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When I discuss IndieZen with family, friends and fellow independent game developers, the most common question I get is "What exactly is IndieZen?" Hopefully I can answer this in 100 words or less. First, let me be up front with you. IndieZen is still under development. It probably will not go live until March 2009. I am extremely excited because almost daily I make progress and get ever so closer to the elusive freedom and independence we all are striving to achieve. IndieZen is still a dream, but every week if not every day I spend long hard hours programming and planning, making the dream come true. If you're interested, follow the Developer Blogs on this website to track progress and get more detailed information on the development status. IndieZen is a community for independent game developers. I hope to make IndieZen.com be the place to meet up with other developers, share and combine resource and make great games. IndieZen Game Studio To make best use of the community, when it becomes available you should grab a copy of the IndieZen Game Studio. This integrated game development environment provides you with everything you need to create a game, other than of course the desire, skills and creativity. You must provide those features yourself. IndieZen Game Studio makes game development easier for everyone. Programmers get full context sensitive editors, syntax colorizing, auto-completion, source refactoring, debugging, etc for your languages of choice (C++, Java, Python, LUA, Cg, GLSL). Non-programmers can still create games with graphical drag-and-drop of game features, behaviors, actions, actors and events. 3d Modeling with sculpting, morphing, animation, skinning, etc has never been made easier. An inexperienced modeler can create a complex model with textures, animations and multiple levels of detail and export to a game engine in a matter of minutes. With the auto-LOD generation, you no longer have to worry about how many polygons you're using. And with the automated texture baking with ambient occlusion, normal mapping, and subsurface scattering, your low-poly models will look as beautiful and as professional as your high-poly models. ...and much much more. You won't have to purchase another piece of software to create a game. Period. Check out the Products section on this website for more information. IndieZen is a Game Engine Framework. "Framework? What's the difference between a game engine and a game engine framework?" A game engine is a fully functional, complete game engine designed for a particular type of game. A game engine framework is a generalized implementation of a game engine that can be used to put together a game engine of any type. It is indeed more difficult to use a framework, and increased complexity comes with the increased flexibility. To overcome this hurdle, the IndieZen Game Engine Framework will come with the source code and complete documentation on several game engines created using the framework. As a licensed IndieZen developer, you can use any and all of these game engines as examples on how to create your own game engine. IndieZen is a Collection of Game Development Resources. These resources are the building blocks for creating games. IndieZen resource include game engine components, 3d models, animations, textures, scripts, etc. The base set of resources are included with the IndieZen Game Studio. You can create additional resources if you want. The resources you create are yours to keep. Use them in your own games, share them with the community if you desire, or even put them up for sale. IndieZen is a Resource Store. Most indie game developers cannot create a game alone, but due to economics, starving artists and the difficulty of sharing coding resources, it's difficult for game developers to come together and pool their resources. Coding resources on other web-sites tend to require coding knowledge in order to use them. The same is mostly true of 3d models. No other website even attempts to provide ways of securely sharing game designs. With IndieZen, I intend to solve many of these difficulties. Coding resources are packaged as plugins and components and used directly by the game engine framework. No coding is required to use the resources. Artwork resource sharing isn't as difficult to solve. You can purchase base models, add hair, morphs, animations, clothing, props, etc. All of the models available at the IndieZen store consists of models that are compatible with the automated LOD generation and they are ready and licensed for games. In Conclusion That was definitely over 100 words, and that still doesn't even scratch the surface of what IndieZen is. Let me try once more: IndieZen - The ultimate resource for indie game developers. |
