on this site. I'm just curious.

As for me, I disagree again. I don't think releasing a toolkit of integrated features will ultimately degrade game quality. My opinion.

I'd like it if there were no engines, but rather, mini engines. One features a coin system, another contains basic enemy AI, and another has foundational platforming, etc. People would have to glean info from all of them and find their own way to use them effectivly with one another.

I don't think there is anything wrong with "mini engines" or "How Tos" or other tutorials. However, that doesn't mean that an integrated engine doesn't have value -- even for learning.

For example, let's take the topic of platform movement. There are a number of engines which demonstrate basic platform movement. Some have more features than others but they all show most of the basics (e.g. walking, jumping, etc.). Now, let's say that I decide to release a tutorial on climbing movement... or swimming movement... flying movement. While the person looking at the tutorial might glean some knowledge from my single movement tutorial, what they don't get is the "bigger picture." If they could see a single engine that combined the basic platform movement (walking, jumping) with the new movement (climbing, swimming), then they would understand how one movement must be effectively turned OFF while the other movement is turned ON. Disabling, deativating or otherwise changing movement logic is something that could only be shown in the combined engine. It's things like this which show the value of the open source engine... not just the open source tutorial.

Ok.

There are tutorials that are actually full games, such as the tutorials from Mark Overmars for Game Maker. What makes the difference between such a tutorial and a "real" game is, that the tutorial comes with very low quality graphics and content, so you are basically forced to do something with it.
Hello's engine for example comes will everything an extended SMB3 clone could possibly have and thus it is very unlikely that people modify the engine and do their own thing with it.
It would be better if he at least used some dummy graphics instead of the cool ones he has.

We have many programmers here who have made games from scratch and from scratch only, including myself. Tutorials should are enough to learn how to make games.

So far, we had one game that radically changed the engine it was based on, that game is Mushroom Kingdom Fusion and you can't tell it was made from Hello's engine anymore.
We had one or two others who modified the engine slightly, which is also ok.
However these are roughly 5 examples of how it should be done, while we have tons more who tried to submit the unmodified engine even with the same levels in them.

I'm speaking for all those who are of the same opinion as myself, which is quite a large number, if not a majority on these boards.

Again, I'll take the example of Hello's engine.
Hello rolls out a new game every month. Every one of these plays, feels and looks exactly the same. Hello's games are definitely above average, no question, however the fact that there are so many of them makes them feel soulless to me and to others.

We know from experience how saturated the main site can get from people using (for example) Hello's engine over and over again with the only differences evident in level design. Hello himself has released over 20 games using the same engine.

EDIT: Slow on the draw

This post has been edited by BurninLeo on May 1 2009, 02:09 PM

Guinea,

I understand the complaint your lodging against Hello's engine -- which is:
1. People people are not taking the time to modify it because it has:
A. A full feature set
B. Great graphics
2. All "unmodified" games using this engine feel the same -- and, thus, soulless

That's fine. And, to be honest, I see your point. But, I would also argue, the value that Hello has provided the MFGG community by developing this engine is huge. I'm sure just about all of the GM users on this site have downloaded that engine and looked at it (even the ones developing their own custom engines). Why? Because you can always learn from someone else. Even when an engine is of shoddy construction (which I'm not suggesting about Hello), it's always interesting to see how someone thought an action or movement or object should be programmed. The value that Hello has provided is showing people how this huge collection of features can be integrated into a single engine. He demonstrates more than just the singular features... he teaches people (at least one way) of how a GM game can be constructed.

Now, let's say someone else comes up with a full featured engine (like Hello). What would be interesting would be these engines differ ... and yet still accomplish the same goal of making a game. I would consider this just a "bigger" tutorial than the ones most of us are used to.

You say that so far you have "had one game that radically changed the engine it was based on...". That sounds to me like most people are just casual game creators and have no problem using someone else's engine. You may be in the majority of people of "the boards" that think open source engines are a no-no ... but you may not be in the majority of people posting games to MFGG that think open source engines are useful. Most of these people just want a "sandbox" in which to play - they don't want to have to build the playground. Why deny them that sandbox?

There's nothing inherently wrong with creating and releasing an engine. What's wrong is that engine-making and appropriating is starting to take priority over fangaming (making full games). A lot of threads in this forum are engine tests and beta's, which is OK, but we never hear about the game they intended to create afterwards. Members concern themselves too much with getting something out early when they should be focusing on the long haul.

We do not deny sandboxes.
Sandboxes already exist, so there you go.

That, and what Leo said above me.

Some sandboxes do exist. But, what I'm saying is: "don't dissuade people from posting new sandboxes."

You ignored Leo's post, which has a valid point.

Not really. I read Leo's post, and I have taken into account what he's saying. My post was simply a response to you, Guinea.

I'm still not sure you understand why I take issue with this: "DO NOT MAKE ENGINES ANYMORE! SERIOUSLY. Create your engines, but make a GAME with them and do NOT make them open-source."