1. Basilisk
2. GameFrame for Java
3. Golden T game engine
4. Pulpcore
5. Genuine Advantage Game engine
6. Gentus Easyway
7. Slick2D
8. JGame
9. Game Gardens

Physics Engine

1. Tokamak ( Open source physics api)
2. APE (Actionscript Physics Engine)
3. Flade ( Flash Dynamics Engine)
4. Fisix Engine (Another flash actionscript engine)
5. Simple Physics Engine
6. Newton game dynamics
7. Novodex
8. ODE

Sound Libraries

1. FMod
2. OpenAL

Quantum Engine is an cross-language 32bit native code compiler with an advanced 2D game engine for PC’s running Microsoft Windows® and uses Direct3D® for hardware accelerated rendering. It’s robust, designed for easy of use and suitable for making all types of 2D games and other graphic simulations. Your code can compile to a stand-alone EXE and/or to dynamic loadable compiled units (runtime packages). The core game engine consists of a high-level object oriented game application framework with a plethora of classes and routines to allow you to rapidly and efficiently develop your graphics simulations. There is support for surfaces, textures, sprites, audio, streams, archives, configuration files, render targets, swap chains, databases and much more.

Quantum engine is free of charge for freeware projects but if you plan to sell them then you need to buy license for the game.

It is available for multiple platforms: linux, mac and windows. Python and pyglet is necessary on system before you start working with cocos2D.

You can have sprite based animation and can direct sprites on where to move, delete and perform some action etc.

Documentation is also well written. You can browse it online or you can download. There are 5 tutorial videos for the beginners as well as intermediate users.

For more information you can check here.

What are sprites?

Sprites are graphical objects like trees/clouds/hero/villans/bullets and so much to list. Sprites can be created with help of image editing tools like photoshop, paint.net, Gimp etc. If you’re not into the sprite designing then you can even download the free & legal sprites for your game. There are many open source games that allows you to reuse the sprites in your game.

For demonstrational purpose you can get the sprites from http://spriters-resource.com

Sprite editor

Gamemaker has built in sprite editor that allows you to choose the actions of animated sprite. We have two ways to open sprite editor : First you can right click on “Sprite” folder in left hand sidebar and click “New Sprite”, this will open up the sprite properties dialog.

Second way to open sprite properties is click on “Resources” menu and then click on “Create Sprite”. 

To name your sprite click the “Name” field and enter the name of your sprite. To load the graphics(sprite) you have to click “Load sprite” button. That will open up the Sprite editor window where you can set the width & height of the sprite.

Now make your sprite “transparent” so that it can easily blend with the rest of the graphics in the game. You can easily see the difference when you uncheck this option, your character shows colored edges which sets itself differently from the rest of the game graphics.

Once you’ve done with it then click OK to close the dialog box.

Animated Sprites

If you’re using animated sprites then you’ve to cautiously use the width & height in Edit sprite dialog box. so that each frame of the sprite is properly selected without cutting any edge of character/object. 

While creating animated sprites you can select smooth edges option in ‘sprite properties” dialog box.

Hope this information helps.If you’ve any questions then feel free to post them here.

First of all, I would like to apologize if this guide is somewhat sketchy. I tried to make it as simple as possible,Onward and upward!

Step 1: Open up Game Maker!

The first thing you will notice is that you may not have all the options I do. I also have Game Maker Pro, available for $20 (and WELL worth the money!). To get the additional options, go to File ? Advanced mode. Take note that this is NOT required, and I myself rarely use the Advanced options. Additional options can be daunting, so keep what your comfortable with.

Step 2: Make your first sprite

A sprite is a representation of an object. Like if you draw a stop sign, you are showing a visual representation of that object (the stop sign). Same idea.

Go ahead and make your first Sprite. Do this by clicking the little “red pac-man” at the top of Game Maker. You should get a screen similar to the one below:

What you want to do here is go ahead and give your Sprite a Name. Just name it something meaningful that you can look at and instantly know, “oh that is my <whatever>”. Trust me, proper naming now can save you extra time and frustration later.

After doing that, click on the Load Sprite button. You should be dropped in the Game Maker bundled images folder by default. Select any image you like to represent your new Sprite; NOTE that this will be the Object’s image (the Stop sign again: if you want it to look like a stop sign, you need to draw a stop sign (or in this case, select the stop sign image)).

After that, your screen should look like this:

I named my Sprite “MyBall” and chose the Maze Craze 3.0 default ball image to represent it. Go ahead and click the confirmation checkmark & “OK” button in that mini-window.

Step 3: Make it real

So you have a nice little sprite… but it doesn’t represent anything yet! You need to link it to an Object! Fear not, it is as simple as the last step, but can eventually become a very fun step (and several) once you play around with the various Events. Enough big words, more objects!

Now, click on the New Object button – the blue ball at the top. You should get a new mini-window again, and your screen should now look like this:

Notice how it looks similar to the New Sprite window. But there are all these funky buttons and tabs on the right! Gasp!

For the time being, ignore them. We are focusing on making the object, not making the object’s Events. Go and Name your Object (using the same name as the sprite can be very effective at keeping things clean). Then where it says Sprite, click that little menu icon and select your Sprite. Yay! Your done now! 

If it is, click OK and proceed to the next step!

Step 4: Roomy is good

Alright, you have your Sprite (visual representation) and your Object (computer representation). Good. Now we need a place to put them (they are now linked, so you will only see the visual representation- the sprite). Go up to the top of the Game Maker window, like so…

And click the button that looks like a window (as in computer program window, not a building window). That is a lot of stuff for such a small space, huh? Lets make it bigger, shall we?

Ah, thats more like it. Now notice the grid there in the main portion of the window, and your sprite is appearing there on the left sidebar. If you create multiple objects, clicking the sprite will show a list of all of them. You can also click the small menu icon below to see the same list. There is a list of key shortcuts and commands as well.

Lets go ahead and place the Object into the Room (the grid there- by the way, the grid can be toggled AND resized to your needs). Do this by simply clicking where you want it to go!

Game Maker should look similar to this::

Step 4: 01101101010101

Alright, you are ready to test. Go ahead and click the OK checkmark there in the top left, and save your work. You should be back at the main Game Maker screen:

Now, click the Green “play” arrow at the top. (The Red arrow is used for debugging, when coding in the Game Maker Language (GML). Most users will not need it, and if they do, only later on with a lot of experience. It can be noted that Maze Craze, the popular game I made with Game Maker Pro, uses NO GML code.)

Your game should compile, and a loading screen appear. Wait for it to load, and you should get your Room, with your Sprite representing your (not visible to you) Object.

Congratulations! Thats it! Tinker with the Events (the buttons on the right of the Object window) and the Room options to get your Object moving. Double clicking items in the left side of the Game Maker window will bring up their Properties windows, allowing you to edit them easily anytime. Almost everything can be customized, including that Loading screen. Enjoy!

This article assumes basic knowledge in algebra (like the significance of X as a variable), but hopefully I’ll be able to explain it in a way that makes sense to anyone who understands multiplication and division.

Boring Introduction:

Math problems of any kind can be made much easier to comprehend and solve if you follow a few steps. I’m serious! The people who are really good at math don’t do it all in their head! They will almost always follow these steps while trying to solve a problem! The steps are:

• Write it down in words.
• Draw a picture!
• Fill in the blanks with what you already know.

What’s that got to do with percentages?

Percentage problems qualify as math problems, so the above steps apply as well. I’m going to go into more detail with each step and even add another one that applies specifically to the problem of percentages.

So without further adieu, it’s time to get to the nitty gritty word problems!

The Problem

Sally took 50 apples to the farmers market and managed to sell 15 of them. What percentage of her apples did she sell?

Step 1. Write it down in words.

Don’t try to write out an equation right away. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think in mathematical equations. My native language is English, and I think in English. So in my case I would write the problem down in English. With percentage problems, there’s a very specific sentence structure you should use. This is what your sentence should look like, using the example given above:

“15 is what percent of 50?”

Step 2. Draw a picture.

Once you’ve got it out in easy-to-read sentence form, draw this picture on some scratch paper. The act of drawing a picture representing the problem really helps–especially with word problems–and this little sketch is what makes percentages so easy.

Step 3. Fill in the blanks with what you already know.

Now just look at the sentence you wrote down and use the numbers next to the word to find your formula. In other words, replace “is,” “of,” or “%” with the numbers that are next to them in the sentence. And for the value you don’t know (usually a “what” in your sentence), just put an X there. So since our sentence is “15 is what percent of 50?” we make the diagram like so.

Step 4. Solve for X.

See how that works? Now just solve for X to get the percentage. Solving for X in this example could be translated to this formula: x = 15 / 50 * 100, which comes out to x = 30. Don’t forget to add the % sign after you know what X is. Let’s rewrite our sentence now that we know the answer.

“15 is 30% of 50.”

This method can be used to find an answer as long as you know two of the numbers. It doesn’t matter what two numbers you know, as long as you know two of them you can find the other one. Take the following example sentences:

“What number is 30% of 50?”

“15 is 30% of what number?”

Can you see where to put the numbers in the equation shown in Step 2?

What if I need to know the ratio?

Ratios are actually nearly the same. Except all you need to do is solve the is/of part of the equation.