Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
19
Reducing Video Game Creation
Effort with Eberos GML2D
Frank E. Hernandez and Francisco R. Ortega
19.1 Introduction
In this section, we discuss some concepts we found to be common for all 2D games
during the development of the Eberos Game Modeling Language 2D. It is important
to note that this is by no means the only or best language approach to modeling 2D
games, but rather it is the approach we developed to reduce our game development
effort. This approach is also by no means complete; we present it in this article
with the hope of demonstrating the savings in development that similar approaches
can give your project.
While exploring, we have identified the following requirements for the game
modeling language:
Simplicity.
Part of the reason for the increase in effort of developing games
is the overhead for translating the game requirements into source code (see
Figure19.1(a)
)
.EberosGML2Daimsatreducingthiscostbyproviding
anintermediatestepbetweengamespecificationandgamecode(see
Fig-
ure19.1(b)
).
Platform-Independent.
Since the game logic is independent of the underlying
platform, so too must the language be that expresses it.
Library/Game Engine-Independent.
Similarly, the modeling language must
not be linked to any specific development library or game engine.
Expressiveness.
It must be able to model a large majority of game develop-
ment projects.
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