This site is the once and future home of Comparative Creation, a blog about computer game creation systems over the years that should be (re)launching, uh… some time in late 2021 or early 2022.
Comparative Creation covered/will chronologically cover computer game creation systems (including game engines, game-specific programming languages, and level editors), much as the CRPG Addict does CRPGs, or The Adventure Gamer for, well, adventure games. (It was the CRPG Addict’s blog, in fact, that was the primary inspiration for this one.) My intent is to not only investigate each system, but to make a good-faith effort to create as high quality a game as I can with each system, to the extent that it’s possible to do so.
This will be my third time (re)starting this blog. It first originated as a blogspot blog; then I rebooted it on a dedicated site. (For what it’s worth, I didn’t intentionally take the site down; rather, my website host went out of business and I never got around to putting the site back up. I should still have all the files and databases saved somewhere, though, and may eventually put that version of the site back up as an archive somewhere.) But hey, uh, third time’s the charm?
So what’s going to make this time different? Why do I think I’m going to keep it up this time, if I failed to do so twice before? Well, there are a few mistakes I made in the past that I won’t repeat:
- For one thing, the first two times I launched the blog, well, I wasn’t in a situation where I had a lot of free time or money, and it… maybe wasn’t terribly realistic to think I could keep a project like this up under the circumstances. I’m in a better position now to do it.
- Both times I previously tried to do this blog, I debated whether I should stick to going over game creation systems chronologically, or whether I should mix together posts on old and new systems. Both times I decided on a strictly chronological approach… and then both times I failed to follow through with that, succumbing to temptation and trying to put in posts on more recent systems too, diluting my already sparse time and energy. This time I’ll stick to my guns; chronologically it is.
- Covering some of these systems requires quite a bit of overhead and prep work, and that especially goes for some of the earliest systems, for which there may not even be interpreters available. Both previous times I got bogged down with trying to lay down the groundwork for the earliest entries. This time I’m not even going to officially (re)launch the blog till I’ve already got the groundwork done, the games written, and the posts planned out for the first ten or so systems on my list. (That’s why I say that the blog will relaunch in late 2021/early 2022, rather than my just trying to get it restarted immediately.) That way I’ll hit the ground running and I should have a bit of a cushion, and even if I do run into some snags later on, I’ll have built up some momentum that ought to carry me through.
So, anyway, yeah, it’s going to be a while before this blog relaunches. I may make more posts here about how the relaunch is going, or I may not. But in the meantime, if you’re interested and so inclined, there are a few things you can do to help.
- My chronological Big List of game systems is online as a Google Sheet. If you see any game system that isn’t on the list and should be, let me know! Especially if it’s from pre-2000. I haven’t made an assiduous search for recent game creation systems in the last few years, so while I’ve added a few creation systems I happen to have run across, I know there are a lot more out there and my list of systems within the last few years is extremely incomplete, but, well, unless I live to be five hundred years old I’m never going to get to these systems with this blog anyway, so while I’m not completely uninterested in hearing about recent game creation systems, I’m not as interested in them as I am in older systems that I’m more likely to cover. But if you know of a system from the 80s or 90s (or especially 70s!) that isn’t on my list, please do let me know!
- For that matter, feel free to point out other issues with my Big List, too—not just missing games, but games that are on the list but shouldn’t be, or that I’ve accidentally included twice, or that I have under the wrong year or category. (Many of the categories are probably wrong, since I haven’t necessarily put in the time to exhaustively check the details of every game on my list, and since I think I changed my mind about the category definitions and added categories several times as I was putting the list together.)
- Speaking of categories, I’m not totally sold on my categorization scheme, either. I have some ideas for the categories I want to sort the systems into, but there’s some fuzziness and overlap and I’m open to suggestions as to how it can be improved. Anyway, here are my categories, as they currently stand, but this is very much not set in stone:
- Construction Sets: The most general category: systems that let you make your own games. This doesn’t mean they aren’t tied to specific genres or may not have significant limitations, but at least they aren’t explicitly tied to existing games. Examples: Adventure Construction Set, RPG Maker XP, Unity.
- Level Editors: Systems that let you, well, edit levels or scenarios of specific games. Some level editors may actually be more powerful or versatile than some construction sets, but the distinguishing factor is that they’re at least nominally associated with a particular game or series. Examples: Lode Runner Level Editor, Marble Madness Construction Set, Blades of Exile.
- Programming Languages: A programming language designed specifically for creating games. Especially common for, if not exclusive to, text adventure games. Examples: ZIL, TADS, MUDDL.
- Game Engines: Engines that were used in multiple games, but that did not necessarily have a single set of editor tools associated with them. (For the most part, unless an editor does exist for these engines, I’ll probably comment on them but not try to make a game with them. Of course, if an editor does exist, I’ll post about that editor (as well as the engine itself).) Examples: Dunjonquest Engine, Z-Machine, MacVenture Engine.
- Clones or Forks: Third-party projects that imitate existing game creation systems, continue development of discontinued systems, or allow the creation of games similar to notable existing games. Examples: Dungeon Craft, Zelda Classic, IRE.
- Mod Tools: Third-party tools for modifying games, or for creating new games using existing engines (but in a different way from previous tools). This differs from the previous category in that the games or levels created with these tools the same engines as existing games, but the tools themselves are not similar to first-party editors. Or maybe it doesn’t differ sufficiently from the previous category, and I ought to lump the two together. Or divide them differently. Examples: Wizardry Scenario Editor, AGI Studio, Exult Studio. (And, uh, Inform? I have it listed as a programming language, but it makes Z-Machine games, so does that mean it falls into this category? See, these categories are fuzzy.)
- Educational: A system that is primarily intended to teach users programming or other computer skills, but do so primarily or at least in large part by having them make games. This category isn’t for educational games that have level editors; it’s for systems that teach through having the user make games. Examples: Computer Intro!, Easy AMOS, Code Hero.
- Development Kits: Software libraries, external tools, or other resources that are intended to create assets for games or otherwise assist in game creation, but that are not capable by themselves of creating full games. Examples: Bill Budge’s 3-D Graphics System & Game Tool, VOGL, BigWorld MMO Technology Suite.
- Toolkit or Template: An extension or supplement to an existing system or a resource package for that system that allows it to create a particular kind of game, or otherwise alters or augments its game-reation abilities. Examples: Pokémon Essentials, Corgi Engine, Platypus.
- Oh, and one last thing… while I kind of like the name “Comparative Creation”, and I think it describes fairly well what this blog is (going to be) about… it does kind of make for a long and somewhat unwieldy URL. If you have any ideas for a shorter URL I could use for this blog, I’m open for suggestions for that, too.
So, there we go. Like I said, the blog will be officially starting in late 2021 or early 2022, but in the meantime if you have anything you’d like to say about any of the above points—or anything else—feel free to comment here, or drop me an e-mail. Thanks for stopping by!