Game Engines?

[gammaraptor]

I was thinking of adapting some of my code from my old text-based RPG into a game with graphics. Any good game engines you would suggest for Java or C++?

[Tsalop]

Well SDL is a good library for C++, it allows you to use sounds, graphics, text, etc, easily.
There is great tutorials for it here.

[gammaraptor]

Wonderful. Thanks for the tutorial, there's always a ton of nice engines, but their docs always suck -.- =D

[Azure Lazuline]

If you don't care about compatibility (and don't mind learning another slight variation of C), XNA is very easy to make games with, and there's tons of tutorials for it. It's a basic engine for C#, providing a game loop, graphics functions, and lots of other methods that are useful for game creation. The only problem is that you'll be limited to Windows and X360 development, and most games in it don't work on any other system even with Wine and such.

[MrBigz]

I'll be biased and recommend SDL as well since that's what I'm using for 2D dev at the moment too.   :]

[DX7.EP]

SDL is nice for most things as far as PC-based development is concerned, minus lack of DirectX renderer (pfft, you can use other graphics APIs for that and use SDL for the rest). Some nice engines can be made with it (see the Cube 2: Sauerbraten engine, which is SDL-based).
It also has many versions for various languages (eg. SDL.NET for C#, PyGame, JSDL for Java).

I highly advise against XNA unless you're compiling X360 binaries for your cross-platform program. At the same time I am not so keen on using Objective-C since it doesn't go too far outside the Apple world.

[gammaraptor]

SDL is nice for most things as far as PC-based development is concerned, minus lack of DirectX renderer (pfft, you can use other graphics APIs for that and use SDL for the rest). Some nice engines can be made with it (see the Cube 2: Sauerbraten engine, which is SDL-based).
It also has many versions for various languages (eg. SDL.NET for C#, PyGame, JSDL for Java).

I highly advise against XNA unless you're compiling X360 binaries for your cross-platform program. At the same time I am not so keen on using Objective-C since it doesn't go too far outside the Apple world.

Agreed.

[bennelsey]

I'd suggest SFML as i know some people that have been using it (though i haven't seen any of their results yet)
the site is down atm tho, prolly maintenance since it was up last week http://www.sfml-dev.org/
can still be downloaded at sourceforge tho http://sourceforge.net/projects/sfml/
It's usually described as a newer SDL specifically for C++ and is object oriented - at minimum it can be used just for graphics, but it is essentially a complete engine

I don't use any particular game engine tho, just DirectX for the graphics side
- you don't really need an engine to start making games, but you'll end up making one if you don't use one lol

[gammaraptor]

I'd suggest SFML as i know some people that have been using it (though i haven't seen any of their results yet)
the site is down atm tho, prolly maintenance since it was up last week http://www.sfml-dev.org/
can still be downloaded at sourceforge tho http://sourceforge.net/projects/sfml/
It's usually described as a newer SDL specifically for C++ and is object oriented - at minimum it can be used just for graphics, but it is essentially a complete engine

I don't use any particular game engine tho, just DirectX for the graphics side
- you don't really need an engine to start making games, but you'll end up making one if you don't use one lol

Sounds cool... I'll check out and compare them, then get back to you guys.

[gammaraptor]

I checked, it's a lot faster. 2-10 times faster, and more oo. Sounds good... time to start adapting my java code to c++

[Agent of the BSoD]

Little late to the party, but I thought I'd throw this out anyways.

Dark GDK is a tool we talked about at the end of second semester computer class at my college, where we started to learn C++. (it does work with VS2010, even though the home page doesn't say because derp) Pretty cool engine if you ask me.

Getting it set up is a little bit tricky though. (not painful, luckily) Our professor gave us a text file to guide us in the installation. (the updates it mentions might be out of date now though :\) I've put it in as an attachment if you're interested.