How to make your own game engine
At first I was going to just copy/paste his article and call it my own then I realized that is kind of a dick move.
How to make your own game engine (and why) by Tyler Glaiel
Well worth a read.
In my 35+ year career in games I've never used an off the shelf game engine. Starting with SCUMM I've always build my own. I love the power and the freedom. It's hard work and probably cost me more but I love making game engines and writing compilers. It's a skill you slowly acquire and after the 5th one it's not a daunting task anymore.
I ran into a programmer at an indie meet-up and she told me this story about how another programmer at her company brought up building their own game engine. Someone responded with "What! Are you Ron Gilbert!"
I wear that as a badge of honor. 😀
My engine is really just an agglomeration of all the DirectX tutorials written by MS engineer Chuck Walbourn, but I've added extra effects to support shadows, reflections, and depth of field, and there's also support for skeletal animation, collision detection, particles, and 3D object picking.
These capabilities were achieved after months of research, failure, screaming, swearing and hair pulling... but as each objective was finally implemented, nothing could beat that feeling of accomplishment.
The reason I'd gone the C++ only route was because many years ago, I began learning Borland Turbo C on a Compaq 386, and the thrill of compiling and linking my own code into a DOS EXE file has never left me.
I'm comfortably at the stage where I can start work on a game, but the crazy thing of it is, I've never played a 3D game! (Except Wolfenstein 3D, but I think we consider games using the old raycasting engines as more pseudo-3D these days.)
I'm strongly opposed to FPS kill games and have neither the time nor desire to play other open-world genres like RPG, flight or driving sims. My first love was always the text parser and point-click adventure game, and I have this crazy dream to make just such a game in 3D.
I'd be interested in Ron's opinion as to whether the modern 3D environment could ever work for a game like Thimbleweed Park or any classic LucasArts/Sierra game... or is low-res 2D the best native format for the non-RPG adventure, based on there never having been a compelling example that has managed to successfully cross the 2D-3D divide?

I liked that the TWP engine wasn't this demanding. Special subset of functionality vs. broader optimisations.
I would love to see more 3D adventures, also in VR. There exist nice ones, both in VR and normal 3D, as well as high-res 2D ones. In my opinion you need to utalise whatever you go for properly. VR is insanely immersive. 3D gives you tons of options. High-Res 2D can look so fresh. Low-Res has the oldskool vibe but a nice puzzle, a funny dialogue works in all of them.
Any chance you could do an AMA of your experiences of the current state of adventure gaming and what cool new emerging stuff you see happening that could be influenced by new technology (cloud, mobile, auto generated worlds, etc...)? This blog has been amazing as being a tech nerd myself, it's fascinating to read how you and your teams overcame limitations that existed with tech back in the 80s / 90s.
Cheers, Dan.
Of course a true adventure game can be made in 3D. It's just a matter of striking that perfect balance between 2D/3D. Speaking of which, Mark Ferrari gave 3D a go many years ago and didn't like it very much. If I recall, he said he felt that he lost his artistic freedom as the 3D process back then was less about art and more about crunching numbers to get the 3D to render.
If you somehow do get the funding for it, getting Mark onboard won't be easy. And let's be fair, adventure games without Mark Ferrari is like Laurel without Hardy. You might think it'll work, but trust me it won't.
And what about a true adventure game in VR Ron?
That's what will separate a 'classic' adventure game in 3D from 'action' adventure
games like Fortnite and GTA V... our hero will be able to explore to his/her heart's content without feeling the urge to stock up on weapons and embark on a murderous criminal rampage!
Ken Williams' new game is being designed primarily for VR, and even the Two Guys from Andromeda have a 3D game in development that is naturally very Space Quest-inspired... unfortunately it's been delayed by a few years and its completion is uncertain as it has overshot its Kickstarter budget.
I recall Mark Ferrari's comments about 3D as well and what he said was true... it's much more about 'triangles' than pixels. I'm sure Mark's skills as a pixel artist would be useful when working as a texture artist for 3D assets, but it's true that he'll get no control over lighting for example, as that is calculated in the pixel shader and combined with the texture for the final result.
So, the creator of pirate games lacks some money. Somehow this sounds funny to me. :)
On 3D: I really liked the way the Nintendo 3DS handles 3D. I'd like to have seen an adventure game utilise that tech. Graphic Adventure Game scenes would make amazing pop-up books, and the 3DS approximates that in a neat package.
Learning how I wanted to deal with the game loop, sprite rendering, ui, asset management, level editing, memory allocation and all that good stuff really tought me a lot about figuring stuff out, I think. I never thought I would have opinions on how to build those things...


Having played Zak McKracken and Lamplight City recently I wonder whether a more open world containing missions which share assets would not be a more interesting experiment than just trying the same in 3d. A detective could get several different cases, markers where to go, but also enter all other locations. Cases could spawn items for later cases or give hints about the game world which would make solving later cases easier - so they would not be entirely random choices but based on a network of dependencies. However, when being on the third playthrough, one would be aquainted with the locations and the basic grammar/gamification of the world enough to intuitively navigate in the game. It also would open up the opportunity for DLC.
When I get the itch to make a new game I just want to jump right into making the thing and not worry about all the things brought up in this article.
Besides...I'm an artist and designer who happens to be able to code enough C# (ie Google till find a solution) for some gameplay. Definitely not a software engineer!

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