Leadwerks – A Great Indie Engine
Last year I decided I’d bite the bullet and learn C++ with the end-goal of being able to finally design and build my own applications and games. So I went and got the fantastic C++ video tutorial library from 3D Buzz, which I strongly recommend any new C++ video game developer go through – They take you right form start to finish. All the way from an ASCII rogue-like game to a sprite-based game. Furthermore, its all designed in pretty OO.
As I began the 6th and last series of the 3D Buzz tutorials – Creating a 3D OpenGL engine – I decided I’d like to focus less on the core mathematics of displaying pixels and more on the creation and design of actual games. I’m not a very good mathematician after-all, and getting into that kind of stuff requires low-level efficient code. Code I really don’t have the skill to write just yet.
So I started looking around for graphics engine libraries that’ll allow me to focus on the game itself. There are a startlingly huge number of graphics engines out there, both free and not, and while I went through quite a damn few I want to talk about just one.
Leadwerks
I’ve been using the Leadwerks engine for about 6 months now and I’m loving it. Why?
- The Engine – Built from the ground up to be a user-friendly and complete package. Modelled after the Crytek Crysis engine, it has all the features one could possibly need for both a wide-open game (Like Crysis) or an in-doors game, complete with a real-time sandbox editor. I think what I love most is that it is a very OO-centric engine. The code is just so clean and easy to understand – The huge plus for someone starting out like me.
- Documentation - The documentation is all built up on a very-well organised and clean wiki, which you can freely browse for yourself. Josh, the creator, has made video tutorials for almost all aspects of the engine. This means you can pretty much just jump in, follow the tutorials, and you WILL have a running game in under a day.
- Community - The Leadwerks forums, also freely available, is a small but very helpful community. Josh, the creator, is often on there as well. You’ll find that any questions will be answered in under a day.
- Cost - One of the more problematic issues about Leadwerks. The cost is $100US upfront. Meaning you need to dish out early to really start. On the other hand, once you pay the initial fee you’re done. You get the engine for life, including any updates, and you can do whatever you want with your application. Which makes this engine one of the cheapest going around.
All in all, Leadwerks seems to be the perfect engine for someone who has a basic understanding of OO C++ and would like to dive into game development. Although the initial $100US fee can be a bit daunting for some, I highly recommend it.