The SCND Genesis :: Legacy announcement
Fri 30th March 2012
Hello everyone, I'm pleased to announce that the The SCND Genesis: Legacy is under active development. It is the direct sequel to Legends. Just like its predecessor, it is being written in Java however it shall be accelerated via OpenGL (JOGL).
Past...
Legends aka Jenesis Engine 1.0 (JE1.0), happened almost by entirely by accident. The moment I could draw static 2D images on a JPanel, I thought “Hey, I could actually make a game. It would probably suck, but I could do it”. Just like that, Legends was born. I never took it seriously for the first 4 months, it was a hobby, done for bragging rights rather than anything else.
Humble Beginnings
As time went on each revision got more and more refined. At first it was a clicky masher (the PC equivalent of console Button Mashers) with shameless AI, and no depth. Then it became just a hollow click fest with decent AI and a fury bar to punish mindless spammers.
Later on I added LAN play and a story campaign to boot, as well as achievements. I'm an avid gamer, and I wanted my game to have most of the features of modern commercial games. Gradually, more AI, variety and depth was added to the JE1.0.
Present...
After 2 years of on and off (mostly off) development I can safely say that I'm largely done with the Legends. Truth be told, it blew my initial expectations out of the water. I wasn't expecting much, just for it to circulate among my friends and I on campus. But with over 6000 downloads around the globe, with less than $0 spent on advertising. I'm more than satisfied.
They grow up so fast
Would I have done anything different? Oh yeah. For starters, my initial code base wouldn't have been so crappy, I had just started to learn programming when I began development, all fields and methods were static, it wasn't a pretty sight. Because of this, AI and game-play isn't as good as it could have been If I knew then what I know now. Java2D is great, but I would be lying if I said it didn't hinder my “creative vision”. I should have spent more time in alpha and should have gotten more input/feedback on game-play earlier on But hey! The purpose of making mistakes is to learn right? And did I learn a lot.
Future...
So yeah, Legends is not a priority now, I'll still fix any lingering bugs and add a few new bells and whistles here and there, but thats it. The game is open source BTW, so if you want to mess around, study or borrow the code be my guest.
Legacy, is built on top of the Jenesis Engine 2.0 (JE 2.0), which in turn is built on top of Java and OpenGL via JOGL bindings. This already has several huge benefits.
- Hardware acceleration on all platforms.
- Fullscreen/dynamic resolution support.
- Multiple aspect ratio support.
- Access to GLSL Shader's for awesome effects.
- A third dimension of pure awesomeness.
JE2.0 is a HUGE leap over JE1.0. While still in the early stages of development Legacy is already significantly more impressive than its predecessor, not just in graphics and performance but in game-play as well.
The Next Generation
Obviously, I cant reveal all the details just yet, but expect real time class switching similar to Final Fantasy XIII's paradigm shift. Expect devilish AI and great stages to boot. Multi player offerings will be significantly improved as well. If you liked Legends you'll simply love Legacy, its a generational leap really.
One last thing, I haven't decided weather I'll open source JE2.0 or not. I probably will after some time, however, I do plan on selling this game when its ready sometime in 2013. It'll be worth every penny, I guarantee.
I'll keep you guys posted, take care.
I'm a bit confused concerning the names. What I got was:
* Engine: Jenesis Engine
* First/NonOpenGL game: Legends
* Second/OpenGL game: Legacy
Is that right? If so, you might want to update the game's title (since "The SCND Genesis Legends" might confuse some people).
That being said, I am pretty interested in the development. One could say I'm several steps behind you; I'm also planning on making a game with Java, first with Swing, then using OpenGL. Thank you so much for open-sourcing your first game, I'm sure studying your code will help me get better myself.
Could you upload the source code also here on indiedb? I downloaded v1.8 of your game from the Downloads section, but all I saw was .class files, no .java files :(.
Hi, the games source code is available here, Sourceforge.com . All the classpath dependancies are in the lib folder of the file you already downloaded. Regarding the names, you got them right. I used Jenesis Engine as the games codename during development, perhaps I should shorten it to SG: Legends, SG: Legacy etc. Take care.