The Drag[en]gine is an free software project with a highly modular structure based on the GLEM System. Its design is similar to an operating system. The entire functionality is provided by Modules comparable to device drivers. The engine itself acts like a system kernel managing modules, resources and abstracting the underlying system. Due to the loose coupling of the modules with the system and other modules it is very easy to exchange or improve them without interfering with the rest of the engine. As a result the modularity extends from the developer to the end user who can now choose the optimal module combination for his personal computer even down to per game setups ( and even while running a game ) if required. Developers do not have to worry anymore about low level concerns keeping them concentrated on their game. In contrary to other engines (including high-end commercial ones) the Drag[en]gine provides true 0-Day portability of games with no extra costs and no troubles neither for the developer nor the end user.
Advantages of the Drag[en]gine
... for the Game Designer:
- Use your Scripting Language of choice.
- Hardware is fully abstracted. You only have to know how your chosen Scripting Language works
- Updating the engine and modules is handled by the respective teams. You only have to worry about updating your game
- No need to write specific content for specific systems. The users choice of modules takes care of this for you
... for the Module Coder:
- Play around with individual parts of the engine without disturbing any other part. Test easy and fast new algorithms or features
- Various debugging features help to debug fast and easy modules even during run-time
- Loose coupling and high encapsulation yields in a more stable game engine
- Platform specific code is only handled in modules increasing portability
... for the Customer:
- Choose the optimal combination of modules for your system. The Drag[en]gine adapts to match your system not the other way 'round!
- Open standards and free file formats ensure unrestricted and easy modding using free software applications
- Various Launchers allow you to use the Drag[en]gine for more than just gaming
- The Crash Recovery System prevents a game from crashing to desktop. While CRS is running change parameters or entire modules and continue your game from where it went out for lunch.
For more information check out the Drag[en]gine Wiki.
Features
Due to the modular nature a fixed list of engine features as other engines provide is not possible since it all depends on the customer's choices. To avoid cluttering the summary find the features list in this article:
Related Articles
Dynamic Conversations
The Dynamic Conversation system is an important part of the game mechanics so lots of time has been spend on it. One new feature is the Dynamic Directing system. This system allows conversations to be created with dynamic camera shots. In contrary to pure code based solutions this system here uses the Drag[en]gine Conversation System with a little help of in-game scripts (for collision testing). This gives the conversation artists full control over the dynamic camera shots. He defines the potential camera shots and uses the conversation system to decide what shots to use. This way all kinds of decision logic can be used. Doing the same conversation twice would not result in the same shots chosen. If required manual camera shots can still be used to get the best of both worlds.
Another change is the Topic Handling. The Dynamic Investigation System produced a complex Topic Selection which did not fit any more into the desired look and feel. The goal on the Dynamic Investigation is to force players to figure out what they need to know from NPCs to better simulate Detective Work. The many possible choices turned into a forest of UI buttons and lists and that's hardly player friendly. The solution has been a Keyword System. All entities in the game world the player can talk about have now simple keywords assigned. To talk about something the player enters it's name. For example if the player wants to talk about a person named "Harry" he enter "harry". And if he wants to ask instead where he can find this Harry he can enter "Where is Harry" or something similar. This game is not a connect-dots-on-cork-board detective game. It's about investigating. If you see, read or hear something try using it as keyword and who knows where this might lead you.
The video below shows the reworked system in action.
Security Park
Besides the conversation system a lot of work went into the Security Park map. This place is where the ISG organization is found the player is affiliated with while be plays the game. Important characters are located here. The map composes of manually and generated elements. Most of the buildings are generated. To handle all this various stuff has been worked on:
- Improved generating content to be faster and with better support for nested generation (plot -> building -> floor -> room)
- The Online/Offline AI Simulation has been improved to handle generated locations, operating on an agenda, travel between areas and adding more location specific AI
- Generating location names for example road signs, direction signs or place names
The video below shows some impressions of the Security Park map at day and night and some new AI agenda routines to make the world more alive.
Coming Next
This time I will not disclose anything. Just be patient.
And don't forget to vote.
From Zero To DELGA
News 1 commentHow quickly you get started with the Drag[en]gine Game Engine and the IGDE.
Investigate the Main Menu
Epsylon 3 commentsImproved XML Gui-Theming and new Interactive Main Menu with a bit of detective theme.
Colorful Lights And Skies
Epsylon 3 commentsSometimes you need to put some fancy colors into Lights and Skies. The Drag[en]gine makes this easy and fun.
DELGA and the Game-Def Editor
Epsylon 1 commentEven Dragons wrap up Gifts from time to time. And this one has some special content.
Games
Epsylon
AdventureEpsylon - The Guardians of Xendron takes the player on a journey to a futuristic world investigating a very special Science-Fiction setup. With a team...
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Hello. Can someone point me, where can I download Drag[en]gine? I can not find it on theyr website, can't find on their Wiki, nor could I find it here. No prebuilt engine, no modules, no sources, nothing. How can I try it?
It's not available to the public yet. There are a few things I need to clean up and finalize first before I open up the repository. I prefer a solid first release than endless patchwork.
wow, this engine looks really promising. Sadly I use a mac and can't run it, Is there any plans for a mac version? It wouldn't be to hard to port it if it runs on Linux.
The engine is POSIX based. Only thing that has to be ported is the launcher as the rest would work out of the box. Only problem: I've no access to a mac. If anybody donates a mac strong enough to run advanced graphics it could be done. Otherwise I'm afraid not for the near future.
Darn, the problem is that macs are fairly pricy, It would be hard to find a person willing to donate a up to date mac.
Also just wondering, what is the launcher written in?
They are written in C++. This is though not mandatory. Every language able to link to a C++ library can be used to write a launcher.
Looking for some updates, I have hi hopes for this engine. Anyway to keep the mouse pointer a normal pointer tho?, that looks like it will stunt my productivity.
The updates are there (huge ones) but it's all too connected to split apart. I'll inform in due time. Concerning the mouse pointer it is just my developer system. Neither the game engine nor the design tools force any mouse pointer on you. That would be really stupid :D
Really love the video and how the dragon was modeled
Hi, could this be used for example, to make a game that's a combination between Civ and Total War?
In general you can use it for any kind of game. The engine is build on prodiving a generic approach with common game building elements without limiting you on a certain game type.