Wintermute Engine
Encyclopedia
Wintermute Engine is a set of software tools and a runtime interpreter (game engine
) primarily designed for creating and running graphical adventure games
.
The engine is in active development and several updates are released every year, though irregularly due to the small development team.
provides most of the features necessary for creating classic 2D graphical adventure games
. Although originally built as a 2D graphics engine
, with a built-in script interpreter
for implementing game logic, the Wintermute Engine provides support for the combination of real-time 3D characters and 2D backgrounds, a combination sometimes known as "2.5D
", that has become the de-facto standard for modern adventure games (for example Syberia
, Still Life), and survival horror games.
The is also an active community that, while small, is growing in size and is willing to help newcomers with coding or recommendations. Community-created free book of tutorials went online in summer 2008.
, meaning that it's completely free to use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, but if the users find it useful, they are encouraged to make a donation to support its further development.
Starting with version 1.8.9, source code of the engine and some of the supporting tools has been released under the LGPL license.
Previous releases were free to use for non-commercial purposes, but required a separate paid commercial license.
The flexible nature, and relative inexpense, of the licence for even large commercial projects has made the Wintermute Engine a popular tool among independent commercial game developers.
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
) primarily designed for creating and running graphical adventure games
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
.
History
Wintermute Engine (WME) was designed and programmed by Czech programmer Jan Nedoma, who goes by the nickname Mnemonic on the WME forums. The first public beta version was released on January 12th 2003.The engine is in active development and several updates are released every year, though irregularly due to the small development team.
Features
The game engineGame engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
provides most of the features necessary for creating classic 2D graphical adventure games
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
. Although originally built as a 2D graphics engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
, with a built-in script interpreter
Scripting language
A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
for implementing game logic, the Wintermute Engine provides support for the combination of real-time 3D characters and 2D backgrounds, a combination sometimes known as "2.5D
2.5D
2.5D , 3/4 perspective and pseudo-3D are terms used to describe either:* 2D graphical projections and techniques which cause a series of images or scenes to fake or appear to be three-dimensional when in fact they are not, or* gameplay in an otherwise three-dimensional video game that is...
", that has become the de-facto standard for modern adventure games (for example Syberia
Syberia
Syberia is a 2002 computer adventure game conceived by Benoît Sokal, developed by Microïds and published through The Adventure Company. It follows the protagonist Kate Walker as she attempts to wrap up a sale on the behalf of her law firm...
, Still Life), and survival horror games.
- Resolution and Color Depth - Unlike many similar systems the engine supports virtually any resolution: from 320x200 retro-style to high-res 1024x768 modern looking ones or higher. Both 16bit and 32bit color depths are supported. Colour depth can be also configured by the player at run time - the engine handles the conversion automatically.
- Rendering subsystem - WME can use hardware 3D acceleration3D computer graphics3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
(from any modern graphics card) to provide fast 2D graphics in high resolutions. It also includes graphical effects such as transparency, alpha blending and antialiasing (on old computers, WME is able to run in a "compatibility mode", which doesn't require a 3D accelerator, but disables the advanced graphics effects). - File Formats - In addition to supporting common file formats WME also supports alpha channels for PNG and TGATGATGA may refer to:* The Grand Arkanum, A Nerdcore Hiphop Crew coming out of Worcester, Massachusetts consisting of Danny Fantom, The Prophet, Griffen, Kid Ikarus, and DJ Big Spoon* Thermogravimetric Analysis, materials testing procedure...
. However it does not support the MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format (due to licensing issues) but uses the Ogg VorbisVorbisVorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
format instead, arguably providing better compression and sound quality. Furthermore the engine is able to play videos in Ogg TheoraTheoraTheora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....
and AVI formatAudio Video InterleaveAudio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
, including automatic subtitles display (in the SUB format). - Scripting - WME provides a flexible object-oriented scripting languageScripting languageA scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
that supports a set of methods and attributes to allow you an easy access to the internal engine workings. You can also create your own custom objects and override and customize build-in methods. It uses a C-like syntaxC syntaxThe syntax of the C programming language is a set of rules that specifies whether the sequence of characters in a file is conforming C source code...
, similar to C++, C#, Java or PHP. - Parallax scrolling - Multi-layered parallax scrollingParallax scrollingParallax scrolling is a special scrolling technique in computer graphics, popularized in the 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol. In this pseudo-3D technique, background images move by the camera slower than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D video game and adding to the immersion...
for the scenes is natively supported by the engine and scene tool. Unlike most other comparable software no additional scripting is required to implement it. - Packages - A game can be compiled into one or more packages which contain all the game resources in a compressed form. This enables, for example, a developer to distribute a separate speech pack, or to release individual game episodes as packages. Packages can have various priorities, to release a patchPatch (computing)A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
for a game for example. - 3D characters - WME can render 3D characters in real time. While originally supporting only the MilkShape 3DMilkShape 3DMilkShape 3D is a Shareware low polygon 3D modelling program created by Mete Ciragan. It is used mainly by people compiling models for Half-Life, Blockland, The Sims 2, The Sims 3 and other sandbox games....
format, it now supports the more universal DirectXDirectXMicrosoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
format ".X". - GUI's - It is possible, using standard controls, to build a complex user interface for a game, such as load/save windows, settings windows, an inventory window, etc. All the controls are fully "skinnable".
- Localization - A game can be translated into other languages, and isn't limited to text. Localization packages containing localized string table, fonts, graphics, or sounds are possible.
- Accessibility Support - WME provides several options to improve accessibilityComputer accessibilityIn human-computer interaction, computer accessibility refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability or severity of impairment...
for vision-impaired players:- Written text can be sent to a text-to-speech synthesizer
- Active areas on screen can be highlighted using keyboard shortcuts, making them easier to find for people with visual disabilities.
- The player can pause the game at any time to be able to read text or examine the scene.
The is also an active community that, while small, is growing in size and is willing to help newcomers with coding or recommendations. Community-created free book of tutorials went online in summer 2008.
Game design process
Wintermute Engine follows the object-oriented design philosophy. The game developers use the engine tools for building various game objects (actors, scenes, windows etc.) and assembling them together. Every game object is defined by its appearance (graphics, animations, captions, fonts) and by a script, which defines the underlying logic of a given game object and its responses to game events. All those game definitions are then interpreted by the engine runtime interpreter, which is otherwise completely independent on any actual game implementation.License
Starting with version 1.7, Wintermute Engine is distributed as donationwareDonationware
Donationware is a licensing model that supplies fully operational software to the user and pleads for an optional donation be paid to the programmer or a third-party beneficiary . The amount of the donation may also be stipulated by the author, or it may be left to the discretion of the user,...
, meaning that it's completely free to use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, but if the users find it useful, they are encouraged to make a donation to support its further development.
Starting with version 1.8.9, source code of the engine and some of the supporting tools has been released under the LGPL license.
Previous releases were free to use for non-commercial purposes, but required a separate paid commercial license.
The flexible nature, and relative inexpense, of the licence for even large commercial projects has made the Wintermute Engine a popular tool among independent commercial game developers.
Games developed with Wintermute
| Year | Title | Developer | Genre | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | the white chamber The white chamber the white chamber is a science fiction horror amateur adventure game created by Studio Trophis using the Wintermute Engine. Originally designed as a university project, it was expanded to a full game and released for Windows as free download in 2005.... |
Studio Trophis | sci-fi horror | Freeware |
| 2008 | Ghost in the Sheet | CBE | horror | Commercial |
| 2009 | Rosemary | Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab | mystery Mystery Mystery, mysteries, or mysterious may refer to:-Religion:* Sacred mysteries, supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or religious ideology* Mystery play, a form of medieval European dramatic theatre dealing with religious themes... |
Freeware |
| 2008 | The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure The Lost Crown: a ghost-hunting adventure The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure is a British graphic adventure video game released in 2008. The Lost Crown is the third full title to be written and developed by Jonathan Boakes, author of Dark Fall: The Journal and Dark Fall 2: Lights Out... |
Darkling Room | horror | Commercial |
| 2011 | Alpha Polaris Alpha Polaris Alpha Polaris is a point-and-click horror adventure game, developed by Finnish company Turmoil Games and published by Just a Game. It was released for Microsoft Windows on June 24, 2011. The game is set in a research station in Greenland.... |
Turmoil Games | horror | Commercial |