Assignment 1: Unit 70 Game Engines

What Is a game Engine and what is its function?

A video game engine is software that allows someone making a game to program and create the game. 99% of games will have a game engine and they all vary vastly, but the basic principle is the same, it's there to run a game. it will handle the graphics, mechanics, models and almost everything else. You can also have effectively a mini engine inside the main engine that handles the physics in a game.
It handles things such as the graphics rendering, the AI (artificial intelligence), animation, systems and middle ware.

The graphics rendering an be one of the most important things in a video game because it determines how the game will look, the graphics rendering handles all the models, textures etc in a game and the better the rendering power, the better the game will look, though getting highly detailed graphics and textures requires a lot of processing power top achieve.
The AI handles things like NPC's in the game, like how they move, if they chase or run away from the player, basically how they behave. This includes everything such as animals, other people and enemies.
Animation systems are responsible for the movement of things, this includes everything, from trees moving to faces as the talk, running, walking, jumping, everything that requires something to move. It can be done manually though this is difficult or it can be done with real actors through mocap in order to give the characters more realistic human movement, which then works in conjuction with the rendering to make an immersive realistic experience. Middleware are just things that simplify the game development to make it easier for the devloper, these include physics engines such as Havok that handle the gravity, movement speed, momentum and other physics based things.

Examples

Creation Engine

The Creation engine is Bethesda's in house closed engine. A closed engine means only they can access and use it. The engine was created after the release of Fallout 3 in order for their next project, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, to look and play better than the companies previous titles, that ran on the GameBryo engine. The creation engine is itself based on the GameBryo engine but it can render better and has more graphical capabilities, as well as real time shadows and the ability to give more detail to distant objects. The engines initial release was with the release of Skyrim on November 11th 2011, and more recently has gone on to power Bethesda's latest title Fallout 4, though it has been heavily modified and now has better rendering, dynamic volumetric lighting and more advanced character creation.There has been an add on to the creation engine called the creation kit that allows players to mod the game, a version of the creation kit was released previously for Skyrim and more recently in April 2016 for Fallout 4.

Unreal Engine

The Unreal Engine was made by Epic Games in 1998 and has gone on to become one of the most successful game engines ever made. it is an open video game engine which means that anyone can download and use the engine for free, the company gets their money by taking royalty fees from games that are published using their engine. The first console game ever made with the unreal engine was Gears of War which was released in November 2006. Currently there are 4 versions with the most recent version 4 being released in 2016 and is compatible with next gen consoles and PC. It was used to power the Unreal Tournament games which made great advancements in online competitive games, a new Unreal Tournament is currently being made in the new Unreal 4 engine. From the start the engine was made with the ability to be improved and adapted over different generations, which it has certainly succeeded in, and a large amount of marketing has ensured that it is one of the most used and well known engines, used by new developers and big studios alike.  

Fox Engine

The fox Engine is a closed engine created by Kojima Productions for his Metal Gear Series primarily. It is named after the in game special forces unit Foxhound from Metal Gear. It began production in 2008 after the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 with the goal to create "the best engine in the world". Some of the games made using the fox Engine are Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. Kojima stated that the engine is very efficient and it allows them to make games in a shorter time frame. With the dissolution of Kojima productions the engine went to Konami who own the engine. While it was being made there was consideration for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the engine was designed primarily for use on the next gen and PC consoles. The graphical and game play capabilities of the Fox Engine are among the best ever seen as evidenced by the Metal Gear games and the unfortunately cancelled Silent Hills.   

Gamemaker

Game-maker is another example of an open game engine that is free to use but gets its money off royalty fees. It is an easy to use basic game engine designed to be used by first time game designers by using an easy to use drag and drop command sequence. It was published by YoYo games 16 years ago in November 1999. It primarily runs 2D games but it has a limited capability to run 3D games. Some games made with this include Spelunky and Hyper Light Drifter. It also supports particle effects such as rain or snow though this is also limited. It is also different to most engines because it runs with it's own scripting instead of the usual C++ that other engines such as game maker use, one of the reasons for it is that it makes it easier for first time game designers, which is who the software is aimed at. 





References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameMaker:_Studio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Engine
http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Fox_Engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Engine

Gaming Questionnaire/ Motivations

Gaming Motivation

I sort of agree with this chart, i agree with most of it except the social and immersion, I would personally say i am more social because i play games like Destiny with friends a lot and i love immersion because i play games such as Elder Scrolls and Dark Souls a lot which are meant to be as immersive as possible.

I think proper gamers as a whole are motivated by the desire for entertainment and to escape from the everyday world and immerse yourself in a game in order to enjoy yourself.  

Personally my preferred genre of video games are RPG games because i enjoy the freedom of an open world and making your own character, but i also enjoy online games such as Destiny and Overwatch because they are fun to play with friends.

Different people will obviously score differently on the chart because they have other preferred play styles and game preferences, and the chart cannot be totally accurate as there are other factors that it does not consider such as the variety of games you play or how often you play them. 

I think i compare abit differently to other people who play games such as Jack because he goes more for 100% completion on certain games and plays less socially then i do as he prefers playing alone most of the time. 

In most basic terms the thing that drives gamers is the desire to have fun, though there are also more specific things gamers enjoy. People enjoy action games for the fast paced, destructive, chaotic nature of them. these generally include fps shooters like Battlefield. Immersive games are mostly enjoyed by gamers that like to sit and play alone for long periods of time such as me, they enjoy the escapism an immersive game can give you, games such as this mostly include RPGs such as Skyrim or Dark Souls. Immersive games usually tie in very well with creative games because of character creation aspects, so people who play immersive games generally like creative games as well.

Achievement players mostly like playing games to unlock every secret and get all the achievements in a game in order to show off or for self fulfilment. 

Mastery gamers are the type that like to play a game until they become extremely good at the game, it can make players feel good that they are better than other players or can beat very difficult games with relative ease. Such as Dark Souls.

Finally the social players enjoy to play online games such as Overwatch or Destiny because they get enjoyment out of playing with friends or random people. Most gamers generally enjoy abit of social play every so often.