For those who don't know me, I'm a huge fan of open-source software. I use Linux as my main OS and have been using OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office for years now. So I wanted to create a game that could be played on the Linux OS as well as others. That narrowed down the game engines pretty significantly. I also wanted the game engine to be fairly easy to use with little no cost to get started. After all, this is something I do on the side.
I came up with a short list of 3 game engines I am considering. I've evaluated each of them, but not very thoroughly. The table below shows my results.
| Game Editor | Torque 2D | XNA Studio | |
| Language | Unclear | Unclear | C# |
| Platform | PC, Linux, Mac, handheld devices | PC, Mac, iPod, Xbox 360, Wii | PC, XBox 360, Windows Phone 7 |
| Cost | Free & Open Source | 30-day Trial, $99 | 1-year trial (as a student), $99/year after trial |
| Ease of Use | Somewhat easy | Fairly easy | Pretty difficult |
| Misc. | free, Linux compatible, small community | medium community, probably easiest to use | LARGE community, costly (if not a student), greater exposure, possibility of profit |
Game Editor
Game Editor is a project written in C and runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. It's interface is almost entirely point & click, which allows beginners to create their games without the need of programming the entire thing. According to the Game Editor website, it has a built-in C editor for scripting various events which allows for more experienced developers to create and modify their own events.
For my purposes, Game Editor is great. It runs on all the platforms I'm interested in. It scales as I learn to develop until its system. And its free!
Torque 2D
Torque 2D is an engine made by GarageGames that runs on Windows that is a "suite of WYSIWYG tools for designing and edit a game." The interface is much more developed than Game Editor with tool sidebars and an included albeit limited gallery of stock artwork to work with. If you want to be able to script some of your events, the coding is done in a C++ like language they call TorqueScript. Torque 2D has several add-on kits that give you a starting point for certain genres of games. Each of these "Genre Packs" has additional cost associated to them as does deploying to the console/handheld platforms.
To me, Torque 2D sounds great! The cost is a little prohibitive right now as I'm trying to develop on the side with no monetary investment. Torque 2D really shines due to all the little things. It has so many little things included that you can really focus on creating the game instead of dealing with learning a new interface or new programming language in order to use the engine you're wanting to work with. For those of you who want a 3D environment to work in, GarageGames has a 3D version of Torque as well.
XNA Studio
XNA Studio is a Microsoft creation that targets their platforms. The Studio is an IDE/engine combined. It runs on top of Visual Studio C# 2008+, which allows developers to use a familiar environment to create their games. The problem with this is that XNA has no point & click interface to it at all. To create your games, it's all coding. Thankfully, there is a large community called the AppHub, readily available to assist you if you should need it. There are starter kits that act a launching point for certain genres that developers have shared with the community. They make for great tutorials as well as a solid foundation in which to start creating your game.
XNA is simply too overwhelming for me to use. For my first game, I need to start with something easier to use. I know C# fairly well and feel like I could "pull it off," but with everything else going on, I'm not sure it would ever get finished. The biggest plus to using XNA is the exposure. It seem-lessly deploys to Xbox Live Arcade, which makes targeting that platform painless. If you're a high school or college student, you can get access to the Creator Club (which lets you deploy your games), for free for 1 year. After that, it's $99 a year. If I do really well with my first game, I could see being able to drop that kind of money on the side to use the XNA Studio. Unfortunately, I'm a poor college student with a wife and young child. This makes dropping money left and right nearly impossible.
Conclusion
Remember the final choice is up to you. Start with an environment that you feel you'll be most productive and won't get frustrated while trying to develop something. If you're a beginner like me, you'll most likely want to start with something that is point & click until you feel ready for the big jump to all coding. I'm going to stick with Game Editor until I feel more comfortable with the coding portion and then maybe switch to XNA.
*DISCLAIMER: There are many game engines out there. Some are free, some have cost associated to them. These three are the ones that appealed to me for one reason or another.
