Can I really sacrifice 3d? 

I have spent a good part of the last 4 years working on the 3d engines for Astariel and Akasa. This was a really stupid thing to do! Why did I do it then? Ignorance of the 3d engines out there played a part – but mostly it was a lack of foresight. Even though I’d come across a fair bit of advice encouraging the use of 3d engines, I figured “I’ve already started mine, it works and is in place – why change?” Working too close to my projects, day in day out, I never really stepped back to look at the bigger picture. 

What I failed to take into account, even though I should have known better, was the vast variety of 3d hardware out there, the lack of official 3d hardware standards, and the sheer pace at which 3d hardware is accelerating. These 3 things eventually put me in a frustrating cycle of forever playing catch up in the 3d race (and never getting remotely close) whilst simultaneously watching in despair as my engine failed on all sorts of hardware setups. This turned out to be the nail in the coffin for Akasa, which runs wonderfully on the 3 graphic cards I have owned since its development – but seemingly on no one else’s! 

Being stung by developing my own 3d engine has probably influenced my decision to quit 3d for the time being, but this really isn’t a good enough excuse to drop the ball (sphere!) when there are some great 3d engines out there. Here I’m thinking mainly of Ogre – but Irrlicht isn’t bad and I’m sure Blitz Research’s Blitz3d would be a contender as well, though I have no experience with the latter. OK, there are engines out there, why aren’t I using them? 

1. My focus is now upon gameplay, and not so much on graphics. I’m convinced that there is still a whole galaxy of  undiscovered gameplay ideas that work brilliantly in 2d. On the scale of human evolution, computer games are still very, very young. With so many wonderful possibilities still out there, I don’t feel constrained as a game designer by 2d.
2. I can always fudge 3d, by using heaps of pre rendered 2d sprites. Drive space and net speeds are rising rapidly – so large download sizes aren’t so much an issue any more. As such, if I really wanted a 3d look and feel, I could always pre render it in a super swanky 3d studio app and just grab the 2d stills. Not that I want to do this, but it’s an option.
3. The more humble my graphic requirements, the larger my potential audience. The number of people running ‘ancient’ systems is scarily large. I’d like my games to run on almost anything, rather than only runs on graphics card X or better.
4. 3d makes me nauseous. This is sadly true. 1^st and most 3^rd person 3D games make me sea sick. Luckily most of them focus on realistic, hyper-violent action that doesn’t appeal to me – but I do still feel I’m missing out. If a game makes me feel ill to play, how much more so to develop!
5. Realism doesn’t really do it for me. Well, let me rephrase. The current version of realism doesn’t do it for me. For all the improvements, 3d people still look like creepy dolls. When I can’t tell a 3d game from a movie clip, then I’ll be more interested. Even then, I doubt as a solo developer I’ll have the resources in the near future to viably aim at realism.
6. 2D apps tend to be simpler, with a consequent shorter development time. Ok that’s a big, bad, bold generalization, but there’s an element of truth hiding in there somewhere.
7. The games of my youth were by and large 2d only. And I have a great big soft spot for those games…
8. My current project is a graphical business app that only needs 2d. Fast 2d, but still 2d. This is the clincher at the moment. More on this later…