I’ve just spent the weekend playing Unreal, and as much as I enjoyed the game, I’m even more impressed by the engine. While id Software’s engines are lean and fast, Epic’s Unreal Engine feels like a professional integrated development environment for games.
UnrealScript: High-Level Game Logic
The standout feature is UnrealScript. Unlike QuakeC, which was fairly primitive, UnrealScript is a fully object-oriented language with built-in support for time and states.
// UnrealScript example: Handling a simple state change
state Sleeping
{
ignores SeePlayer, HearNoise;
function BeginState()
{
SetPhysics(PHYS_None);
}
}
It handles complex tasks like networking and physics through high-level abstractions, allowing designers to focus on gameplay instead of worrying about memory management or network packets.
UnrealEd: The Editor We Deserved
The Unreal Editor (UnrealEd) is integrated directly into the engine. You can change a level, hit a button, and be playing in that level almost instantly. It uses "Constructive Solid Geometry" (CSG) which makes level building feel like working with blocks rather than wrestling with vertex coordinates.
The engine also supports advanced features like colored lighting and volumetric fog out of the box. It’s a level of visual fidelity we haven’t seen before.
Looking Ahead
Unreal is clearly designed to be licensed. Epic has built a toolset that allows other companies to build their own games without having to write a 3D renderer from scratch. We’re entering the era of the "Commercial Game Engine." Soon, we won't talk about building a game from scratch; we'll talk about which engine we're building it on. Unreal has just set a very high bar for what those tools should look like.
Aunimeda develops mobile and PC games - from casual hyper-casual titles to mid-core games with complex progression systems.
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