My first iPhone game has resulted in an engine that I can use for other iPhone games. It’s pretty light-weight and 2D at the moment but a good starting point. I am also porting it to SDL so that it can run on PC and OSX (and Linux at a push - but I don’t have a Linux install so I can’t work on that personally) and it occurred to me that this small engine might be of use to other developers. As I say, at the moment it is pretty light-weight and to be honest just contains enough to do the game I have just submitted to Apple but as I begin to make more games the engine will be expanded to include new features. I personally think that the iPhone is more suited to 2D games rather than full 3D due to the nature of how and when games will be played on it (i.e. at the end of it all its a phone) but there is no reason why 3D will not make its way into it. In fact the next game will probably work within a 3D world but still remain 2D in essence (if that makes sense :|).
The question then rises, if I make this engine available do I make it free, donation supported or out-right charge for it? What are your views on this? Would an iPhone game engine be useful to you? If so what kind of licensing model would you prefer?
#1 by Paul Taylor at September 4th, 2008
I’d say that you should make the first versions of it free and perhaps start charging for it as you increase the feature set. In fact, once you have improved it to the point that you are ready to start charging, make the last free version of it available as the trial version, highlighting the additional features you get by buying the commercial version.
#2 by Paul Taylor at September 4th, 2008
Oh, to answer your question about whether it would be useful to me, I found your blog post by searching for “iPhone game programming”. I’m in the process of looking for some real examples of how to make iPhone games, specifically for game engines, etc. Anything to give me a head start, as I’ve never written aN Open GL game before and there is a steep learning curve.
#3 by sio2interactive at December 4th, 2008
There’s another alternative for 3D Game Development for iPhone and iPod Touch, SIO2, a Free and Open Source 3D Engine for iPhone and iPod Touch, for more information visit:
http://sio2interactive.com
#4 by No one at December 7th, 2008
Dude, I gotta get this engine! it sounds sweet; plus, like Paul said, versions 1.x should be free, 2.x should be small fee with version 1.x as free trial. 3.x is more expensive with 1.x or 2.x as trial etc.
If you would be kind enough to get me the engine, email me 45yoyos@gmail.com
#5 by michael at January 8th, 2009
donation based would be my choice
release it!
#6 by GregM at January 18th, 2009
Thought it would be nice to get paid, I suspect that the competition will be so tough in this arena, with so many game frameworks out there, that developers won’t be willing to pay anything. (For a high-performance 3-D framework they might be willing to pay; I suspect for a basic 2-D framework, they won’t.)
You’re better off not charging anything, getting as many people to use it as possible, and open sourcing it to let others add value. (I’m not one of those freetards that thinks everything should be open-sourced, but in this case I believe it makes a lot of sense.) There’s a possibility you could make money by writing books about the framework and teaching classes, but I suspect that’s it.
Moral: if money is what you want, make an application, not a framework.
#7 by Jespar at February 19th, 2009
What’s the status on the engine ?
Cheers,
Jespar
#8 by sio2interactive at February 21st, 2009
Hey guys you should checkout the latest development on the SIO2 game engine, there’s also more than a dozen commercial games that have been developed on it for more info checkout:
http://sio2interactive.com/GAMES.html
Here’s the latest feature list of the engine:
Architecture
* Optimized File Format
* Unique Package Approach
* OpenGL ES v1.1 Compatible
* Written in pure C
Tool Chain
* Built around Blender (WYSIWYG)
* Exporter & Optimizer
* Auto Texture Bake Script
* Animation Exporter
Real Time Physic
* Rigid Body
* Collision Detection
* Soft Body
* Particle System
* Fog
Texturing
* Multi-Texturing
* Texture Filtering
* Anisotropic Filtering
* Transparent
* Semi-Transparent
Multimedia & Special Effects
* Ambient & FX Sound
* Real 3D Stereo & Surround
* Realtime MP3 Playback
* Realtime MPEG 4 Playback
Scene Management
* Fast Sorting & Culling System
* Event & Trigger System
* Scripting Support (Level & UI)
* Network Support (TCP/IP)
* Touch Screen & Accelerometer
Lighting & Shadow
* Per-Vertex
* Light Mapping
* Projected Shadow
* Projected Geometry
Animation
* Full IPO Support
* Hybrid Skeletal Animation
* Keyframe Animation
System Requirements
* Mac OS X v10.5.6
* iPhone SDK v2.2.1
You can use SIO2 for free or commercial product, please read the SIO2 license agreement ( /SIO2_SDK/src/license/sio2.txt ). Basically the only thing that we are asking is that you mention SIO2 and/or our website somewhere in your project if its made available to the public in order to keep the SIO2 project alive.
For more information on SIO2 please check our website for more information: http://sio2interactive.com/TECHNOLOGY.html