Game engines are a bitch

Man, making games is just not like it used to be back in the 2D days. I'm constantly amazed at long it takes just to get features which are pretty much standard these days working. In the past, the big challenge was figuring out how to draw stuff on screen. Now I've spent probably a week just deciding on what collision detection library to use and whether I wanted to go for full blown physics or not. I settled on simple collision detection because the behaviors I want to script right now are pretty simple and I don't want to battle with the physics engine to get things to function how I want. In the future I may try to use OgreNewt or OgreOde for physics. It would be neat to try to do something like Lucasfilm is working on for their indiana jones game where they mix bones animation with physics and AI. Emergent gameplay.

Right now I am trying to get Opcode collision detection working alongside Ogre. I finally was able to compile the example files so I should be good to go now.

BTW, it seems the guy that made Opcode also works at Novodex and is working on his own game on the side. The game is here and is called Konoko Payne. It's a rip of the models/art from Oni, a game which I really liked for it's combination of FPS action and hand to hand combat. It looks like he's already got an impressive amount of stuff working already (even a playable demo). In it's current form it's a lawsuit waiting to happen, but if he could get some original artwork in there (and storyline, etc), he'd have a great game on his hands.

So far on my game I have Ogre3d running and linked up with GameMonkey script for controlling GameObject behavior. I'm able to write scripts to move objects around, set up the models, etc.. Collision detection and Sound are my next big things. I'm not planning on any advanced physics or networking yet. Nor do I want to spend a lot of time on shaders or special rendering techniques. Once I get collision detection working I should have all I need to start pumping out some simple games. I'll mess the rest of that stuff later.