Game Salad is an authoring tool, which is a system designed for general users to create content for intelligent tutoring systems. Another visual skill used in 2D games is ‘Isometric Perspective which is a view point of 38 degrees to give the illusion of a 3D environment. I have had the opportunity to overlook the development of a 2D game and can say that scales and layers will help depict the scene in various ways.

Something you may not have heard of is the ‘Z Order’, It is similar to the Z axis featured in 3D engines in the sense it’s used for the same purpose to add depth. However the difference of how it is used is to change the order/position of an image or object that is on the Z axis, this aids a popular skill used in many 2D games called ‘layering’. To give a right impression of height, width and depth of a solid object on a two dimensional surface. However you can create objects that look 3D but are actually 2D and this is what call perspective. 3D and 2D engines are very similar in terms of there functionality, apart from the obvious difference that 2D engines can only render 2D graphics. For example ‘Bionic Commando Rearmed’ is a side scroller but uses 3D graphics to portray more depth to the game, therefore this was created in a 3D engine but using a side scroller view. When talking about 2D games people are often confused to find out that it isn’t just perspective, when looking at popular side scrollers such as Mario and Sonic. Havok is a stand alone physics engine that can be licensed out to developers to aid the game. Below I am going to talk about one of each type in more detail.ĢD Engine – 2D in mathematical and gaming terms is a flat image that has only two dimensions. Some engines however focus on specific features in games that aren’t done well in ‘general’ game engines E.g.

The engine is also responsible for such things as Physics, Artificial Intelligence, collisions and particle effects.

One of the main features of a game engine is to be able to render 2D or 3D graphics in real time, bringing the developers idea onto the big screen. They usually fall under four categories 2D (Game Maker, Game Salad etc.), 3D (Unreal Engine, Quake & ID Tech 4 etc.), Mobile (Battery Tech, Cinder etc.) and Game Mods (Garrys Mod & Geck). A game engine is a system that is made to aid the development and creation of video games.

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