Richard Kain
CAGiversary!
I started a thread like this one in the PC games section, but it seems to have gotten cleaned up. Recent developments and news has led me to believe that a thread about indie game development, and the available resources to make it happen, would probably qualify for the main gaming and industry news thread. 
On the indie gaming front, there has been some BIG news in recent weeks. To kick it off, the Unity Game Engine and toolset has been released for free by its producers. http://www.unity3d.com This is one of the most popular and capable game engines for indie developers. It has all kinds of tools and abilities, and is known for being extremely cross-platform. (it can make games for Windows, Mac, Web-Player, iPhone, Wii, and soon the XBox 360) There are two tiers for the engine that are sold, the Indie version and the Professional edition. The Pro edition has more features, most notably real-time shadow generation. It is the Indie version is now available for free from the Unity website. Anyone interested in game design should definitely check it out.
About a week later, Epic Games announced the release of the UDK. (Unreal Development Kit) http://www.udk.com/ This package bundles the latest and greatest version of the Unreal Engine 3 with all the tools and assets necessary to start producing your own Unreal Engine 3 - powered game. It does not include the source code for the engine, but does provide all the scripting tools available to full UE3 developers. They also announced a new liscencing plan to coincide with the release of the UDK that opens the UE3 development up to smaller teams. The UDK can be acquired and used for free, even for the production of commercial games. Once revenue from those games exceeds $5,000 USD, the developer has to start paying royalties to Epic. (25% of generated revenue) This plan is beneficial to Epic, while requiring much, much less initial investment on the part of developers.
Finally, the new and popular title Torchlight has had its free toolset released to the public. http://www.torchlightgame.com/ The TorchED package includes all of the tools you need to produce your own dungeons, quests, and import any of your custom-created assets into the game.
On the indie gaming front, there has been some BIG news in recent weeks. To kick it off, the Unity Game Engine and toolset has been released for free by its producers. http://www.unity3d.com This is one of the most popular and capable game engines for indie developers. It has all kinds of tools and abilities, and is known for being extremely cross-platform. (it can make games for Windows, Mac, Web-Player, iPhone, Wii, and soon the XBox 360) There are two tiers for the engine that are sold, the Indie version and the Professional edition. The Pro edition has more features, most notably real-time shadow generation. It is the Indie version is now available for free from the Unity website. Anyone interested in game design should definitely check it out.
About a week later, Epic Games announced the release of the UDK. (Unreal Development Kit) http://www.udk.com/ This package bundles the latest and greatest version of the Unreal Engine 3 with all the tools and assets necessary to start producing your own Unreal Engine 3 - powered game. It does not include the source code for the engine, but does provide all the scripting tools available to full UE3 developers. They also announced a new liscencing plan to coincide with the release of the UDK that opens the UE3 development up to smaller teams. The UDK can be acquired and used for free, even for the production of commercial games. Once revenue from those games exceeds $5,000 USD, the developer has to start paying royalties to Epic. (25% of generated revenue) This plan is beneficial to Epic, while requiring much, much less initial investment on the part of developers.
Finally, the new and popular title Torchlight has had its free toolset released to the public. http://www.torchlightgame.com/ The TorchED package includes all of the tools you need to produce your own dungeons, quests, and import any of your custom-created assets into the game.
