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FIFE - a cross platform isometric game engine

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
This is my first post here so I hope this is the right part of the forums for this kind of discussion.

Fact sheet:
License: Open source GPL 2.0
Platforms: Win32, Linux, Mac
Libs: SDL, OpenGL, boost (and some more)
Suited for: all kind of isometric 2D games
Costs: Free

About FIFE:
FIFE stands for Flexible Isometric Fallout-like Engine. Just like the name of our project suggests we work on a new open source engine for all kinds of isometric games. The people working on it got a RPG background but it should be possible to customize the engine so it even works for other ISO games like RTS. The engine started as a Fallout-only project but we recognized very fast that it offers the potential to be used as a general 2d ISO engine for the development of cross platform RPGs.

Why FIFE?
Half-life 1 revolutionized PC gaming back in 1998. The most important part of Half-life wasn't the great game with the story but the engine behind it IMHO. HL1 was the first game that offered good modding support combined with a company that provided useful tools to support the new growing modding community. Today there are a bunch of good open source 3D engines out there like Ogre or Irrlicht. However there are several problems:
1. These are mostly GFX engines. That means they focus on gfx code while they provide just few code that is needed to make a fully working game with them.
2. More important: they've been made for the creation of 3D applications. But unfortunately there is no flexible 2D ISO engine (that I know) that is comparable to what Ogre and Irrlicht are for 3D games.

So our aim is to "revolutionize" 2D ISO games as HL1 did it with 3D games quite some years ago. We want to create a platform for the creation of isometric games that all indie developers can use for their games so they don't need to create something from scratch. We focus on good modding abilities so we'll bundle the engine with an easy to use and full featured editor tool called FIFEdit.

The advantage over other engines is that FIFE is meant to become a full game engine. So we don't only provide 2d gfx code for the rendering but also feature code that allows the modders to easily script game logic. FIFE supports SDL & OpenGL rendering modes and is uses different open source cross platform libraries. This way the engine and the editor (that uses Qt4) will run on Win32, Linux and Macintosh. So we can ensure that game developers can easily provide their games as FIFE mods that run all kind of platforms without needing to care about writing cross platform code themselves.

Our editor will support a plugin system so you can easily add new features that are needed for specific kind of games; e.g. RPGs or RTS games.

The current status of the project:
The FIFE project is about 9 months in development now and we have released three public pre-alpha versions of the engine on sourceforge / freshmeat in January and May 2006.

The gfx part of the engine is the most "mature" one at the moment. The rendering code is encapsulated well with a "renderbackend" approach; so you can easily work on the OpenGL part of the renderer without being afraid of breaking something on the SDL side. Our coders are currently working on the map model to be able to integrate some first game logic code later. You can already script a GUI using lua code; lua will be used as scripting language for all game logic too.

The second part of the team is working on the new FIFE editor FIFEdit. The design phase has been just completed and the work on the code started. You can view the design document with all planned features for FIFEdit here:
<a href="http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=FIFEdit_Design_Document">FIFEdit design document</a>

You can also already access Fallout 1 / 2 .dat archives and display maps, view animations and listen to the original .acm sound files. But I guess this information is just important for the Fallout fans here. The Fallout maps just serve as example implementation to show what's already possible.

Intention of this post:
We would like to know what you think about our idea of a flexible isometric engine that focuses on modding abilities. Do you think this concept will work out or isn't it worth the hassle? Are there other projects that want to achieve something similar? Do you think that our engine is worth being used later or is it easier to create an engine from scratch for indie teams that plan to create ISO games?

Are there ISO fans out here that really like the idea and want to support us working on the engine? What kind of features would be really needed to make this engine attractive? Which parts of our design documents are well worked out and what's missing? Feedback is really appreciated :)
<a href="http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Category:Design_Documents">FIFE design documents</a>

More information:
<a href="http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=385950">FIFE help wanted thread @ Gamedev</a>
<a href="http://www.fifengine.de">FIFE homepage</a>
<a href="http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Main_Page">FIFE development wiki</a>
<a href="http://www.fifengine.de/index.php?module=pagesetter&tid=5">FIFE screenshot section</a>

Screenshots:
These screenshots were taken using FIFE with the original maps from Fallout 1 / 2. You'll need a valid copy of the Fallout games to load and display these maps; FIFE doesn't come bundled with copyrighted material! Additionally we do now feature screenshots of our custom maps too.

Official 2007.1 demo map: official_map.xml:


New map with buildings created by wulax:


FIFE with real square tiles. Useful for the creation of classical non-ISO 2D games like jRPGs:


Split personality. The new multiple cameras feature:


Welcome to the New California Republic:


FIFE offers a console interface to debug your games with:


One of our first custom XML maps with placeholder graphics:


Transparency for roof tiles:
 

FrancoTAU

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
2,507
Location
Brooklyn, NY
There are about 1800 fan groups "making" Fallout games... so there has to be a market for this right?
 

LCJr.

Erudite
Joined
Jan 16, 2003
Messages
2,469
My question is will it actually be usable by the average schmuck? In theory it's an excellent idea but I've seen way too many development tools that are too complex to used by most people.
 

Major_Blackhart

Codexia Lord Sodom
Patron
Joined
Dec 5, 2002
Messages
18,300
Location
Jersey for now
Best of luck to you boys for doing something great for the community. Finally, I will be able to make my own fallout mod!! Amazing. Drugs and Hookers GALORE!!!!
 

Goliath

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 18, 2004
Messages
17,830
Saint_Proverbius said:
Vault Dweller said:
Very impressive, indeed.

I demand you interview this guy.. And make sweet love to him if he asks.

Whoa, I am suddenly damn glad that I do not belong to Saint's staff :shock:
 

Briosafreak

Augur
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
792
Location
Atomic Portugal
I'm a big fan of them since, er, the start of the thing. I once posted a pic of their engine on the Obsidiam forum and everyone started drooling :)


Just one thing, Half-Life wasn't that revolucionary, it used the quake engine and the quake tools for modders. Besides that all the power to them.
 

mvBarracuda

Augur
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
478
LCJr. said:
My question is will it actually be usable by the average schmuck? In theory it's an excellent idea but I've seen way too many development tools that are too complex to used by most people.
Hmm that depends on your definition of "the average schmuck".

There are really easy RPG creation tools like RPGMaker but I feel that they're taking away power from the developers. Other issues are that they're limited to the Win32 platform and aren't free of costs.

FIFE will try to make modding as easy as possible but you have to understand that there is always a certain compromise between easy modding and flexibility. You can't have the biggest flexibility and make is as easy as RPGMaker. You'll need to learn the basics of the LUA scripting language because that's what FIFE will use. If you're familiar with the basics principles of programming, learning the basics of LUA will be a cake IMHO.

Especially the editor will really ease the modders work. It will even feature a plugin system so experienced guys from the community can write some cool extensions to ease certain tasks. So to make it short: if you're able to learn the basic principles of LUA, you won't have any problem to create a mod based on our engine.

Jung said:
Can Bethsoft use this engine>?
They could, at least in theory. The question is: why should they do so? Bethesda is a company that thinks that modern RPGs need some cool 1337 3D gfx and as they sold millions of copies of Oblivion, there must be some guys out there which agree.

So FIFE is more for the hardcore cRPG crowd which thinks that modern RPGs can work with 2D gfx too. And we'll try to attract indie RPG makers because we think that FIFE would be a great platform for prototyping RPG games to show them some investors.

Briosafreak said:
I'm a big fan of them since, er, the start of the thing. I once posted a pic of their engine on the Obsidiam forum and everyone started drooling :)
Hehe sounds good. I guess I'll post this there too as we've reached the stage where we can do some promo without the risk that the project dies one month later because of the lack of active developers. We're still in the need of new devs nevertheless so if some C++ wizards are reading this: feel free to apply :)

Briosafreak said:
Just one thing, Half-Life wasn't that revolucionary, it used the quake engine and the quake tools for modders. Besides that all the power to them.
I know that HL1 wasn't that revolutionary. The original post was for gamedev.net and I needed something to catch the interest of the people. So this post is just some dirty copy & paste galore.
 

[Jez]

Novice
Joined
Apr 12, 2006
Messages
77
I've been following your progress from NMA its looking very good
 

serch

Magister
Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
1,391
Location
Behind mistary, in front of conspirancy
Twinfalls said:
[
I never knew you felt that way. Well, polish up your SS regalia, put on your best underwear and bring some flowers, my dear nazi roguelike geekoid.

I wish I could forget that, now my penis has the size of a 6 year old clitoris. Please, do avoid the easy joke. Anyway the engine looks awesome, but on topic, for those of you that has some experience in development or even modding, what features would you like to see? They wish the kind of feedback I cannot provide.
 

Hazelnut

Erudite
Joined
Dec 17, 2002
Messages
1,490
Location
UK
Major_Blackhart said:
Best of luck to you boys for doing something great for the community. Finally, I will be able to make my own fallout mod!! Amazing. Drugs and Hookers GALORE!!!!

I'm already running scared!
 

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