FIFE - a next generation Fallout-like engine, Feedback appreciated Options

[mvBarracuda]

This is my first post here so I hope this is the right part of the forums for this kind of discussion.

Fact sheet:
License: Open source GPL 2.0
Platforms: Win32, Linux, Mac
Libs: SDL, OpenGL, boost (and some more)
Suited for: all kind of isometric 2D games
Costs: Free

About FIFE:
FIFE stands for Flexible Isometric Fallout-like Engine. Just like the name of our project suggests we work on a new open source engine for all kinds of isometric games. The people working on it got a RPG background but it should be possible to customize the engine so it even works for other ISO games like RTS. The engine started as a Fallout-only project but we recognized very fast that it offers the potential to be used as a general 2d ISO engine for the development of cross platform RPGs.

Why FIFE?
Half-life 1 revolutionized PC gaming back in 1998. The most important part of Half-life wasn't the great game with the story but the engine behind it IMHO. HL1 was the first game that offered good modding support combined with a company that provided useful tools to support the new growing modding community. Today there are a bunch of good open source 3D engines out there like Ogre or Irrlicht. However there are several problems:
1. These are mostly GFX engines. That means they focus on gfx code while they provide just few code that is needed to make a fully working game with them.
2. More important: they've been made for the creation of 3D applications. But unfortunately there is no flexible 2D ISO engine (that I know) that is comparable to what Ogre and Irrlicht are for 3D games.

So our aim is to "revolutionize" 2D ISO games as HL1 did it with 3D games quite some years ago. We want to create a platform for the creation of isometric games that all indie developers can use for their games so they don't need to create something from scratch. We focus on good modding abilities so we'll bundle the engine with an easy to use and full featured editor tool called FIFEdit.

The advantage over other engines is that FIFE is meant to become a full game engine. So we don't only provide 2d gfx code for the rendering but also feature code that allows the modders to easily script game logic. FIFE supports SDL & OpenGL rendering modes and is uses different open source cross platform libraries. This way the engine and the editor (that uses Qt4) will run on Win32, Linux and Macintosh. So we can ensure that game developers can easily provide their games as FIFE mods that run all kind of platforms without needing to care about writing cross platform code themselves.

Our editor will support a plugin system so you can easily add new features that are needed for specific kind of games; e.g. RPGs or RTS games.

The current status of the project:
The FIFE project is about 9 months in development now and we have released three public pre-alpha versions of the engine on sourceforge / freshmeat in January and May 2006.

The gfx part of the engine is the most "mature" one at the moment. The rendering code is encapsulated well with a "renderbackend" approach; so you can easily work on the OpenGL part of the renderer without being afraid of breaking something on the SDL side. Our coders are currently working on the map model to be able to integrate some first game logic code later. You can already script a GUI using lua code; lua will be used as scripting language for all game logic too.

The second part of the team is working on the new FIFE editor FIFEdit. The design phase has been just completed and the work on the code started. You can view the design document with all planned features for FIFEdit here:
FIFEdit design document

You can also already access Fallout 1 / 2 .dat archives and display maps, view animations and listen to the original .acm sound files. But I guess this information is just important for the Fallout fans here. The Fallout maps just serve as example implementation to show what's already possible.

Intention of this post:
We would like to know what you think about our idea of a flexible isometric engine that focuses on modding abilities. Do you think this concept will work out or isn't it worth the hassle? Are there other projects that want to achieve something similar? Do you think that our engine is worth being used later or is it easier to create an engine from scratch for indie teams that plan to create ISO games?

Are there ISO fans out here that really like the idea and want to support us working on the engine? What kind of features would be really needed to make this engine attractive? Which parts of our design documents are well worked out and what's missing? Feedback is really appreciated )
FIFE design documents

More information:
FIFE help wanted thread @ Gamedev
FIFE homepage
FIFE development wiki
FIFE screenshot section

Screenshots:
These screenshots were taken using FIFE with the original maps from Fallout 1 / 2. You'll need a valid copy of the Fallout games to load and display these maps; FIFE doesn't come bundled with copyrighted material!

[Shadowstrider]

I have only one criticism, at the moment; the name. Please do not call it FIFE. That is the name of a sissy dog.

Other than that this looks interesting. I'll have to look into it more when I have some time.

[Tigranes]

How easy will it be to create things in this engine? Inevitably, comparing it to the Fallout 2 Editor:

-> Is placeable placement (heh) any different, and if so, how? That was a big pain in Fallout, and very time-consuming.

-> And scripting. How user-friendly will it be, and how much coding experience would one need?

I assume, after all, that there are some significant changes here, otherwise it would just be a repackaging and a graphics engine, which you said it is not.

(and is it polish? )

[karka]

Man, this looks great. I was thinking to code my own SDL-Based 2d game engine to use with my "totally amateur" game project. You've saved me.

One question.. Is it possible to make commercial products with FIFE?

[mvBarracuda]

I have only one criticism, at the moment; the name.  Please do not call it FIFE.  That is the name of a sissy dog.

We actually found "FIFE" really cool. An easy to remember name and quite unique )

How easy will it be to create things in this engine? Inevitably, comparing it to the Fallout 2 Editor:

-> Is placeable placement (heh) any different, and if so, how? That was a big pain in Fallout, and very time-consuming.

-> And scripting. How user-friendly will it be, and how much coding experience would one need?

I assume, after all, that there are some significant changes here, otherwise it would just be a repackaging and a graphics engine, which you said it is not.

(and is it polish? )

The main problem was that the FO2 editor just supported 640*480 px. You can't really get a good map overview with such a low res. You'll be able to run FIFEdit with 1920*1440 and even higher (if your gfx card and your display does support it).

We'll try to make the editor as easily usable as possible. You should consider participating in the FIFEdit beta test to help improve the editor once we've released a first version:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=FIFEdit_beta_test

Scripting will be done with LUA. If you're familiar with basic programming principles, learning the needed parts of LUA will be a cake IMHO. You won't be able to create FIFE mods without learning at least some LUA basics; there are other newbie-friendly solutions that offer the creation of RPGs without scripts but we feel that this approach takes away a lot of flexibility just to make it easier for the lazy guys.

FIFE scripting will be totally different to Fallout scripting and all in all the whole engine will be totally different. You CAN use FIFE for Fallout-like mods but our aim is to create an engine that is suitable for for all kind of 2D ISO RPGs.

And no: we're not from Poland, at least not all of us. The team is pretty international though quite a bunch of developers are from Germany (including me); but to make you happy: we've got a Polish gfx coder on the team )

Man, this looks great. I was thinking to code my own SDL-Based 2d game engine to use with my "totally amateur" game project. You've saved me.

One question.. Is it possible to make commercial products with FIFE?

It's possible in theory but this is giving us some headaches. The problem is that we're using the GPL license. That means if you create a game based on FIFE and modify the C++ sourcecode, you would need to offer your sourcecode for download. But your media files (scripts, videos, audio files, maps, etc.) will still be copyrighted.

That means you could create a FIFE based game and sell it without any problems. But we don't know if this is really likely. I've never heard about an open source game engine that has been picked up by a big publisher. So let's see how it evolves.

[Judge Hades]

This looks really kickarse. Kudos to you, man.

[J.E. Sawyer]

This looks like a great start. I hope to have more comments tonight.

[@\Nightandt...]

Total Man hours invested in the projects development?

[mvBarracuda]

Total Man hours invested in the projects development?

A lot /

I haven't counted the endless hours our coders put into the project but I can say that I'm (as project manager) working about 10-15 hours a week on it. And we're far from being finished. We're around for 9 months now and I thought that we start to get into a state where FIFE can be shown to a bigger audience.

We hope to have the editor beta version ready in about 3 months; that would be around the first project birthday ) We're currently working on the map model code to be able to integrate scripting as next step. We've already added some map geometry code to allow modders setting up their own maps that are different to the ones from Fallout. So you can support diamond-shaped tiles like in FO: Tactics or the normal FO tiles. You could even support totally different tiles; that's why it is called Flexible Isometric Fallout-like Engine.

We're still in the need of new developers to push FIFE forward. So if any of the Obsidian devs reads this and suddenly fell in love with the idea, feel free to contribute to this project )

The sourcecode can be found in our SVN public SVN repository, you can even browse it online:
https://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engin...core/src/engine

[Tigranes]

And different sizes of tiles? Height recognition of any form (e.g. for combat bonuses)?

[mvBarracuda]

And different sizes of tiles? Height recognition of any form (e.g. for combat bonuses)?

It's hard to imagine for me how different tile sizes on one map should work. But we're thinking about supporting large painted background like the Infinity Engine games offered.

We haven't really decided about the height level support yet. ATM we're trying to work out a map model with just one elevation. But as one of our lead coders is a huge Diablo 2 fan, we'll think about a way to support height differences later. ATM it's just important that we design the map class flexible so we can add support for height levels later.

But these kind of advanced features often depend on the number of devs which got time to work on them. ATM we're lacking the resources to bring this into FIFE but let's see what happens in the next months )

[Darque]

This looks really cool

I agree the name needs a little work though.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Oh, we sure could have used something like this for our winter project :(



( Trying to create a 2D isometric adventure game using Flash is a BAD idea )

[Pidesco]

Most impressive. Keep up the good work.

Also, I assume this can be used to play Fallout at higher resolutions. Is this true?


One thing I'd like to do with this would be a Jagged Alliance type of game.

[Darque]

One thing I'd like to do with this would be a Jagged Alliance type of game.