Introduction

This is the official homepage for version 2 of the Scrolling Game Development Kit (SGDK2), written by Benjamin Marty. The homepage for version 1 can be found at http://gamedev.sf.net/. SGDK 2.1 has been officially released and is considered stable. Please join us in the forums for discussion of this kit. If you register to post messages, pay attention when the terms of service page is displayed because it explains how you have to send an email to be approved to post on the forms (this is to avoid spammers). (The original 2.0 release page is still available too.)


News

February 20, 2017

Version 2.3.0 Released. This significant update introduces real-time lighting effects to SGDK2 projects. There's a new Lighting Patterns template project that demonstrates the new lighting features in a technical context (without much artwork). This project may be useful as a starting point for new projects using real-time lighting. Check out what else is new in the new help contents' What's New page.

Screenshot from Lighting Patterns template

October 28, 2015

Book Published. Anyone interested in a more in depth tutorial or look at how the various features in SGDK2 can be used may be interested in Building Games with Scrolling Game Development Kit 2 now available on Kindle and in paperback. I wrote the book to use as a curriculum in teaching a community center course for teens in Maple Grove, MN. Hopefully others will find it interesting and useful as well.

July 5, 2014

Version 2.2.10 Released. Don't try to use the ClickOnce Deployment to update your SGDK2 installation, I've decided ClickOnce is not reliable enough and not worth the effort. Just download the latest SGDK2 from the download page/link. Reason for another release after almost 2 years? I am starting to write a book to be used as a curriculum for teaching young folks how to create games using SGDK2. In the process I am fixing a few bugs so that the book doesn't have to talk around bugs found in the process of developing the games.

September 29, 2012

ClickOnce Deployment Available. Version 2.2.7 is not so much a version upgrade as a deployment upgrade. SGDK2 has never had or needed a formal installer because you can simply run the program from wherever you copy the files. However, if you've ever wanted the simplicity of running the program directly from a web link with the ability to automatically check for updates and easily download/install them, ClickOnce is the answer. SGDK2 version 2.2.7 upgrades the IDE to run on .NET 4.5, which finally provides error-free ClickOnce deployment (unlike .NET 4.0 which encounters errors when upgrading ClickOnce deployments that have file associations defined). To install SGDK2 via ClickOnce deployment, use Internet Explorer to visit http://sgdk2.enigmadream.com/clickonce/.

February 14, 2012

Version 2.2.2 Released. A new template is now available for creating HTML5 games targeted at mobile devices such as iPad and mobile phones. See a very simple demo project at http://sgdk2.enigmadream.com/ben/Mobile.html. Many other minor improvements have also gone into this version. The full list is shown in the release notes on the 2.2.2 download page.

May 18, 2012

iotaBuildIt Announced. Can all of us make a better game than some of us? That's the question iotaBuildIt aims to answer. iotaBuildIt is an experimental project in crowd-sourced scrolling game development. Participants are encouraged to contribute enahncements small and large to any aspect of the game (and web site for that matter) using software that allows newcomers (non-coders) and seasoned developers all to contribute various kinds of improvements ranging from graphics to AI behaviors to level design, and more. See the introduction and tutorial video on YouTube to get started.

February 14, 2012

Version 2.2.2 Released. A new template is now available for creating HTML5 games targeted at mobile devices such as iPad and mobile phones. See a very simple demo project at http://sgdk2.enigmadream.com/ben/Mobile.html. Many other minor improvements have also gone into this version. The full list is shown in the release notes on the 2.2.2 download page.

January 15, 2012

Version 2.2.1 Released. The HTML5 output generated by SGDK2 now represents fully functional games. Most of the sprite rules and plan rules have been implemented in JavaScript meaning that projects using these rules can now be compiled not only to native executables based on .NET Framework and OpenGL, but also exported to HTML5 format as a fully functional game with no manual coding necessary. This, of course, means cross-platform support for the HTML5 games. For a full list of functions supported by both HTML5 and .NET frameworks, see the SGDK2 HTML5 Support data sheet. Too much information? Jump right in by downloading SGDK2 and using the new HTML5 Sample project template. It includes only the supported functions so you will not see the unsupported functions listed while developing projects based on this template. Want to see what kind of games you can create in HTML5 using SGDK2? Take a look at the sample project. Having trouble? Please visit the forums where you'll find us eager to help you work through any challenges you might be facing with SGDK2.

November 16, 2011

Version 2.2.0 Released. HTML 5 pages can now be exported from SGDK2 projects. The entire functionality of an SGDK2 game is not incorporated into the generated HTML 5 code (at leats not yet), but the important pieces are there to build on: graphics, frames, tiles (including animated tiles), sprites (including states), maps, layers, counters, tile categories and solidity. These are the pieces that need visual designers, and which SGDK2 will export to HTML 5 for you. With just a little extra code you can have a player sprite walking around a scrolling map, as demonstrated in this sample. This means you can now use SGDK2 to help develop games that work on HTML5-capable mobile devices. As time goes on, more support for other features of standard SGDK2 games may be added to the HTML 5 output, but this is an exciting beginning.

May 15, 2011

New Web Site Design. A big Thank You to Sam Lancashire for finally taking on the task of (re-)designing the SGDK2 web site. You're looking at the results right now. Clean and beautiful.


April 10, 2011

Legacy of Kain: Revival Review. The game Legacy of Kain: Revival has been out for a couple months at least, but it was just today that I got an opportunity to put some serious time into playing it. After playing for 5 hours I am very impressed with this game's depth and detail. Unfortunately the game defaults to a very small window size (or at least it did for me), but don't miss the options window, which (I noticed just now) allows you to switch to larger sizes and control the difficulty! The larger sizes only partly increase the resolution. The background graphics are still in the original resolution (scaled up), but the player is actually at full detail in higher resolutions. I wish I had been playing like this all along. But even at the small resolution, I found this game quite impressive. In addition to the graphical detail, there is lots of attention paid to the music, sound effects and story line. I have played the Legacy of Kain series myself, and, although I'm not much of a fanatic, I can tell that this game tried to tie together elements of the whole series, referring back to events in earlier games. You don't have to be familiar with all the old games to play this one, but I suspect the story plays out even more interestingly for those who know the history. The controls take a little getting used to (I am using keyboard), but after hours of play, I was doing alright, and found the game challenging, but fun -- very well balanced. The source code for this game is available in the SGDK2 project listing, but if you want to just play the game, head to the download area of the LOK: Revival web site where you can just download a binary that will run without having SGDK2.


March 3, 2011

Version 2.1.9 Released. Better video support and error reporting. See the latest at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sgdk2/files/sgdk2/2.1.9/.


February 3, 2011

Version 2.1.8 Released. See the latest at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sgdk2/files/sgdk2/2.1.8/.


November 14, 2010

Version 2.1.6 Released. As part of this release, I updated the web version of the documentation. Notice the new Documentation link in the navigation bar on the left side of the page. To see what's new in this release, just jump directly to the What's New page.


May 19, 2010

Version 2.1.4 Released. Changes in this release:

  1. Fix an error that prevented multiple displays from being open simultaneously.
  2. Implement the ability to sort sprites in the map editor.
  3. Improve error handling when attempting to run the project if it is already running.
  4. Allow a layer to be created with a null tileset to represent the designer background layer (allow user-created layer to refer to no tileset).
  5. Stop riding on a platform if it is deactivated while riding it.
  6. Prevent debug-mode errors when a platform is deactivated and a sprite is riding on it.
  7. Change CheckNextCoordinate to proceed to the next target if the distance from the current target exactly matches the target distance.
  8. Prevent the user from creating a layer with zero tiles.
  9. Implement ExecuteRulesInternal so that ExecuteRules can be overridden in an intermediate class.
  10. Implement BaseClass property for plans and sprites to allow inheriting from customized code instead of only PlanBase and SpriteBase.
  11. Make ProcessSprites overridable.
  12. Implement IsSpriteWithinPolygon function for plans.
  13. When resetting source code to a template that imports decapsulated source code files, be sure to import the referenced code because the project into which the code is being imported will not know how to find the template's decapsulated files.
  14. Add OpenTK.dll.config to source control.
  15. If a plan contains a SpriteBase-derived member, show a drop-down list of the appropriate sprites in the map editor when this plan is selected.
  16. Prevent invalid sprite and plan names from being specified in the map editor.
  17. Change most SpriteBase and PlanBase members to be protected instead of private.
  18. Change most SpriteBase and PlanBase members to be virtual so they can be overridden by an intermediate base class.
  19. Change SpriteBase.TouchTiles to return a strongly typed collection of results.


February 7, 2010

Version 2.1.3 Released. This release includes some minor enhancements (such as a sorted project tree), updates (OpenTK version 1.0) and bug fixes.


August 31, 2009

Version 2.1.2 Released. See the Release Notes for details. Visit the download page to download.


May 14, 2009

SourceForge Community Choice Nominations Open. If you think Scrolling Game Development Kit 2 is worthy, why not nominate it for SourceForge Community Choice Awards? There are 12 categories of nominations; SGDK2 may be appropriate in the "Best Project for Gamers" and "Best Tool or Utility for Developers" categories... or if you're really optimistic, simply the "Best Project" category. Projects can be nominated for more than one category at a time by clicking the "+" next to "Nominate for another category". Remember to include your email address when nominating or it appears the nomination may not be counted.


January 17, 2009

Version 2.1 Released. After a few additional beta releases, I have decided that SGDK version 2.1 is ready for release and have posted the new release in the downloads area, along with updated samples and libraries in the library package.


Show news from before 2009 [+] Hide news from before 2009 [-]


October 19, 2008

Version 2.1 Beta 1 Released. The first beta release of version 2.1 is now available for download for anyone willing to test the beta version of 2.1. The default download package will continue to refer to version 2.0 until a certain level of reliability in version 2.1 can be confirmed. The major updates in version 2.1 are an upgrade to .NET Framework 2.0 and to OpenGL instead of DirectX. This means the video card support requirements are probably somewhat different for 2.1. Help me create a new list of supported video cards by participating in the forum discussion. There is no setup program for this package, just extract the files and run the EXE.


April 2, 2008

April Fools. The joke's over so I guess I should tell everyone not to waste time downloading .NET 2.0 just to see the demo posted yesterday if you're hoping for something spectacular. The graphic is from the POV Ray Hall of Fame. SGDK2 is about scrolling games, remember, not 3D games :).


April 1, 2008

SGDK 2.1 Introduces Groundbreaking 3D Support. Well, it's finally happened. In the months of silence from the end of last year through the end of March, the secret project to dazzle everyone has finally demonstrated some real promise. Not only does it break new ground for SGDK, but achieves some pretty spectacular results within the entire 3D gaming industry. Real time 3D graphics at ray traced quality is a relatively new concept in the industry and many believe it can't be done effectively to compete with exiting 3D rendering models. But SGDK2 is here to prove that's it's not only possible, but can even cater to the masses, bringing 3D game development within the grasp of many newcomers to game development. Because you no longer have to worry about converting all your models to polygons and aligning textures and such, 3D game development becomes so much simpler from the developer perspective when using model definitions such as those provided to ray tracers. And combined with the technology being introduced in SGDK 2.1, the ease of development and the spectacular performance without relying on 3D hardware are sure to launch this technology (and SGDK2) to the front of the industry. Download the demo and see for yourself. Then come comment on the forums. (The demo does require .NET Framework 2.0.)


March 31, 2008

Version 2.1 To Be OpenGL-Based. For those who have not been participating in the SGDK2 forums, it may interest you to know that SGDK version 2.1 is well underway and will completely convert over to OpenGL using the open source OpenTK library which is also currently under development. There are still some fine points to iron out, but most of the work is actually done and working, and has shown a significant performance improvement over the DirectX implementation. SGDK version 2.1 is actually compiling and running OpenGL-based games in a test environment already. There are just a few OpenTK features that aren't done yet that will be necessary before the conversion can be considered complete. Namely, The full screen support and the text drawing implementation in OpenTK need to be fine tuned to expose some functionality that SGDK 2.1 will need. (Right now, all SGDK 2.1 games are running in windows, and messages are not formatted to a proper rectangle -- no word wrap).


December 27, 2007

2.0.0 Released. SGDK2 is finally officially released. See the release page for the full article describing the release.

December 13, 2007

Release Candidate 1. The product is nearing release. This package may represent the functionality of the actual release if all goes well. Fixes included since the last beta:

  1. When importing a source code object, make sure that any existing window containing source by the same name is closed before importing so that further editing in that window does not cause the import operation to be effectively undone.
  2. In the plan editor and sprite rule editors, display the status and type of each rule with an icon in front of the tree item in order to more clearly distinguish the types of rules and whether or not they are suspended.
  3. Add a command to the plan and sprite rule editors to suspend the selected rule as well as all of its children.
  4. Fix the layout of the sound preview window launched from the Source Code editor so that the volume slider does not overlap the buttons.
  5. Fix an error in resizing the map editor.
  6. Implement command in code editor to export embedded data to a file.
  7. Document "Export to File" command in source code editor.
  8. Document "Toggle Suspend for This and Child Rules" command in plan and sprite rule editors.
  9. Add tutorial for importing sprites.
  10. Fix bug in frame remapping wizard that caused an error when appending frames to an empty frameset.
  11. Change about dialog to indicate "Release Candidate 1"


December 2, 2007

Second Beta Released. A number of issues have been found in the initial beta and have been fixed in this second beta release. Some of the more significant fixes include:

  1. Some fixes to the way sprites react to solids under certain conditions
  2. Sizing of the player options dialog for 1-player games
  3. Probems with frame tweening wizard
  4. Problems with the Layer Wizard
  5. Improvement in the way the map editor previews the effect of placing a tile
  6. Improve the tile animation preview window
  7. Fix a problem that caused games and the IDE's map editor to hang on exit under certain conditions
  8. Improve the behavior of the dropdown list of tiles in the tileset editor
  9. Fix the alpha mask preview in the sprite definition editor when viewing rectangular masks (alpha=0) on frames that are offset
  10. Improved support for accessing the last created sprite
  11. New tutorial for working with sounds and music


September 9, 2007

First Beta Released. I've finally put everything that I intend to include in the initial release into the package and am ready to call this the first beta release. Some of the main changes that have gone in since the last alpha include:

  1. Update main program icon and define icons for projects.
  2. Additional tutorials.
  3. Imporoved functionality of the Options dialog available at runtime (to re-map controls).
  4. Add the ability to display a "Background Frame" in the frameset editor as a reference when editing a frame.
  5. Additional sprite templates and graphic sheet templates added to the template library.
  6. Improved main window toolbar.
  7. Remember sprite properties in the map editor, so subsequent sprites of the same type will default to the same values.
Thanks to my brother Ed (aka durnurd on the forums) for all the assistance in testing, reviewing documentation, providing sample projects, and responding to forum questions over the past many months (and before) while SGDK2 was in alpha. Also thanks to my girlfriend Amy who has joined the fun more recently and also provided much useful input, pointing out shortcomings and errors which have also been addressed.

Now it's up to the rest of you to continue providing feedback during the beta period and make sure the final release of SGDK2 will be the best it can be. Speak up in the forums if you see problems or shortcomings you think could be addressed for the initial release.

Get SGDK2 Beta Release 1
Notice the new Download page (link in the navigation bar) with additional downloads for a music and sound effects library, as well as additional sample projects.


July 14, 2007

Sixth Alpha Released. Alpha six includes many small fixes and a few larger features:

  • Ability to see the edges of frames in the frameset editor and tileset editor, when the option is turned on.
  • Ability to see the edges of layers in the map editor.
  • Improved (more visual) tile dropdown list in the Tileset editor.
  • Right-mouse in the map editor will now select the tile under the mouse as the current tile.
  • New source code object in the Source Code template folder to support playing videos streamed from a file.
  • Support for copying and pasting plan rules and sprite definition rules.
  • Support for a Pause function among the other sound-related functions.
  • Frameset tweening wizard in frameset editor creates series of frame transformations based on starting and ending parameters and frame count.

Get SGDK2 alpha 6 release


June 20, 2007

SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Awards Nominations Open. If you admire Scrolling Game Development Kit, and think this project deserves recognition, please consider nominating it for the SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Awards. You can find a clickable logo to nominate SGDK2 for this recognition on the SourceForge project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sgdk2. Note that you can nominate a project in more than one category, and you can nominate multiple projects in the same category if you think multiple projects are worthy of consideration for the same recognition.


May 31, 2007

Fifth alpha released. The main feature of this release is a coding reference. It seems I neglected to include links in the help menu, but just press the F1 key from and screen, and you will see a coding reference at the bottom of the table of contents. There are also links to the coding reference in the help pages that describe plan rules and sprite definition rules. That is the main use of the coding reference: looking up detailed information about functions that can be used in rules. A few new functions have also been added since the last release. Many minor new features have been implemented too, such as the ability to create a new project from a template directly from a pop-up menu on the "New" menu.
Get SGDK2 alpha release 5.


April 22, 2007

Fourth alpha released. Most significantly this release includes a help page hooked up to each main UI. There's much more documentation to come, but the basic UI help files are all in place. They still need proofreading. This release also supports dynamically added sprites and a form of "wrapped" layers (scrolling back to the beginning when reaching the end of a layer... kind of) via a "Virtual Size" that can be larger than the actual data size for the layer.
Get SGDK2 alpha release 4.


March 27, 2007

Third alpha released. Following quickly on the tail of the second alpha release, the third alpha release is now available and the hope is that this solves the installation and project building issues, in addition to enhancing a number of other features.
(SGDK2 alpha release 3 is no longer available).


March 5, 2007

Second alpha released. Numerous small improvements and fixes including a new design for the frameset editor UI, a new code object for displaying messages, and a recent file list. Still no documentation, though.
(Second alpha release is no longer available.)


January 20, 2007

First alpha released.  The web site has been redesigned, and the first alpha is going out today.  Here's a full installer.

(First alpha release is no longer available)

I suggest you try first loading and running the sample project from the Library\Projects folder created by the install.


November 23, 2006

(Pre-alpha Demo Release 8 is no longer available)

Release 8 is a set of binary files including Managed DirectX 9 files that SGDK2 requires. This release includes everything in the previous release plus a new reflect.dll which I found to be necessary in order to prevent namespace collisions in FMOD when both SGDK2IDE.exe and the generated project were loaded in the same domain in order to examine the project for information about its runtime properties. Major enhancements in this release include:

  • "Add Noise" and "Remap Hues" commands in the graphics editor.
  • Support for dynamically affecting color channels and alpha channel at runtime.
  • Graphic sheet, Tileset and Frameset import wizards.

October 15, 2006

(Pre-alpha Demo Release 7 is no longer available.)

Release 7 is a set of binary files including managed DirectX 9 files that SGDK2 requires. This release also includes fmodex.dll for sound/music support and an updated demo project demonstrating sound features.


August 27, 2006

Pre-alpha Demo Release 6 is no longer available.

Release 6 is a set of binary files including managed Direct 9 files that SGDK2 requires. An updated test project is included.


June 29, 2006

Pre-alpha Demo Release 5 is no longer available.

Release 5 is a set of binary files including the managed DirectX 9 files that SGDK2 requires. Hopefully a setup program is not required to run this pre-alpha demo of SGDK2. This release can actually create, compile and run projects with functional solidity handling. A demo project is included.


April 19, 2006

Release 4 (no longer available for download) is soure code and exe file for the latest SGDK2 IDE package. There is no installer in this one so you might need to install pre-alpha 3 if you don't have all the managed DirectX pre-requisites you might need. This package also includes a sample SG2 project file.


Jan 17, 2006

Release 3 (no longer available for download) does not include source code. Its purpose is to provide an installer instead of just the source code and binaries. The hope is that this will allow people who have trouble getting the map editor to run (due to managed DirectX installation problems) to run the map editor successfully.


Jan 9, 2006

(Pre-alpha Demo Release 2 is no longer available)


Nov 3, 2005

(Pre-alpha Demo Release 1 is no longer available)

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