Suggested platform/tools for rapid game development and game prototyping

Question

What platforms and tools should I use for rapid game development and prototyping?

Say that I have an idea for a simple game or a game mechanic that I want to try out, what are the best tools for quickly creating something playable that I can experiment with to try out the idea?

The platform does not necessarily have to be easy to learn, that is not the issue, but once learned it has to be quick to use.

Solution 1

Flash or Game Maker for 2D games. Unity for 3D games.

Solution 2

Pygame is worth a try, mainly because it is possible to use a high-level programming language like Python to structure the game.

See What do you use for game dev ?

Solution 3

Have you investigated Microsoft's XNA platform?

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/default.aspx

• http://www.xna.com/

• http://creators.xna.com/en-US/

Solution 4

I like index cards and a sharpie.

Solution 5

If platform independence is a consideration, you might want to check out the jMonkeyEngine. It is a scene graph based 3D engine written in Java.

public class HelloWorld extends SimpleGame{
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  HelloWorld app = new HelloWorld(); // Create Object
  // Signal to show properties dialog
  app.setConfigShowMode(ConfigShowMode.AlwaysShow);
  app.start(); // Start the program
 }
 protected void simpleInitGame() {
  // Make a box
  Box b = new Box("Mybox", new Vector3f(0,0,0), new Vector3f(1,1,1));
  rootNode.attachChild(b); // Put it in the scene graph
 }
}

That bit of code is all you need to start displaying 3D primitives on the screen. This example has a lot of basic functionality built in for you, including camera control, WASD movement and comprehensive performance stats. You can of course override all of this and do anything you would like.

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Comments

[lacop]

I used XNA in game development competition and it was very easy to use and create a game in short time. +1

[Dmitry]

It's my favorite game prototyping framework! I would like to add that it's an opensource and cross platform engine (unlike Game Maker) and it has built-in API for Box2D physics engine (so you can build your own Angry Birds with blackjack and other stuff :)