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Creator of the first computer game. When did computer games appear?

1952

The first logical computer game “OXO” was created - a computer implementation of “tic-tac-toe” (a field of three by three cells, the user made his move, after which the computer made a counter move). The game was created by A.S. Douglas during his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge (UK). Douglas wrote his dissertation on the topic of human-computer interaction, and used the game as a visual illustration. The game existed in a single copy on a large computer - the EDSAC mainframe.

1958

The first tennis simulator has been created. The creator is William Higinbotham, one of the scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York, USA). The game was called "Tennis for Two". In this game, two people controlled moving platforms to hit a ball. The computer did not participate in the game, but only displayed the results of the players’ actions on an oscilloscope in real time. This game existed in one single copy.

1962.

The computer game “SpaceWar!” was created. The creators are Steve Russell and a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MTI) (Cambridge, USA). The game consisted of the following: two small spaceship flew across the screen, shot at each other and dodged the only moving obstacle in the form of a star. Controllers were created specifically for the game, vaguely similar to modern joysticks. "SpaceWar!" became the first truly computer game, because the two previous games were only computer implementations of already existing board games. This game for a long time existed in one single copy.

(In fact, MTI started making games a little earlier. From 1959 to 1961, three games were created on the TX-0 computer, even before “SpaceWar!”. “Mouse in the Maze”: the player himself placed the walls of the maze (sticks) and a piece of cheese (a dot), and a computer in the form of a mouse (another dot) was trying to get through the maze to the cheese. "HAX": controlling the sound device using the computer. "Tic-Tac-Toe": another computer version of the game "tic crosses" -toe". Unfortunately, these games were not captured in the photo; the fact of their existence was confirmed only in words).

Start of distribution of games

1962.

In April 1962, DEC began selling the relatively small PDP-1 computers. The basic package of these computers included the game “SpaceWar!” as a test program. Thus "SpaceWar!" became the first game to be released into circulation.

1966.

Ralph Baer, having learned that his idea about interactive television, voiced in 1951, is already being brought to life in the form computer games, began developing new game prototypes. He created 7 experimental games.

1968.

Ralph Baer is developing his experimental console called "Box Brown". It was possible to play all the games he invented. There were also simple arcade games - “Chase Game”: two squares chasing each other on the screen; and a completely new type of “Target Shooting games”: you had to shoot at the screen with a light gun.

1969.

Programmer Ken Thompson created a video game called "Space Travel" for the Multics operating system (OS). This game simulated the movement of all planets solar system, the player controlled a spaceship and had to carefully land the ship on one of the planets. The remarkable thing about this game is that when it was ported to assembler, the author began writing a new UNIX OS.

1970

The computer mouse was invented. Douglas Engelbart received a patent for “display system X-Y positions on the monitor." This system looked like a square wooden mouse with large wheels. But the mouse began to be used in computer games much later.

1971.

Release of the first arcade machines. In September 1971, the first experimental arcade machine with the game “Galaxy” (version of “Spacewar”, redesigned for the PDP-11 computer) was installed at Stanford University (California, USA).

In November 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created the game Computer Space (a modification of Spacewar for arcade machines). The Nutting Associates company buys the rights to the game and produces 1,500 arcade machines with this game (but managed to sell a little more than a third of all machines). Computer Space was the first computer game in the world to be released to the general public.

A baseball simulator game “Computer Baseball” has been created for the PDP-10 computer. Creator: Don Daglow. The computer processed the player's actions and output the results to the printer.

Created text game"Star Trek" for the Sigma 7 minicomputer. Creator - Mike Mayfield. In the game, the computer described the game environment in text, and the player also used text to answer what actions he wanted to perform.

The game "The Oregon Trail" was created for teletype machines. The creators are Don Ravitsch and two other Carleton College students.

1972

First home created game console. On May 24, Magnavox began producing and selling its first console, the Magnavox Odyssey. All the developments of Ralph Baer, created by him in 1968, were used as games for the console.

First successful sales. Due to the poor returns on the game Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney left Nutting Associates and together founded their own company, Atari. (The name of the company comes from one of the moves in the board game Go). That same year, on November 29, Atari released its first game, Pong (a much improved version of Tennis for Two). 19,000 slot machines were sold. The game was a resounding success and worldwide fame. Pong was the first commercially successful game.

The game "Hunt The Wumpus" was created for mainframes. Creator: Gregory Job. It was a text-based adventure game.

Formation of gaming companies

1973.

The emergence of gaming companies in Japan. March 19 Kagemasa Kozuki, the owner of the Konami company, which produces and repairs jukeboxes, simultaneously begins production of arcade machines.

In May, the Hudson Soft company was founded (Sapporo, Japan). The founders are the Kudo brothers. At first, the company sold telecommunications devices, but quickly switched to developing video games. (Thus, Atari and Magnavox had their first overseas competitors).

Atari creates Gotcha, an arcade maze game.

First created online game- "Empire" on "PLATO" computers. Creator: John Daleske. It was strategic turn based game for a maximum of 8 players. Players controlled spaceships, developed industry, produced goods, and bought new ships.
1974.

The first civilian computer network, Telenet, was opened (a commercial version of the experimental ARPANET network of the US Department of Defense).

The network game "MazeWar" was created on Imlac PDS-1 computers. Also, this is the first game with a first-person view. In MazeWar, several players walked through a pseudo-3D maze and fought with each other.
The game "SpaSim" was created. The ideas are the same as in “MazeWar”: up to 32 players simultaneously fought among themselves online, but now not in a maze, but against the backdrop of space.

The game "Tank" from the company "Kee Games" was created. This was the first game to use a program ROM. (Immediately after this release, Atari bought Kee Games).

The first magazine dedicated to arcade machines is published. The title of the magazine is “Play Meter”.

Sales of the Magnavox Odyssey console begin around the world, and not just in the USA.

Namco acquires the Japanese division of Atari and formally enters the arcade video game market.

1975

By 1975, the initial market for consoles and arcade machines in the United States was taking shape. The market was occupied by four large companies: Atari, Sears, Coleco, Magnavox.

The first text message was created role-playing game(RPG) "Dungeon".

The first game in the "interactive fiction" genre was created, called "Colossal Cave Adventure" for PDP-10 computers. Creator - William Crowther. This game set the main direction for the development of the “adventure” genre.

The first Japanese game was created. An employee of Taito, Tomihiro Nishikado, produces the game Western Gun. There were silhouettes of people on the screen that you had to hit using two levers on the controller. A little later, this game was redesigned for the Intel 8080 microprocessor (the first game on a microprocessor) and released by Midway in the USA under the name “Gun Fight”.

Atari and Tele-Games release the Pong home video game console.

1976

In April Atari releases slot machine with the game "Breakout". In the game you had to hit the ball with a board so as to break all the blocks in front of you. The game was developed by Apple. It is quite possible that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had a hand in the development of the game. (A little later, the Japanese company Taito released its version of this game called Arkanoid).

The first brutal game "Death Race" based on the movie "Death Race 2000" has been released. The game sparked public outcry over violence in video games and was banned.

The Coleco company creates its own analogue of the Pong console called TelStar.

A set-top box with removable storage media has been created. In August, Fairchild Semiconductor released the Video Entertainment System (later known as Channel F). This console was the first to use replaceable cartridges. Before this, consoles had only standard, unchangeable sets of games included during production.

The console boom.

Second generation of game consoles

1977

The Atari 2600 game console goes on sale. It was thanks to this console that the popularization of computer and video games switched to completely new level. The Atari 2600 was sold from 1977 to 1983, and during this time more than 40,000,000 copies of this console were sold!

On July 5, the first home computer, the Apple II, goes on sale. Along with computers intended for the masses, computer games are also spreading significantly.

Created text quest"Zork" (also known as "Dungeon"). This game existed on a mainframe computer network, and contained a huge number of game locations for those times. (A little later, in 1980, this huge game was released on home computers, but for this it was divided into several independent parts).
1978.

The game “Space Invaders” has been created for slot machines. The author of the game is Tomihiro Nishikado from the Japanese company Taito. With the advent of this game, the arcade industry entered its golden age: arcade machines in the USA and Japan stood on literally every corner, they began to write about games in magazines, talk about it on television, and make films about it. More than 360,000 Space Invaders arcade machines have been sold.

1979.

Activision was founded. The company was founded by several people from Atari.

The first multiplayer text game "Multi-User Dungeon" (MUD) was created. The creators were two students from the University of Essex - Roy Trubshow and Richard Bartle. Interaction with the game world took place using text commands entered manually by players. All subsequent online games with a text interface began to be classified as a separate genre - MUD.

A slot machine with the game “Asteroids” was created. Atari company. 70,000 of these arcade machines were sold.

The first pocket game console "Microvison" was released. The authorship belongs to the American company Milton Bradley, which previously developed board games. The console looked like a small rectangle with a 16x16 pixel monochrome LCD screen.

1980.

The first game in the Rogue-like genre was created. The game was called "Rogue", which gave the name to the whole genre of games. Creators: Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman and Ken Arnol. The game had full-screen graphics with a top-down view, the player navigated through a maze and destroyed monsters.

On May 22, a machine with the game “PacMan” was created. The creator is Namco. One of the first color games (16 different colors). 350,000 PacMan machines were sold. At the time of Pac-Man's creation, video games revolved around two already boring themes: sport games and space shooters. Pac-Man introduced a completely new arcade genre into games, filled with speed and drive. PacMan remains the most recognizable video game character to this day. This game has become synonymous with video games.

The first graphic quest “Mystery House” was created for Apple II computers. Creator: Roberta Williams. Despite the existing graphics in the game, commands still had to be entered in text. (A little later, Roberta Williams and her husband Ken founded the company Sierra On-Line).

The Japanese company Nintendo produces small pocket consoles with batteries and LCD screens called “Game&Watch”. (A little later in the USSR they created their own copies of these consoles under the name “Electronics IM”. The most famous of these games is “Well, wait a minute!”, where a wolf collects chicken eggs).

The “BattleZone” slot machine has been created. The player controls a tank with a first-person cockpit view. The game uses vector graphics (lines only, no polygons or textures).

Good day to everyone and good mood to you, my dear friends. While I’m on vacation, I can’t really get into the mood for regular work. But I decided that I couldn’t leave you without an article and made a compromise with myself. If I am relaxing, then I would like you to relax too. Therefore, I have prepared an article for you to relax.

IN modern world Computer games have become an integral part in the lives of children and teenagers, and even adults. I myself used to often play with toys, at one time I even sat in it for almost three years free time. Time constantly passes and games, of course, become more realistic, modern and are constantly being released. But it was not always so. Everything has its beginning.

And all this happened back in 1962, when two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first took a giant step in the computer industry. These students' names were Steve Russell and Martin Gretz. They called their first brainchild Spacewar and created it very quickly, literally in a couple of months.

At first they wrote a simple program, which they gradually developed and turned into a full-fledged toy about a battle between two space rockets. The two friends were passionate about science fiction, so they didn’t really stand on ceremony when choosing a theme for the game.

This game was still on modern computers PDP-1, the volume of which was only 9 kilobytes of RAM. Can you imagine?

IN overall game was a black field on a computer screen that symbolized space. In this outer space there was a certain number of white dots, which represented stars. Well, the main characters of this game were, as mentioned above, two spaceships (rockets). The goal of the game was to destroy the enemy missile.

Each ship could shoot at the enemy, but the supply of ammunition and fuel was limited. But there was a tricky move in the game: the player could make a hyperjump, thanks to which he would appear in a different place on the map. Thus, if you are lucky, you can take the enemy by surprise.

In 1971, the first space prototype of this game was released, which was called “Computer Space,” but this version did not bring success and was not in great demand. But a slot machine based on this game was installed at Stanford University. This move brought great success to the creator of this project, since the game on the machine was in great demand. The creator of this project, Bill Pitts, more than recouped his investment.

But despite the popularity of this game, it did not bring popularity and wealth to its creators, Steve Russell and Martin Graetz. But they did not leave their business and continued their development in the IT industry.

Here's a little story. Now you know how the first game appeared. I really hope you liked the article. If this is the case, then be sure to subscribe to my blog updates, then you will always be aware of everything interesting. By the way, how do you feel about computer games? Please write in the comments. Well, I say goodbye to you for today. Good luck to you. Bye bye!

Best regards, Dmitry Kostin.

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History of computer games

In fact, the first computer or video game can be considered Rocket Simulator or Rocket Simulator. A rocket simulator is an entertainment device based on a cathode ray tube that simulates rocket flight control. Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Astle Ray Mann developed the device in 1947.

A rocket simulator considered to be the earliest known interactive electronic games, was a harbinger of computer games. However, the device itself did not have a digital processor for processing information, but used analog circuits to control the cathode ray tube and form an image on the screen. It looked like a World War II radar and used on-screen overlays for aiming.

The next important event occurred in 1952 - the first computer game was created, which was displayed on a raster display and processed in a computer, and not using analog circuits. The game was called OXO (tic-tac-toe) - a computer game for the EDSAC computer, which is a tic-tac-toe game. Developed in 1952 by A. S. Douglas as an illustration for his doctoral dissertation on the topic of human-computer interaction.

In OXO, a person played against a computer, placing a cross or a zero in the desired cell of the field using a rotary dialer. The output was carried out on a raster display with a dimension of 35 x 16 pixels. The symbol and turn order were chosen by the player before the start of the game.

OXO was not widely used because the EDSAC was a unique computer located in the Cambridge University library.

The first network shooter is Empiмre (Russian Empire) - a computer game for the PLATO system, created in 1973 by John Daleske. The game is most likely the first in the online multiplayer shooter genre, as well as one of the first online action games. Although PLATO terminals had touch panels for data entry, they did not have a pointing device, so the game was controlled by typing. Commands to change course or fire were entered in degrees: 0 meant right, 90 meant top, 270 meant bottom. Buttons could also be used with "arrows". Monochrome displays with a resolution of 512x512 pixels were connected to the terminals; a special character set could be loaded to display graphics.

The first 3D shooter can be considered Maze War, a 1973 video game originally created for the Imlac PDS-1 by Steve Colley at NASA Ames Research Center. Along with Empire and Spasim, it became one of the ancestors of modern first-person shooters, as well as the first game with a deathmatch mode.

In Maze War, players navigate a maze; You can move forward, backward, turn right and left (90° each time), and also look into doorways. The game uses simple tile-based graphics - thus, the player moves along invisible squares. Other participants in the game are represented on the screen in the form of eyeballs. When an opponent appears on the screen, the player can shoot at him. Points are awarded for each kill, and points are deducted for each death. Some versions of Maze War (such as the X11 port) introduced cheat codes that allowed you to see the location of other players. Also in some versions a duck could sometimes appear in the maze.

Game engines

Games became more complex, which led to the emergence of game engines - structures that facilitate game development. Tools called game engines are designed to simplify and speed up game development without having to write everything from scratch. In this context, several concepts of engines will appear, but most often these are gaming and graphics. It is important to understand the difference between a graphics engine, a game engine, and a game engine support library. A game engine is a game module that includes game logic. For example, the game Pac-Man, among other things, contains code that draws a partially filled yellow circle - the main character (refers to the graphics engine); and code that increases points when the player eats a ghost hunter, yellow dots, power-ups and more (related to the game engine). 1979 - “ZIL” The world's first game engine developed by Infocom.

1987 - Freescape The first 3-D engine developed by Incestive Software.

Unreal Engine

Many engines were created for one single game, which made it impossible to use this engine in the future. This situation was unprofitable, but in 1998 Epic Games released an engine that became the basis for hundreds of games, and despite its simplicity, it was an incredibly powerful development environment. Written in C++, the engine allows you to create games for most operating systems and platforms: Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Mac OS X; consoles Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, PS Vita, Wii, Dreamcast, GameCube and others, as well as on various portable devices, for example, Apple devices(iPad, iPhone) controlled by the iOS system and others. (Work with iOS was first presented in 2009; in 2010, the engine was demonstrated to work on a device with webOS).

To simplify porting, the engine uses a modular system of dependent components. Supports various rendering systems: Direct3D, OpenGL, Pixomatic, sound playback: EAX, OpenAL, DirectSound3D, voice text playback tools, speech recognition, modules for working with the network and supporting various input devices.

Windows Live technologies are supported for online play, Xbox Live, GameSpy and others, including up to 64 players (clients) simultaneously. Thus, the engine was adapted for use in games MMORPG genre(one example: Lineage II).

All elements of a game engine are represented as objects that have a set of characteristics and a class that defines the available characteristics. In turn, any class is a “child” class of object. Among the main classes and objects are the following:

Actor is a parent class containing all objects that are related to the game process and have spatial coordinates.

Pawn is a physical model of a player or object controlled by artificial intelligence. The name comes from English. pawn is the one who is being manipulated (or a pawn, so such an object without any model looks like a pawn). The control method is described by a special object, such an object is called a controller. Controller artificial intelligence describes only the general behavior of the pawn during the gameplay, and such parameters as “health” (the amount of damage after which the pawn ceases to function) or, for example, the distance at which the pawn pays attention to sounds. are set for each object separately.

World, level (world, game level) - an object that characterizes the general properties of “space”, for example, gravity and fog, in which all actors are located. It may also contain gameplay parameters, such as the game mode for which the level is intended.

To work with simple and, as a rule, stationary elements of the playing space (for example, walls), a binary partition of space is used - the entire space is divided into “filled” and “empty”. All objects are located in the “empty” part of the space, and only in it can there be an “observation point” when rendering the scene. The possibility of completely or partially placing objects in the “filled” part of the space is not excluded, but it can lead to incorrect processing of such objects (for example, calculation of physical interaction) or incorrect rendering in the case of placing an “observation point” there (for example, the effect of a “hall of mirrors”) . All pawns that enter the “filled” part of the space immediately “perish.”

Zoning. Not a single portal (dashed line) of the red zone enters the camera, so objects in it are not processed at all.

Surface is the basic element of the binary tree of space. These elements are created at the intersection between the “filled” and “empty” parts of the space. A group of elements of a binary tree of space is called a node (node, Russian node). This term is usually used in the context of node count - the number of nodes on the screen or in the game space in general. The number of nodes simultaneously visible on the screen affects the performance when rendering the scene. If a node misses the screen or is completely covered by other nodes, it is not counted - this serves to improve performance, especially in closed spaces. Dividing the entire space into groups of nodes is called zoning.

For this purpose, portals are sometimes used - invisible surfaces that serve to manually divide a large node into two smaller ones. In addition to portals, anti-portals are used.

The description of “filled” and “empty” parts of space is carried out using a set of closed three-dimensional objects composed of non-intersecting surfaces - brushes. This principle of constructing space is called constructive continuous geometry. Geometry can be “additive” (all space is initially “empty”) and “subtractive” (space initially filled with matter).

Brushes are divided into three types:

Solid - fully participate in the binary partition of space.

Additive - “fill” binary space.

Subtractive - “cut out” volumes in space.

Semi-solid - do not directly affect the binary tree of space, but do affect its physical model. They can only “fill” space. They are used to create “invisible” obstacles, as well as reduce the number of polygons and nodes.

Empty (non-solid) - only create surfaces, do not affect the binary tree of space. They are used primarily to create volumes - a part of space that has properties different from the properties of the game world. Volumes have priority, properties of a volume with higher priority are applied to the actors located in it. The game world always has minimal priority. Using volumes you can change gravity, viscosity, fog, and the like. Volumes, starting with Unreal Engine 2, are used to create water (but not water surfaces).

Computer games industry

The computer gaming industry began in the mid-1970s as a movement of enthusiasts and has grown from a small market to the mainstream over several decades, with annual revenues of $9.5 billion in the United States in 2007 and $11.7 billion in 2008 (according to ESA annual reports ). They work in the market as major players, so and and small firms and startups, as well as independent developers and communities.

Modern personal computers have brought many innovations to the gaming industry. The most significant ones include sound and graphics cards, CD and DVD drives, Unix and central processing units.

Sound cards were originally developed to integrate high-quality digital sound into computer games, and only then the sound equipment was improved to meet the needs of music lovers.

Graphics cards, which evolved to support more colors at the dawn of the computer age, later evolved to provide hardware support for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and games. For the GUI, an increase in screen resolution was required, and for games, acceleration of 3D graphics was required.

Initially, CDs and DVDs were developed as an inexpensive and fairly reliable way to store and distribute any data. Subsequently, when these technologies began to be used in computer games, their development began in the direction of increasing the speed of data reading.

Modern games are some of the most demanding applications on a PC. Many powerful computers purchased by gamers who are required to run latest games, which use the most advanced technologies. Thus, the gaming industry is closely related to the manufacturing of central processing units and other PC components, since games often require higher hardware power than business applications.

Thus, the gaming industry is one of the most promising industries information technologies. Many people thought, why not start creating computer games?

Indie projects

An independent game is an “independent computer game” – a computer game created by an individual developer or a small team without the financial support of a computer game publisher. Distribution is carried out through digital distribution channels. The scale of the indie game phenomenon has increased significantly since the second half of the 2000s, mainly due to the development of new methods of online distribution and development tools.

There is no generally accepted definition of the concept of “indie game”. But, often, indie games have some similar features. Indie games are created by individual developers, small teams, or small independent companies. Also, indie games are usually not as big as mainstream, fully funded games. Indie game developers typically do not have financial backing from a publisher (as they prefer low-risk games with high budgets), and usually have little or no budget. Because they are independent, indie developers have no operational restrictions from publishers or creative restrictions and do not need publisher approval, which is mandatory for developers mass games. As a result, the game designer’s decisions are also not limited by the project budget. Moreover, the smaller the team, the more clearly the individuality of a particular developer is expressed.

Creating games without programming

game simulator computer programming

In 2011, the United States recognized gaming as an art form. Games carry a certain thought and idea that the author is trying to convey to us; the game has a plot that tells us about the fate of the main character, showing us his formation, formation, introducing us to the world of the hero. All this is inherent in other types of generally accepted art: books, films, music, paintings, sculpture. In fact, the game allows you to feel, literally touch and experience every detail and link in the world of the main character, as it was done in books, and at the same time enjoy extensive panoramas of events, see the world in all its glory, as it was realized in the movies. But unlike these types of art, an element called gameplay is added to the game. You no longer just look at the main character from the big screen, or read about what he did from the pages of a book, but you yourself become this hero, you accomplish those feats that were intended for the character, you decide what to do, you are now a hero!

In connection with this, the creation of computer games was taken up by people of art who understood little about programming, which is so necessary for game development.

For such people, terribly simple and at the same time powerful development environments were created.

One of these is Unity

Unity is a tool for developing 2D and 3D applications and games, running on operating systems Windows and OS X. Applications created using Unity run on Windows, OS X, Windows Phone, Android, Apple iOS, Linux, as well as on game consoles Wii, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. It is possible to create applications to run in browsers using a special Unity plug-in (Unity Web Player), as well as using the implementation of WebGL technology. Previously, there was experimental support for implementing projects within the Adobe Flash Player module, but later the Unity development team accepted difficult decision by refusing this.

Applications built with Unity support DirectX and OpenGL. The engine is actively used by both large developers (Blizzard, EA, QuartSoft, Ubisoft) and developers of Indie games (for example, the remake of Mor. Utopia (Pathologic), Kerbal Space Program, Slender: The Eight Pages, Slender: The Arrival, Surgeon Simulator 2013, etc.) due to the availability of a free version, user-friendly interface and ease of working with the engine.

The Unity editor has a simple Drag&Drop interface that is easy to customize, consisting of various windows, so you can debug the game directly in the editor. The engine supports three scripting languages: C#, JavaScript (modification), Boo (Python dialect). The editor supports DirectX 11 and HDR. Physics calculations are performed by the PhysX physics engine from NVIDIA.

A project in Unity is divided into scenes (levels) - separate files containing their game worlds with its own set of objects, scenarios, and settings. Scenes can contain both actual objects (models) and empty game objects - objects that do not have a model (“dummy”). Objects, in turn, contain sets of components with which scripts interact. Objects also have a name (in Unity, two or more objects with the same names are allowed), there may be a tag (label) and a layer on which it should be displayed. So, any object on the stage must have a Transform component - it stores the coordinates of the location, rotation, and size of the object along all three axes. Objects with visible geometry also have a Mesh Renderer component by default, which makes the object model visible.

You can apply collisions to objects (in Unity, so-called colliders). There are several types of colliders:

Character controller is a type of physical model created specifically for use with game characters;

Box collider (the physical model forms a cube into which the entire object model falls);

Sphere collider (the physical model forms a sphere into which the entire object model falls);

Capsule collider (the physical model forms a capsule into which the object model falls. Unlike the previous type, the dimensions can be changed along one or three axes at once);

Mesh collider (the physical model completely replicates the real geometry of the object);

Wheel collider (physical model of the wheel);

Terrain collider is a type of physical model created specifically for use on an object of the Terrain type - land generated by the Unity editor with the ability to sculpt and color the terrain.

Unity also supports rigid body and fabric physics, as well as Ragdoll-type physics. The editor has an object inheritance system; child objects will follow all changes in position, rotation and scale of the parent object. Scripts in the editor are attached to objects as separate components.

When importing a texture into Unity, you can generate an alpha channel, mip levels, normal-map, light-map, reflection map, but you cannot attach the texture directly to the model - a material will be created, to which a shader will be assigned, and then the material will be attached to the model . The Unity editor supports writing and editing shaders. The Unity editor has a component for creating animations, but animations can also be created first in a 3D editor and imported along with the model, and then split into files.

In addition to an empty game object and models, you can add the following objects of the GameObject type to the scene:

Particle system;

GUI texture;

Spot light;

Directional light;

Territory lighting;

Light source simulating the sun;

Standard primitives;

Terrain (ground).

Unity 3D supports Level system Of Detail (abbr. LOD), the essence of which is that at a far distance from the player, highly detailed models are replaced with less detailed ones, and vice versa, as well as the Occlusion culling system, the essence of which is that objects that are not in the field of view The camera does not visualize geometry and collision, which reduces the load on the central processor and allows you to optimize the project. When compiling a project, an executable (.exe) file of the game (for Windows) is created, and in a separate folder - the game data (including all game levels and dynamic link libraries).

The engine supports many popular formats, such as:

3ds,.max,.obj,.fbx,.dae,.ma,.mb for three-dimensional models;

Mp3, .wmv, .ogg for sound files;

Bmp,.gif,.png,.tga,.psd,.tif,.dds for images;

Mov,.ovg for video files.

Models, sounds, textures, materials, scripts can be packaged in the .unityassets format and transferred to other developers, or uploaded to Free access. The same format is used in the internal Unity Asset Store, in which developers can share various elements needed when creating games for free or for money. To use the Unity Asset Store, you must have a Unity developer account. Unity has all the necessary components to create multiplayer. You can also use a version control method that suits the user. For example, Tortoise SVN or Source Gear.

However, Unity requires quite a bit of preparation and it will be very difficult for a beginner to create a game alone on such an engine. Therefore, engines were created that do not require programming at all, where everything rests on the choice of properties of objects, such as Construct 2

But it is very, very limited, because... You cannot set properties other than those provided.

Nevertheless, the following engine provides complete possibilities for developing 2-D games without restrictions on specified properties, while maintaining relative ease of use - Game Maker

Game Maker

Game Maker: Studio is one of the most famous game designers. Written in Delphi. Available for Windows OS, version 7 of the program also existed in a version for Mac. Lead developer: Mark Overmars.

The system is designed primarily for creating two-dimensional (2D) games of any genre. Also suitable for creating various presentations, etc. Starting from version 6, a limited ability to work with 3D has appeared.

Game Maker is distributed under Shareware terms, free version is limited in functionality, and when you launch games compiled in it, the program logo is displayed.

However, Game Maker Studio, after registering and updating to the Standard version (Free), has almost no restrictions and does not show the studio logo when starting the game.

Creating a game in Game Maker does not require prior knowledge of any programming language.

The Game maker interface combines editors for sprites, objects, rooms, scripts, as well as timelines (sequences of time-bound actions) and paths (routes) of movement.

A game in Game maker is built as a set of game objects. For their appearance sprites respond, and behavior is specified by describing reactions to events. To do this, you can use a graphical representation of programs (close to flowcharts) in the form of a sequence of action icons. Programming using actions occurs in drag-n-drop mode. For example, to start a conditional statement, you would drag an octagon with an icon indicating the type of test to the action bar, and then perhaps enter some values into the form that appears. For more advanced users, there is a GML scripting language similar to JavaScript, and it is possible to create your own action libraries using Library Maker.

The concept of an object in GameMaker basically corresponds to the concept of a class in object-oriented programming; objects can inherit from each other. Instances of objects can be placed in the game space using the room editor, or created dynamically. If there is only one instance of an object in the current room, it can be accessed using the generic name of the object, class, but if there are several such instances, to access a specific instance we must know its numeric identifier, using it as a reference to the object.

GML includes facilities for loading and using external dynamic libraries, allowing Game Maker to be extended with procedures and functions written in other languages. External DLLs, together with gml binding, can be compiled into a GameMaker extension package.

This engine has a number of advantages and disadvantages:

Cross-platform;

Own simplified language programming Game Maker Language (GML);

Integration with Steam;

Support for many online platforms out of the box (Developer Services Portal);

Poorly optimized for large games;

Despite the ability to work with 3D, it is extremely inconvenient in Game Maker;

Game Maker Language (GML) itself has a number of noticeable shortcomings, which, however, will not hinder novice developers.

My project

The project I am developing belongs to the category of action RPG, but in fact it is a preparation for bigger game which should take at least an hour to complete. The current version of the game of the project is assessed by me as a basis, that is, there are all the necessary elements to create a game, and all that remains is to fill the game with content. Next, we will show how the following elements are implemented: inventory, enemy behavior, assigning simple functions to objects, and so on.

Inventory

The inventory is not registered directly, but through the link - “event - the “i” key is pressed” - “action - execute the script”.

The following script is used for it:

if global.dubina=true dub="#Dubina" else dub=""

if global.kinzhal=true kin="#Dagger" else kin=""

if npc.mission=2 mis="#Milk" else mis=""

menu=show_message_ext("Weapon: "+string(global.oruzhie)+"#Level: "+string(global.level)+"#Experience: "+string(global.xp)+"#Available: "+string( dub)+string(kin)

String(mis),,"Weapon","","Exit")

(if global.dubina=true dub="Dubina" else dub=""

if global.kinzhal=true kin="Dagger" else kin=""oruzh=show_menu_pos(300,300,"Fists|"+string(dub)+"|"+string(kin),-1)

if oruzh=0 global.oruzhie=""

if oruzh=1 and dub="Club" global.oruzhie="Club"

if oruzh=2 and kin="Dagger" global.oruzhie="Dagger"

"global." command in this case, it is used to access all objects at once. Line - "menu=show_message_ext("Weapon: "+string(global.oruzhie)+"#Level: "+string(global.level)+"#Experience: "+string(global.xp)+"#Available:" +string(dub)+string(kin)"

serves to reflect experience. “oruzh” is a specified operator, in this case responsible for the amount of damage dealt by the hero, depending on the values of this operator, which change after a certain event, in this case the presence of one of the items in the inventory.

Moving

It is carried out as follows - the LMB click event is given and the action occurs - the creation of the “way” object according to the following script:

« with (way) instance_destroy()

instance_create(mouse_x,mouse_y,way)

move_towards_point(mouse_x,mouse_y,5)"

That is, the hero is given a movement towards an object - “way”. If the hero is at a distance of less than 5 units, then the object is destroyed.

"if distance_to_object(way)<5 {speed=0 with(way)instance_destroy()}

image_angle=direction""

In fact, the direction is set by the following part of the script: “image_angle=direction”, that is, the image is the direction of movement.

Fireball

In this case, 3 objects are involved - the hero, the enemy and the fireball itself. Each of the 3 objects has its own script, which is triggered according to the principle “event - RMB key pressed” - “action - execute script”

For the hero who sets the event, the script looks like this:

"if global.mana>=30 (global.mana-=30 instance_create(x,y,fireball))"

What is noteworthy is that the concept of mana is already built into the GML language and does not need to be described. The “instance_create” action is standard and can serve as an event.

The same chain is then triggered for the fireball object. In this case, the event was the creation of a fireball, and the action was the movement along a given trajectory.

The enemy becomes the 3rd object. For him, an event, along the same chain, becomes a collision with a fireball object, the action will be the instant destruction of the fireball object and a change in the “heal” indicator by 50 units. This indicator is already built into the language along with its synonyms.

Items recovery

The objects themselves work quite simply according to the “event-action” scheme. In this case, the event becomes a collision with the hero and subsequent action aimed at the hero object. For an object to restore health, the script looks like this: “health+=40 ;instance_destroy()” to restore mana is similar, only with changing “health” to “mana”.

Behavior enemies

It is described quite simply - if the distance to the object is less than 300 units. then start moving towards him. If an event occurs - a hero’s collision, then execute the script: “health-=1; other.speed=0", where the “health” indicator is the damage inflicted by the enemy on the hero, and “speed” is the speed of damage, in this case the “0” indicator means that in 1 one second the action will be performed 1 time, then eat gradually.

If a hero performs an event - LMB is pressed on an enemy, and the hero is at a distance of less than 5 units, then damage will be dealt to the enemy. The following script is responsible for everything:

hero.image_speed=1

if distance_to_object(hero)<5{

if global.oruzhie="Fists" heal-=10

if global.oruzhie="Club" heal-=20

if global.oruzhie="Dagger" heal-=40).

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