project sparks is a simplified game engine on xbox ONE and pc.
Its more of a game about making games as you can be given a world already made in a mode called crossroads and you just pick what happens in the game. like where the village is, what happens to make you go on a quest and where to it is and who you have to defeat.
There is two other modes you can pick. One is to have a blank surface to build a whole world from scratch or another where you choose a type of landscape and texture. Then you can go into the world and edit it and add to.
You have tools to add rivers, mountins, trolls, bridges, buildings etc
You are able to resize and turn objects with the ability to glue them together to make one.
with all objects you are able to add a brain through scripts of koding that has been simplified from other forms from game engines (its kinda like Pseudo code), But if you don't want to do it yourself you can look at other creations and copy and paste scripts into your own world or use ones in the menus already made.
The interface is very similar to another game engine Kodu, a Microsoft game engine for indie games. Project sparks is made by a different company for Microsoft but they must of worked together for the most efficient lay out.
kodu
project sparks
The game works as both 3D and 2D game engines but requires some koding to make it 2D. People have been able to remake Fable 1 a huge 3d open world to limbo and Tetris two different types of 2D games.
project sparks is currently in Beta and I have been using it and I do like it. I have still got allot to learn before I make anything big, I have just been messing around with scripts and editing but theres still some problems and allot of the tools haven't been added yet.
i think its a great engine for a beginner who wants to get into this business to get a good feel of what it will be like but in a simplified way.
GameMaker
Game maker is a 2D game engine on pc and Mac.
it is free but is very limited unless you buy it.
So on the interface theres allot of different things. Theres the window to the right showing the game, a window to the left of it showing the options of whatever you are clicked on, to the very left theres the list of objects in your game, at the top you got some more tools and at the bottom you got some scripts.
The list of different objects.
Sprites - in the sprites you can make loads of different objects that are going to be in you game and animate them to come together later on as an object
Sounds - you can bring sounds like music and effects into the game, then later on add them st an object to be triggered at a certain point.
Backgrounds - you can add in images to use as backgrounds backgrounds which can just be dragged into you game.
Paths - this is were you can make a path for an object to follow
Scripts - this is where you can make you own scripts for a game using javascript
Fonts - this is where you you can make txt to add into your game for the menus and other stuff
Timelines - this is a timed event for something to happen like: in step 30 execute piece of code, which could be a cinematic or a movement
Objects - The objects is pretty much everything you see other than the background from your character to the ground beneath you.
this is where you bring all the sprites and put them together and add in the brains, physics and animations
Rooms - Rooms are the game levels and menus which can be linked together. you can make a room as big as you want and drag in objects backgrounds etc into the level and place them in the right spots
UNITY
This is a big engine used for allot
