I just came across this on Steam, it seems identical to FPS Creator Reloaded but alot more feature complete.

Anybody know if this is good to use, or any good/bad points Leadwerks Game Engine has?

You seem to be rather new to game development, so here is an article that describes what a game engine does. FPSCR is not a raw engine, its a game maker.

The leadwerks engine is an engine. You won't get any easy to use tools and have to code your game yourself.

FPSCR is an easy to use development-suite that has the basic workings already written for you and offers a drag and drop editor aswell as simpler scripting. You don't have to write your game yourself and can do it as a single individual rather than a studio. Ease of use is key.



-Wolf

Interesting response, I guess I was just caught up in the hype. I'll give the wiki article a skim tomorrow, thanks for the reply though.

FPSCR is easy to use I'll admit, but it comes at the cost of restrictions for those who want to customise the game maker more to their preference.

Im using Leadwerks at the moment. Its fun and more complete. Yes, when it comes to coding my game, Ill have to ask some one with enough lua experience to help me but as far as features, there are bugs in every engine you will try to use. I made a quick and simple map after figuring out the particle emitter and lighting controls. Using third party assets are a snap, import the files and they are automatically converted and ready to use!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vTJ-TXUPJc

I disagree. If you actually want a game and not just a "shoot the bad guy" simulation then you need to write some code in Lua. A game is not just plopping bad guys in a level and running around killing them. Not by a long shot. If you want actual gameplay, you need to do some work, in ANY engine/maker.

Or you could hang out here in the forums and store and use/buy scripts from other genius coders!

Even in that case you still have to do the work to put it all together. I doubt there will ever be a super script to make your game for you. lol. Although, I am working on this awesome idea for an RPG starter pack to give you all the scripts you need to make an epic RPG action/adventure game. But that's still a ways off.

@tomjscott: I was referring to the difference between coding and scripting here. Of course you will have to script many parts of your game.

I've not used Leadworks, but it has been around almost as long as DB Pro, and always looked so much more impressive! Still, it would be far more work in the main than Reloaded. Nature of the beast. To be honest there are many superior products around, and mostly finished too. They are more complex and faster, but you will need to be able to code, and it will take some time to get into them at all. For most people with limited time, Reloaded is a nice easy way to create your ideas. We can only wait for improvements to speed and such, although as some have said before, it does look like speed may not get much better than it is.

I have it also.... Watch the video it looked very impressive....Easily create your games ...NOT !!



What you can build in Reloaded in 10 mins would take about a week in Leadwerks...

Hardly any asset's considering how long its been out... You need to be pretty versed in scripting to get anywhere...Window mode gameplay although you can set it to a chosen resolution in the ini file but it doesn't default to your own like Reloaded does..



Sorry I thought the video was misleading and my money would have been better spent in the Reloaded Store.



Also I found the FPS is better in Reloaded than Leadwerks.

Think I will stay with Reloaded thanks... ease of use is my top priority for developing some games with. I'm just doing it as a hobby really. I'll just buy models from the store, create my own music and dialogue and stay with the nice easy to use interface thank you very much! If I could have one wish that would be to be good in blender so I could make my own unique assets and models. Don't see that happening anytime soon though.

Well, since getting into this hobby, I have spent a considerable amount of money on assets. Most cant be easily used in reloaded. ALL can be added very easily to LeadWerks. Hell, TGC was selling LeadWerks. That says a whole lot to me. The old X10 engine isnt going to get any where near any other engine in performance. I say this because in Lee's testing, he is setting his settings to LOW and gaining a mere points with FPS. The level I submitted above, i was pulling over 100 with 7 very complex particle emitters. Each fire I made is comprised of 5 different emitters. Thats 35 emitters running constant. Im learning to convert my characters by editing the character controller and the lua file and then Im off to the races.



I think the old rehash of the X10 engine is whats limiting aside from the lack of X86 support which would free up memory and possibly make quite a difference.



Yes, for me too its a hobby but as a hobbyist, i want to put out the best I can with what i have. . . . Ill still keep up on Reloaded progress from both the blog, newsletters and a few insiders.

It's just a hobby for me as well, one I've been into for about 15 years now. My interest at times wanes, so I will walk away from it from time to time, only to come back months later with a renewed interest (I am also building a robot and a MAME cabinet unlike no other!) I've used/played with DBPro since 2004, and when I first ran across it, I thought it to be the easiest way to make games compared to what I'd seen at the time. When FPSC came out, I wasn't too impressed simply browsing the forums and seeing people's reaction/frustration with it (kinda like now! What was I thinking? LOL). I finally bought it a few years back and although it had it's limitations, it still provided me with a quick way to test an idea. When I realized I could actually build a level in FPSC and then use that level/world in DBPro, it's usefulness became even greater. To me these are simply tools. They make the job a little easier. There are some out there/around these forums even (you know who they are) who could take this engine/game maker and whip up a masterpiece that would sell. While I have no personal interest in that, I know even they wouldn't be able to do it over a weekend. It has become apparent to me though, that if you really want to make a game that is going to sell, you've gotta have a hook: something that is unique to your game, and in order to do that, you'd better be able to learn coding/scripting/whatever you wish to call it (to me it's all the same logic), or else find somebody to do it for you! The same goes for assets. People make assets. They may not make and probably won't make the asset that you want or need at a particular time. The one you find that suits your need (elsewhere on the interweb) may have way too many polys to be practical or may only be available in a format that just simply can't be converted to your needed format without other software. If that even works correctly. Even with the tools we have available to us to simplify things, creating a game that people will buy, especially in this economy, is a huge undertaking and I applaud and admire anyone who tries it! The competition is huge. Good luck to everyone!

Scripting IS coding. And since Leadwerks also uses Lua the same as FPSCR then I see no difference here.

It is? It always thought that scripting was using an engines predefined commands (as in UDK's Kismet or FPSC's FPI) where as coding would be working on the engine behined these commands. (FPSC for example was coded in DBPro yet used an FPI scripting language which would then be interpretated by the engine/DBPro.

I'd be surprised if Leadwerks where as easy to use now as FPSCR.



-Wolf

No. They are the same. What you are trying to get at is coding one's own custom game commands. That would be a lower level of coding. Leadwerks does support that through a C++ API and FPSC-R doesn't. Though you don't need to code at that level and will still have far more capabilities in Lua with Leadwerks than FPSC-R in its present form.







I wouldn't since the Leadwerks engine not only has a much more feature complete engine, but gives you more access to that engine through Lua. Where FPSC-R shines is in the automation of some basic gameplay elements. But once you try to go beyond that then you are handcuffed with limitations to both the engine and the scripting functionality. In the end, you are more likely to be able to complete a full-featured game in Leadwerks than FPSC-R at this point.



So, you might be able to do something really quick and easy with FPSC-R up front, but when you get down to the details of the actual game then you won't be able to do much more without some serious coding (i.e. scripting) and a lot of work arounds. In Leadwerks you may have a bit steeper learning curve, but once you get going you'll be able to do just about anything you want. And naturally you'll have a steeper learning curve with anything that has more features and capabilities.



Am I advocating or advertising for Leadwerks. Nope. Not at all. I don't even own it. But those are the facts.

I see! Thanks for clearing that up . I was spewing stuff about the huuuge difference between coding and scripting for years now



I know. I was working with UDK before which is already simplified but a huge workload to get a game working. (The level editing is fantastic though!)
These Leadwerks folks on the other hand sell theirs as "really easy to use" (in comparison) and they have Linux support. I must admit, I'm a little tempted! Thankfully, I don't have the extra hundred to throw at gamecreation right now! (Usermade games indicate that its a regular difficulty engine though.)

So far, I am still confident that I can make a nice game in reloaded. It is, however, also necessary to talk about the competition.



-Wolf

moved to off topic board

cheers henry

There is generally a different skill level required for doing lower level C++ coding and scripting, but both are fundamentally using programming languages and when you write programs in a programming language, you are coding. And if you're not writing your own low-level functions in C++ then you're probably just assembling programs from built-in game engine commands just like you would in a scripting language like Lua. In fact, many scripting languages are analogous to C or C++ languages and there is very little difference.

I should add that this is why I kind of smile and laugh when I see people approach scripting like it's just something anyone can do and that it somehow doesn't require a skilled programmer to use. If you're not a programmer and don't want to become one then you probably shouldn't be scripting. And by "you" I'm not referring to you, Wolf, just anyone in general with that mindset.

well as far as the difference between scripting and programming, i would agree with tomjscott, no scripting is not a secondary language such as like C++. but scripting still uses functions, classes, variables, and so forth to work. they are very similar in very many ways.
i am not programmer, so don't quote me, but i feel like the C++ is the base or foundation of the game engine, the script is a code that uses the base code to give it properties. such as like if one was to make a car, the C++ would be what gives that car life, but the script is what determines how that car lives.

as far as the comparison between Leadwerks and FPSCR. is sort of like comparing apples to oranges. while i don't really completely agree with that leadwerks is a game engine and FPSCR is a game maker. i see both as game engines, but leadwerks is more aimed at providing more features, FPSCR is more aimed at ease of use.

yes Unity, LeadWerks, Torque3D, Unreal, and others are far more advanced with features and rendering engines verses FPSCR.
however if one does not know how to program, one if going to find themselves stuck very early on. and that to me is the big difference between most of the other game engines out there compared to FPSCR. they are all centered around a person knowing how to program. to use their engines, learning to program is going to be a very high priority. and when starting out, one if going to be feeling extremely overwhelmed with all the things they are going to need to learn to make the game engine work for them. that first step is going to be a big one.

Even with FPSCR one will have to learn how to write LUA scripts to really be able to make their game unique and have the features one wants their game to have.
but i feel that FPSCR will allow a person to take smaller steps as they get into game development, and not make one feel so overwhelmed with all the things they will need to learn to really be able to create a successful game.
straight out of the package you can open it up place you player down, add some buildings, as well as NPC's and play around in it. no it not anything all that fancy. it doesn't have all the bells and whistles as a lot of the game engines out there. but it is still a engine that a complete beginner can find themselves using pretty easy right from the start. and as they use it more, the more they will learn.

as far as the features of FPSCR goes, well right now it not all that great. but the idea behind the engine us a solid idea, so where the engine ends up once it is farther down the road is something that only time will tell. FPSCR could turn into a really great engine for indy game developers to use. i would say it is definitely heading in the right direction.

Indeed, this is far more accurate than my earlier response.







The big difference to me is that other engines are geared towards larger teams working together on a project where FPSCR allows very small teams to single individuals to make games in a reasonable amount of time. I find that this can not be said for other engines, the workload would be far too large. This is the aspect that sells it to me.







I concur







-Wolf