Scrolling Game Development Kit

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Scrolling Game Development Kit
Screenshot showing map editor, graphics editor and sprite definition editor
Developed by	Benjamin Marty
Latest release	2.0.0 / December 27, 2007
OS	Windows XP
Genre	Integrated Development Environment
License	GPL
Website	http://sgdk2.sf.net/

The Scrolling Game Development Kit (aka. "SGDK" or "GameDev") is an integrated development environment for creating computer games. While not as popular or flexible as Game Maker, it offers a unique set of features particularly useful for creating platform games. Games created with this software can be completed entirely without coding, or can be customized by editing or writing code. Alternatively, the kit can be used in the more as programming tool to create or edit levels for an external game. The kit's extensibility features allow game data to be used externally.

[edit] Version 1

Version 1.x (more commonly referred to as "GameDev") had many releases, the last of which was numbered 1.4.6. It was written primarily in VB6, and utilized a C++ COM component (also part of the open source project) called BMDXCtls for access to the DirectX framework.

Customization of version 1.x projects is typically done by writing independent VBScript files, and linking them to the project in project settings window (.GDP file). Alternatively a project can be customized using the extensibility features described below.

Extensibility in version 1.x is achieved via the XML export feature and support for COM automation. XML Export will write the project data (*.GDP) and map data (*.MAP) to a single plain-text file with limited binary encoding (primarily for storing the tile values). COM automation allows the engine to be accessed from external programs to control behavior at either design time (for extensibility) or run time (for customization).

[edit] Version 2

Version 2 (more commonly referred to as "SGDK2") was released on December 27th, 2007. It is a rewrite from the ground up in C# using the .NET framework and Managed DirectX.

Customization in version 2 is accomplished by editing the run-time source code, which is embedded in the project.

Because the SGDK2 file format is natively XML, extensibility is trivial. One unique difference between version 1 and version 2 is that all game data is embedded in a single file rather than separated into GDP, MAP, BMP files and so forth.