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Create Your Own 3D Games

Focus Multimedia Ltd
First Person Shooter Creator (PC)

Connect International
The 3D Gamemaker Lite - Special Edition (PC)

Focus Multimedia Ltd
The 3D Gamemaker Lite - Special Edition

Focus Multimedia Ltd

The 3D Gamemaker Lite is a great introduction to the world of homemade games. There is nothing complicated or tricky to this CD-ROM, and within minutes of loading the programme on your PC you could be playing games you've created.
Also available as a full version, this special edition is designed to introduce the user to the basics of game making. There is no programming involved as The 3D Gamemaker Lite utilises an easy-to-use graphical interface that gives you the ability to produce a very simple first-person shooter, or racing game, in a matter of minutes. By selecting the type of game you want from the graphic buttons on the screen, and then selecting, in the same fashion, your weapon, enemy, food type, environment and so on, you can bring your own creative vision to life. For example, a first-person shooter set in a nice gothic church, with the objective of collecting all the potions you can find and having a man in a suit beating you up while you shoot him with a banana! That's the fun you can have with this product. There are also a number of pre-built games for you to try so you can de-construct them and see how the professionals do it, gathering tips as you go.
There are plenty of pre-made graphics and sounds for use within the games, or you have the choice to create you own and insert them into your game--including MP3 files. You can then save all this in a single executable file to distribute to your friends and show off your skills. The product can also be upgraded to the full version. --Robert Hyde
DarkBASIC (The Ultimate 3D Game Creator)

FastTrak

DarkBASIC 3-D Game Creator Kit gives you the chance to create a rival if you're hooked on Quake III, Gran Turismo or Star Wars and can't wait for the next instalment to come out. If you're an experienced programmer then you will be making games in a matter of minutes, but don't worry if you're not: this utility will guide even novices through the basics of game making, allowing you to have fun creating while expanding your knowledge.
Its simple-to-use interface allows you to go from command-line programming to game-play testing in one easy function-key press. The 25 in-programme tutorials guide you through all the different elements of the programme, using 45 demos to show you line by line how to make your creation. You will be playing your own first-person shooter or flight simulator in a matter of hours.
The package includes many features to make your games even better, such as the ability to add music and import your own graphics for use within games. Included within the DarkBASIC package is Microsoft's Direct X: this powerful utility handles all the hardware in your PC, such as the graphics card and sound card, allowing you more time to concentrate on creating the game. Also included are tools for making music and animating graphics, so everything that you need to get going is here on the two-disk set.
There are more than 45 demos included on the disk so you can see how some working programmes operate. Also included are 600 textures, 120 sound effects and 900 3-D models to bring your games to life. Games can be saved as single, executable files so you don't need DarkBASIC to run them, allowing you to share them with your friends and give the professionals a good run for their money. --Robert Hyde
Find out more in our Games Programming Buying Guide
Games Factory 2

Clickteam
The 3D Gamemaker

Focus Multimedia Ltd

The 3D Gamemaker's easy-to-use graphic interface introduces the world of game making to those without a background in programming--you simply choose from a series of options to produce the game you desire. Also available in a special edition lite version, this CD-ROM allows you to easily create your own game within minutes.
By selecting from a series of pre-made options (including character, weapon, environment and enemy) the user can produce, for example, a first-person shooter or a racing game. One nice option is the "magic game" in which the computer chooses a set of random options and you play the resulting game that can produce some really interesting results. Once familiar with the options you can start to play around with the different elements--graphics and sound can be added to the interface (helpfully, the sound can be in the popular MP3 format to save on space) meaning you can create all your characters and objects using a graphics package, and then insert them into the game and manipulate them if you wish. The environment can also be changed, and with the simple use of the editor you can create you own 3-D world, then place the objects you have created in it.
No game is complete without an array of weapons; your own personal selection can be created and given varying degrees of strength and impact damage. In all there are plenty of options to keep a gamer going for a while. Tidy up your game by creating some title screens, have a high-score display, set difficulty modes and so on. Once everything for the game has been set to your liking you can save it down into a single executable file for easy distribution to your friends.
The 3D Gamemaker interface used is easy and fun to use, though it is very much aimed at the novice game maker. There is often a feeling that there is a lack of control over different aspects of the game creation process, and experienced programmers could get frustrated with this controlled environment and the restriction over certain gaming elements. On the other hand, this package is an easy introduction to game making for those without programming knowledge. --Robert Hyde
Xplosiv - The Games Factory

Xplosiv Blue
Game Patches - April 1996

Walnut Creek
DIV Games Studio

FastTrak

Way back in the mists of time (the early 1980s), commercial games software was written by industrious souls in their bedrooms. As time wore on and the games market exploded into the multi-billion industry it is today, this motley band of homebrew programmers disappeared to be replaced by more formal teams of "professional" coders, skilled in the black arts of PC coding. Over the last few years there has been a number of half-hearted attempts to put the programming power back in the hands of the enthusiastic amateur, but none have caught the mood quite as well as the oddlyf named DIV Games Studio. Rooted very firmly in the realm of the BASIC, with elements of C and other high-level languages thrown in for good measure, DIV is an impressive package. Note that it does not do 3D. You cannot produce Quake with this package in its current form. (An updated version with full support for 3D is in the works.) That aside, what DIV does do is to give the amateur an astonishing amount of power to produce anything 2D and throws in a Mode 7-alike for good measure. (Think Mario Kart on the SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) and you've got the right idea). This is also an integer-based language, so forget floating point. String handling is poor, although there is a downloadable add-on from the official site that helps redress this issue.
Play with this tool for any length of time and it soon becomes obvious that the shortcomings are more than made up for by DIV's strengths. It's a joy to code with the command set given, which includes pre-built functions for collision detection, distance between onscreen objects, full screen scrolling and more. Everything is handled by the custom development environment that incorporates a graphics manipulation environment text editor--with full syntax colouring, full debugger and sundry other utilities designed to help pull all the bits together to create an identifiable game. The gaudy yellow manual is worth keeping by the desk. It falls short in some areas but in others excels with its description of the command set et. al., which hopefully won't hold too many people back. a thriving community of users has sprung up at the official Web site, so users are always on hand through a series of online message boards to give help and coding advice--and to clarify the bits of the manual that haven't translated well from Spanish to English.
To claim that this package will turn the user into a games expert would be wrong, and don't expect to be able to churn out games by the minute. First and foremost, this is a programming environment with its emphasis completely on games. It requires time and patience from the newbie and a little understanding from the older hands to get over the initially high learning curve and to start to get the best out of it. That said, from a cold start this reviewer had a passable, if graphically dire, version of Defender up and running inside of two hours--no mean feat if you've ever wrestled with the intricacies of packages like Visual C++. Nor is this a tool for the gaming professional. That said, if you're a weekend coder with a yen to finally create that electronic version of a table top wargame, a retro fan who wants to recreate the halcyon days of Chuckie Egg and Space Invaders or a newcomer with patience and a desire to create rather than just to play this is a great way to have a crack at games coding. But if your creating is tood, there's nothing to stop you turning out Shareware or even commercial(esque) games, since the distributors grant owners full rights to distribute their creations without paying royalties. --Gordon James