Spark Game Engine

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  • I just found this game engine yesterday. It's not released yet, but you can sign up for the beta.

    http://spark.tools/

    I'm not talking against C2, but I'd like to ask your opinion about Spark Engine (not similar with Microsoft's Project Spark). What do you think about it?

    For me, it sounds a bit too good to be true. I mean, cross-platform engine and editor? Visual or code programming? Multiplayer with your own custom built server? 2D and 3D games? Native code exports for all platforms? And all that (and more) just after release?

  • I also find that suspicious...

    First: all the platforms listed, natively, without break, in beta, with all those features listed... either scam or promesses that will not be fulfilled, or will take a lot of time to fulfill.

    Second: HTML5, Flash, and natives, what is wrong with them? sounds like "OMG WE HAVE EVERITHIN", first: if they have html5, they already have multiplatform, ok, for some reason they could prefer native I'll admit, but flash..? Flash? Flash? pointless.

    "The spark editor has been made with spark": would love to see if it works really in a browser then, also "has been made", I though it was beta.

    Scripting + behaviors + events sheets

    Last time I saw an editor combining events and scripting, everyone went for the scripting when the events were not working, thus bugs were never corrected.

    Use powerful physics: would love to see that working in a browser too, just to see.

    Maybe legit, but seems more like ideas....

  • I don't know. It's a web app, it does everything, for everyone, etc?

    Uhmm...

  • subscribed....let's wait...

  • Thanks for the video alvarop , it describes the basics of the engine. Sadly it doesn't include the event editor view.

    Under the video, one of the developers says that they expect to reach beta stage in 4-6 months (from now).

    They plan to release 4 or 5 packages (one for free with basic features) for the developers. I hope that they don't want to follow YoYoGames' example.

    Also, the engine uses XML for scripting.

    I guess this is their current offical forum: http://nakedgameplay.com/forum/spark-game-engine

    If you want to help their work, you can fill out this survey I just found: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WHTG6CL%C2%A0

  • The website gamep.co is registered to the guy on the bottom of the page but it is not up. I think it might be ok but would still be careful.

    His facebook page https://www.facebook.com/people/Aris-Ko ... 6095805405 is pretty lifeless.

    His other businesses like Swift Ebook Studio seams to be a no go.

    It could just be a startup thingy. Unless they start asking for money I would say sign up with a spam account.

    Just my 2 cents.

  • I found in one of the comments on their forum that we can expect an alpha version (or something like that) in a month to play with. We'll see.

  • Hello,

    The developer of Spark Engine, Aris Kostakos, tried to answer to all your questions but wasn't able to due to his low account reputation(wasn't able to post links and stuff).

    He then approached me and sent me a text file containing his reply:

    "Hello everyone!

    I'm Aris Kostakos, the developer of the Spark Game Engine. This thread has been brought to my attention today so I thought I'd take the chance to join the forums and introduce myself and our team.

    Spark is indeed a start-up company originally conceived by me and Theodora Kapsalis about 2 years ago. We've recently completed our first round of funding which allowed us to grow our company to 3 people:).

    I'd like to start by saying that Spark is a sincere effort on a new way for building games. I've been using tools to create games my whole life (Amos, Klik & Play, Multimedia Fusion, 3D Game Studio, Unity) but a couple of years back I really felt I could do one better, so we set off trying to create the game engine of our dreams. If you're interested in finding out more on how we started and more technical details about how Spark works, there's a

    Subscribe to Construct videos now

    I gave to the Greek game community a couple of months ago. It's about 25 mins long; make sure to turn on the English subtitles.

    Since I'm here I'd like to talk a bit about Construct. I love it. I was actually around the Multimedia Fusion's forums when Ashley was still a game developer there. The event-sheet idea of MMF was brilliant, but the engine behind it was getting old. Portability to other platforms wasn't much of a thing when MMF was conceived, and Clickteam started struggling making native ports to support all the new platforms. Construct provided the solution by re-building the same concept on javascript while also fixing many of the other annoyances related to MMF2 at the time. Very often I'm approached by game developers who are eager to start developing their idea right away and happen to find our landing page. If they're developing a 2D game I will usually re-direct them to construct. If they need 3D, I say buckle up and start learning Unity or if they're too young I'll direct them to Roblox or Blockland. But to me, Unity and Construct are currently the two go-to game engines.

    So, about your questions on Spark..

    [quote:b97mo760]For me, it sounds a bit too good to be true. I mean, cross-platform engine and editor? Visual or code programming? Multiplayer with your own custom built server? 2D and 3D games? Native code exports for all platforms? And all that (and more) just after release?

    Dream engine . But yes, it's all possible. It's a combination of making the right technology choices and taking advantage of well established open-source libraries. That, along with the fact of the rapid technological advances lately (mobile phones with hardware acceleration, huge browser improvements, loads of cross-platform solutions) and it actually makes sense.

    Very briefly:

    cross-platform engine and editor: Spark is created with Haxe. It can re-compile itself to native code, or code wrapped in VMs. The editor is cross-platform because it's made using Spark.

    Visual or code programming: This is nothing new. But we're very proud of our Data Separation approach of doing this. You can read about it on the presentation I mentioned above.

    Multiplayer with your own custom built server: The server uses nodejs and can be programmable with Spark, like you program your clients. We offer a free cloud service to host your servers with 1-click, and we're using a great open source library called Pomelo, to help us with the inner nightmare that is networking.

    2D and 3D games: Software/Hardware accelerated 2D rendering is done by Flambe. 3D uses Away3D/AwayJS. If you have some time to burn, check out my blog post about 2D and 3D games..

    Native code exports for all platforms: No, we don't say that. You'll be able to export your game for a specific platform or store with 1-click, but code will not always be native. We're starting by targeting javascript and actionscript only. Both have great VMs for many platforms.

    And all that (and more) just after release: Yes, all of the above have already been implemented. We've been working full time (I should actually say, 12-18 hours a day) for a year and a half. But we have a lot of work to do still for the editors, and keep adding more features before we can release something.

    [quote:b97mo760]Second: HTML5, Flash, and natives, what is wrong with them? sounds like "OMG WE HAVE EVERITHIN", first: if they have html5, they already have multiplatform, ok, for some reason they could prefer native I'll admit, but flash..? Flash? Flash? pointless.

    As long as Zynga is still using flash-powered games, flash will be alive. The game development community of flash is much more established, and right now it greatly outweights the html5 game community. But the biggest reason for targeting actionscript is actually not flash but AIR. Imho, Stage3D>WebGL and for all the js wrappers out there, nothing can compete with AIR. So, the idea here is, build for js for your html5 games, but when going to target iOS or Android, give the Air build a try because it should run faster than your phonegap/cocoon/crosswalk build. But we can still support both options by keeping our codebase written in Haxe.

    [quote:b97mo760]Use powerful physics: would love to see that working in a browser too, just to see.

    2D physics is powered by Nape. 3D by Bullet. Take a look at these beautiful Nape examples that you can try on the browser.

    [quote:b97mo760]I hope that they don't want to follow YoYoGames' example.

    What do you mean by this? We'd love feedback on the pricing model. Not our major concern right now, but it will be pretty soon. One thing I know for sure, the free version will be pretty capable.

    [quote:b97mo760]the engine uses XML for scripting.

    Actually, you can write your code in Haxe. The xml is a supplement to make things easier when coding and allow for data separation. Think html+javascript or mxml+actionscript but for your entire game, not just GUI stuff. I talk a bit about this on the presentation video I mentioned earlier.

    [quote:b97mo760]His other businesses like Swift Ebook Studio seams to be a no go.

    Wow, you really did your research . A publishing house in Greece is using Swift Ebook Studio and has published more than 70 ebooks with it already. Swift ebook studio is what allowed us to quit our day jobs and start working on Spark in the first place.

    I think that's everything. If you want to give the engine a try, subscribe for the beta which is scheduled for around June. For the Alpha next month, we've kept that more private. It will have limited functionality and it's meant more for people that really want to help with the engine than start developing games with it. If that's you, then subscribe for the Beta, then send an e-mail to including the e-mail that you used when you subscribed and a note that you want to join the Alpha."

  • Looks nice to play around with, signed for Beta!

  • I understand better the actionscript support, it makes more sense (I really though it was native too, that was what surprised me, but if it is not, it makes sense.), too bad the physic exemples does not work without flash as I won't be able to saw it working until february (unless I saw it wrong, which may be the case), but time has passed since my post and I am more curious than implicated so no worries, my opinion is not based on actual precise research but about feelings and my experience (which is not directly tied to this).

  • Thank you for clearing things up.

    [quote:1a9ox730]I hope that they don't want to follow YoYoGames' example.

    What do you mean by this? We'd love feedback on the pricing model. Not our major concern right now, but it will be pretty soon. One thing I know for sure, the free version will be pretty capable.

    I mean, that YoYoGames only allowed their keys to be activated 2-3 times. Not sure if that's still the case. Lot's of the C2 users love that you can use C2 (or even activate your license) completely offline. That is a good feature in my eyes. Not to mention the pricing modell YoYoGames uses. For a beginner studio to start developing games for Android the $99 pro version + $199 Android export module is a bit expensive. C2 may not be the cheapest option in visual game developing for desktop, but as soon as you see the supported export platforms it becomes a great deal (as far as I know, the best deal on the market).

    And if you ok with that, I'd also have a few suggestions:

    • Start your own forum very soon. The current one is a bit off and is hard to find.
    • Post updates to your website. Nowadays the users seem to be interested in the promising project's alpha stage too. It would do very good for your engine to let users know that it's still a living and constantly developing project.
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  • I'll give it another shot posting myself. I won't post links this time so hopefully it will work.

    [quote:1dn0fyer]time has passed since my post and I am more curious than implicated so no worries, my opinion is not based on actual precise research but about feelings and my experience (which is not directly tied to this).

    No worries, I know what you mean. Many people promising all sorts of things on the internet . A landing page cannot be held credible by itself. We'll release more when we have more.

    glerikud, thanks for the GM's licensing info. I agree it doesn't make too much sense.

    [quote:1dn0fyer]And if you ok with that, I'd also have a few suggestions:

    • Start your own forum very soon. The current one is a bit off and is hard to find.
    • Post updates to your website. Nowadays the users seem to be interested in the promising project's alpha stage too. It would do very good for your engine to let users know that it's still a living and constantly developing project.

    A website + forum are underway.

    Thanks,

    Aris

  • A website + forum are underway.

    Awesome. Looking forward to it

  • One more question...will it be Windows only or will there be a Mac version?

  • Beaverlicious it was said that the engine was made with the engine (sounds inception to me), soit should run on multiple platform as well.

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