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List of game frameworks, libraries to use in 2021 and beyond?
ddabrahim:
Hi.
I'm new to Lazarus and I was wondering what are my options if I wanted to make desktop and mobile games.
I've seen the list on the wiki but many of the projects are dead, haven't been updated for years.
https://wiki.freepascal.org/Portal:Game_Development
I did find the following worth considering as they were recently updated:
Castle Game Engine
https://castle-engine.io
ApusGameEngine
https://github.com/Cooler2/ApusGameEngine
New-ZenGL
https://github.com/Seenkao/New-ZenGL
Phoenix Game Framework
https://github.com/GuvaCode/PGF
Ray4Laz (Raylib binding)
https://github.com/GuvaCode/Ray4Laz
Allegro.pas (Allegro binding)
https://github.com/niuniomartinez/allegro-pas
PascalTileEngine (TileEngine wrapper)
https://github.com/turric4n/PascalTileEngine
So I was wondering if is there any other less known framework, library, binding or wrapper that is worth considering in 2021 and beyond?
Not that I am not happy with the options above, just wondering what else is hiding out there that is actively developed and well documented before I make my choice.
I'm also happy to hear your experiences, which one would you and would you not recommend and why.
Thanks.
PierceNg:
There is libretro: http://www.libretro.com/
* Very simple Pascal Pong implementation: https://github.com/libretro/libretro-samples/tree/master/lang/pascal
* Lazarus project template: https://github.com/tednilsen/Libretro-FPCBoth built and ran with RetroArch on my Ubuntu 20.04 x86_64.
The project template is a bit wonky, with Lazarus not recognizing the generated .lpi as a proper project file. Just needed some minor fixes. No game example, only a static-ish demo showing how to take input and update screen using libretro. But with libretro it is possible to get hints from games implemented in other languages.
trev:
See that Game Development Portal on the See the Wiki.
ddabrahim:
Thank you for the suggestion.
As I mentioned the list on the game dev portal is full of dead projects haven't been updated for many years. I would much prefer something that is active as of today, and the ones I listed above are the ones seems to be more alive.
Libretro is interesting though I'm not sure if I like the idea to make games to run inside some sort of VM or Emulator. But I'll consider it.
I can see the game dev portal also mention Lazarus TCanvas as a solution. Wondering how crazy the idea would be to make my own animated sprites, tiled sprites using TCanvas. But then still need a way to playback audio and not sure about keyboard and joystick input.
Eugene Loza:
--- Quote from: ddabrahim on October 17, 2021, 01:13:45 pm ---I can see the game dev portal also mention Lazarus TCanvas as a solution. Wondering how crazy the idea would be to make my own animated sprites, tiled sprites using TCanvas. But then still need a way to playback audio and not sure about keyboard and joystick input.
--- End quote ---
Quite a few years ago I've made one game with TCanvas, unfortunately it's very slow to render. Got like 5-10 FPS on a tiled map (first of all because I rendered "smoke" as dozens of randomized short lines), luckily the game was turn-based, so I didn't really care about the FPS.
I'm not sure about sounds - very long time ago I think I had a successful experience with https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Multimedia_Programming#BASS in Delphi. But that was too long ago to remember for sure.
Now using Castle Game Engine and don't bother about those issues :D
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