I didn’t have much time to write anything in the last months because I was busy finishing my studies, starting my own company with 2 friends and acquiring funding in form of a founder’s stipend. Yesterday I could cross off a bunch of points from my todo list and now have time again for hobbies. Hobbies such as game programming.

Recently I rediscovered 3D Gamestudio. Back in the days I was playing around with Gamestudio and the A6 engine and had a lot of fun with its very easy to use level editor. Back then I couldn’t even program properly, and still managed to get stuff done. The newest version of the engine (A8) even supports shaders and meanwhile I learned programming. So I’m considering giving it a try again. What I liked most was the Constructive Solid Geometry editor, which made it super easy to create the levels and 3D models.

Before that the first game engine I used was Genesis 3D. It also had a very easy to use level editor that allowed you to create simple games and interactions effortessly. Unfortunately programming had to be done in C++ and at the age of 14 I was not yet ready for that. This was essentially what brought me to website programming, whih was much easier to start out with.

The biggest disappointment in game engines I have ever experienced was the Torque X engine by GarageGames. It was supposed to be an XNA-based engine with level editor. The engine was only half finished, the tools buggy as hell and the documentation crap. Advertising and selling this to customers bordered on flat out fraud, imho. While GarageGames’ new Torque 3D looked promising feature-wise I couldn’t convince myself to trust them enough any more to give it a try.

My current favourite in game engines is everybody’s darling Unity 3D. However, yesterday I downloaded Leadwerks 3 to give it a try and it looks very promising too for a better price.