Simmetri
As the lead creative designer at the Public VR Lab, I’m in a constant search for the next VR creation tool. Playing with Simmetri for the first time was a dream come true. The endless possibilities Simmetri offercs, handed to me in such a simple, accessible way, astonished me and sparked my imagination.
The ease of handling complicated concepts and ideas is unparalleled in the field.
The tutorials were clear and strightforward and enabled me to dive into the app with a smile, having understood the functions and concepts of the app.
– Real player with 305.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Game Development Animation & Modeling Games.
I’m a professor in the creative writing program of a large public university. I’ve long been on the hunt for a tool that would allow me and my students–almost none of us STEM types or coders–to make narrative art in VR (and in 2D). Simmetri is that tool. It neatly and intuitively bridges the gap between the desire of a non-technical person to tell a story in VR and the fulfillment of that desire.
I’ve tried Unity and Unreal Engine, as well as a host of other “game-making” tools (my Steam library is full of them), and all of them buffaloed me almost as soon as I got started. I’m fifteen or so hours in to my use of Simmetri, and already I’ve produced at least one “VR story” that I’m pleased with and that I can show off to my colleagues and students as a proof-of-concept, to help sell them on the idea of VR as a serious narrative medium. Now that I’ve got my legs under me, I see no end to the creations that Simmetri will make possible.
– Real player with 275.2 hrs in game
AppGameKit Classic: Easy Game Development
A little background:
I’m a professional developer schooled in C### and Java. I am however not schooled to create games, but I know how the mechanics work. 3D game development is more of a hobby/side-project. Please read my review as such, if you’re completely new to programming, my feeling about this product can greatly differ from your perspective. Most of my pros and cons are subjective. But true in my opinion. Also: I use this product only for 3D development, I have no interest in the 2D side.
– Real player with 1305.3 hrs in game
I’ve changed my review. I thought about deleting it and posting a whole new review, but then I decided to keep it so TGC’s intentions to make AGK functional on Linux would be documented in the comments. If you would like to see the old review, so you’ll have some context if you read the comments, click here .
Okay, I’ve got better things to do with my time now that AGK on Linux has notably improved, and 2 lengthy reviews is 2 too many, so let’s get down to brass tacks.
– Real player with 1279.9 hrs in game
Axis Game Factory’s AGFPRO v3
Game factory does not make games. It is a level / world design tool. A really good level / world design tool for Unity based games. You see everything in real time. You can play test your levels, run around and stuff, but its not a stand alone game game engine, just a level / world design tool. However, calling yourself Game Factory was slightly misleading, but whatever. On the forum, the developers hint at wanting to one day make it a stand alone game engine, but I’m not sure if its a hint or misleading. Since they call it Game Factory, I have to lean toward the potential of misleading here.
– Real player with 238.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Game Development Utilities Games.
(tl;dr: Summary at bottom. Also pay attention to review dates….especially the positive ones….)
Update Jan 2019: Seems AGFPRO and Geovox have finally had the option to purchase them on Steam removed for Australians it seems.
Everyone else has my pity.
UPDATE: Some AGF content is game breakingly broken at the moment. Dev ZekeThe Defender aka Alex has posted a fix that requires rolling back AGF to older versions.
Sadly he has also quit AGF. So could be a while before a proper fix is provided. Until then consider AGF broken and I seriously recommend not buying it or it’s DLC’s until the matter is resolved.
– Real player with 135.1 hrs in game
001 Game Creator
Especially for the money, I don’t think you’ll find a program more fun to use when putting together your games. I haven’t found a more flexible engine (Short of maybe Unity, which still requires extra licensing) to quickly piece together scenes and basic mechanics to sketch out game ideas without diving into a million menus. They don’t even have to be simple prototypes, as I am also able to implement complex mechanics in no time at all using easy drag and drop scripting. I have found that my only limitation so far has been my own terrible math skill.
– Real player with 4553.1 hrs in game
I’ve used 001 now for almost 15 years. I’m currently working for SoftWeir Inc. and have contributed to 001 in many ways. That being said, I originally purchased 001 years ago through their website as any other customer, and not just given a free copy as a team member. I’m not being paid to write this review.
001 is a very capable engine designed to bring your ideas to life, as quickly as possible. You can import assets, just plop them into a map or interface, tweak some triggers then start building a game. If you are familiar with the engine, and have the assets ready, you can quite literally prototype ideas in under an hour (Of course depending on how many existing systems and assets you can leverage, and what gameplay you are looking for)
– Real player with 1955.3 hrs in game
AppGameKit Studio
9 Out Of 10 Stars!
Hi,
Been using original “AppGameKit 2” (now called “Classic”) for a long time with great results.
I purchased “AppGameKit Studio” today.
First impressions are excellent.
I really love the new IDE and scene editor.
Definitely recommend this game creation software!
It’s missing some things that I hope are implemented soon:
(1) [DONE]HTML5/WebGL export with persistent data saving.
(2) “Steam Workshop” support.
(3) “Vulkan” rendering support for the other platforms.
Great game engine!
– Real player with 1454.9 hrs in game
AppGameKit Studio is the successor to the original AppGameKit and features several new improvements. However, if you are happy with the original AGK, there’s no urgent reason to upgrade - yet.
As for the software itself, although it was probably far from what the developers were hoping for, I wrote a visual novel with it called ‘Shark Dating Simulator’, available on Steam, which had a major boost when JackSepticEye reviewed it and sales were somewhat higher than I ever expected. As I was raised on the BASIC of old computers, AGK was not difficult to get into at all. AGK apps, for me on PC, run fast and smoothly and there are no watermarks or royalties to pay on your work - everything you make is yours. I would never have been able to make my game without AGK.
– Real player with 672.6 hrs in game
articy:draft 3
This is an over priced, under powered waste of your time. I have spent YEARS using ARTICY Draft. I spent thousands of hours on the first edition. And to date have spent almost 1000 USD on the suite. It’s a failed experiment. The development team has all but abandoned it, save for things that allow them to sell in new markets.
This has the power to be a wonderful tool for organization of an MMORPG or RPG game. You can cross reference quite a bit, and create some very unique flows. But it’s just not designed for anyone who either writes or creates game mechanics.
– Real player with 1610.3 hrs in game
In short, I highly recommend this software to anyone who is serious about making a video game. That said, here is my explanation as to why I say that. making a video game is not easy. You have a lot of tasks that need to be thought out and features to develop. In steps Articy:Draft 3 a tool that allows you to create your virtual world in one piece of software for export into you game engine of choice.
Now if you are like me and bought the Articy:Draft 2, you may ask yourself why upgrade? My answer, it depends upon your technical specs you want to get out of this software. Do you want to use XML and Excel or Word? Well then there isn’t too many reasons why you would want to upgrade. Otherwise, I would upgrade as the JSON exporter alone made the choice for me. As a game developer, I needed JSON in order to read the exported documents in my proprietary Game Engine. The other upgrades are nice ease of life features, but the ability o produce JSON documents and the ability to make plugins was my deciding factor and I’d bet many other people made the same conclusion.
– Real player with 534.3 hrs in game
Leadwerks Game Engine
Leadwerks is a semi easy-to-use and very powerful game engine written in OpenGL 4 with a deferred renderer. The engine is crossplatform between Windows & Linux, frequently updated, and has a very friendly and active community. With Leadwerks, you can create any game you want, be it an FPS game, 3rd person shooter, a puzzle game, or something super wacky, you can make it in the Leadwerks engine.
Some Of The Great Features
The deferred renderer is the pride and joy in this engine, giving you the ability to easily add dynamic lights and/or static lights with realistic shadows instantly, no lightmap baking needed. CSG level editing (like Source Engine’s Hammer editor) is fun and fast in the Leadwerks editor, allowing you to map out and create a level to test out pretty quickly. The engine is built upon OpenGL 4, making the engine crossplatform between Windows and Linux. A Mac version is currently in the works and should be out sometime in the near future.
– Real player with 1535.7 hrs in game
If you read this before the end of the 2nd December 2014, and you are wanting to be be able to write a 3D game, get this now. Its incredible value at 50% off. If you have and use visual studio and write code in C++, and want to use it to write a game, splash out and get the Standard version too. I bought mine in a previous sale, with -25% off, and have invested many hours in using this latest version during the beta testing of 3.3.
There are lots of video tutorials on you-tube, which are really useful for a beginner to understand how to start to use Leadwerks. The Forum http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/ is a great community resource, which is always worth a visit when your stuck, answers to many of your questions can be found by searching in here. If its not already answered you can ask the community, and there are some really great people who have been using Leadwerks for years, including Josh (Leadwerks CEO) who respond with knowlegeable answers.
– Real player with 979.8 hrs in game
iGuide Knossos VR
WoW! Excellent! Congrarulations for this great idea and work you have done!
Very nice to see the building as (we believe) it was in the Minoan times.
Very good narrations in greek/english that binds us with the history of the plase.
But there is a problem with some door openings that appear lower than the eye-view and is not possible to pass through.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
CopperCube 5 Game Engine
Lets be clear, Coppercube is intended to be simple and easy to use. This is a software for non programers, or those like me who prefer to focus on art and design, rather than typing tons of code. For this Coppercube is the best out there. Porting between PC, MacOS, WebGl, Android, and flash is near seamless. Most of the time its as simple as clicking the publish to option. There are tons of behaviors and actions to mix and match to do most things you will need, and their is a Javascript API if you want even more control. I’ve used quite a few game engines over the years (Multimedia Fusion, Gamemaker, 3DRad, Jamagic, Gamesalad) and none were as easy and fast to develop 3D applications than Coppercube.
– Real player with 3991.5 hrs in game
I have been playing around with CopperCube the past couple of weeks and I have fallen in love. 1 being that it is easy to get something simple up and running but also the option and simplistic coding. I start messing with the action and coding behaviors and find it to be quite easy when following their tutorial (but I am coding savvy). Graphic wise it isn’t Unity but I am not out to make a AAA game either.
I am running this on my Surface 3 so anyone who comes across my review I would say it runs smoothly on it and isn’t a resource hog which is a huge plus to me.
– Real player with 357.7 hrs in game
Pop Island - Let’s Code !!!
This game is in an odd situation. It is many things, but mainly a way to create, test, and play your own video games. But the problems arise when things like unity and blender exist, that allow you to do the exact same thing, but this time there is a HUGE community of tutorials, support, and content, you can later transform your ideas into actual video games that can go on to be sold for money, and aren’t filled to the brim with odd design choices and bugs. (They are also completely free!)
One more gripe that I have with this is that it uses the brand of Pop Island, that has had good successful games in the past. I wouldn’t have much of an issue with this normally, if there hasn’t been a proper Pop Island game since the year 2010 on the Nintendo DSi. I would LOVE to see a remastered version of Pop Island released today, and the branding of this… thing just gives sort of a false hope.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game