What good is a tool if you don't know how to use it?  Simply knowing that a nail-gun can help you build a house faster than you could using a regular hammer doesn't mean you're not going to shoot a nail through your big toe if you're not careful. But if you knew how to handle that tool correctly, you could reap numerous benefits in terms of quality and efficiency.

That being said, I suggest to you to think of the Zen Core Framework as a tool, and a powerful one at that.  It can be used with the Zen Engine plugins to develop a FPS game in Python script, used in conjunction with a custom plugin that enables the visualization of measured phenomena in real-time, and even used to create a server-side application that services a multitude of clients for an MMORPG.  In short, the Zen Core Framework can be an extremely versatile tool in our "Programmer's Toolbox."

 But the question still remains, "How do we use it?"

 Over the next few months, we will be posting some articles dedicated to this topic ranging from how use the Zen Core Framework and Zen Engine to script a simple application to developing a custom plugin that can be dynamically loaded by the Zen Framework.  These articles will not only provide correct examples of how to use the framework, but also the reasoning behind them.

It is our hope that these articles, and the growing community here at IndieZen, will help ease the adoption of the Zen Core Framework and other Zen components by novice and experienced developers alike.

Quite a few people have asked me this question recently, so I decided I should make a blog entry related to the question.

Why would you want to use IndieZen.org software instead of other game engines? First, lets discuss in detail what IndieZen.org is creating.

Zen Framework is an application framework tailored for creating games and game development tools. It has an incredible plugin system tailored after OSGi. For those that don't know, OSGi is one of the bleeding edge technologies being used to create the next generation application servers... eventually I even plan on taking it this far and making an application server out of it since MMO and other online games need a great application server for a variety of reasons.

Zen Engine is a very flexible game engine that uses Zen Framework as a base. All of the components are plugins, so you don't have to worry about the fact that I might want to use FMOD and you need something like OpenAL.... even the rendering engine is a plugin.

Zen Studio is a game development IDE and includes plugins for 3d modeling, source code editing, world editing, etc. Zen Studio is as flexible as Zen Engine. It starts with Zen Framework, but it also has its own framework tailored for the IDE.

All of these projects are written in C++ using my hard core development methodologies and extremely high standards. If you take a look at it, quite likely you will agree that it is the best implementation and design of a C++ project you have ever seen.... sure, that sounds arrogant, but take a look at it. If you're not satisfied, tell me and I will take whatever suggestions anyone has in order to improve it.

All of these projects are free and open source using an unrestrictive license!

We are using the ZLib license, which allows commercial use without forcing you to release your source code. You don't even have to give IndieZen, LLC or any of the other contributors credit for the code as long as you follow the licensing terms.

The reason you should contribute to IndieZen.org software is exactly the same reason everyone else is.

Making a game engine or even making a game is tough. There is a lot of hard core coding involved, and most people don't have enough time and/or aren't up to the challenge. When banding together to create a game engine, hardly anyone could agree on what components to use.... one person may want to use FMOD for sound while another person wanted to use OpenAL. Many people wanted physics but there are so many physics engines to choose from, and for some games you might even want to create your own physics engine.

To solve this problem, I created the IndieZen.org. It doesn't matter if you want to write your own components or if you want to pick and choose from the multitude of off-the-shelf software. From Audio libraries to databases, the framework allows you to choose.

We've already coded a myriad of plugins for use in the framework. As a convention, the open source plugins start with "Z", so we've created ZPython, ZOgre, ZPostgres, ZRakNet, ZOpenAL, ZPhysX and a few other plugins. Some of these plugins aren't finished, but hopefully within the next few months they will be completed and we will have some sample games.

You have a few choices... continue messing around with other game engines, and if you don't tear your hair out first, maybe you can make some games that are limited to the restrictions the currently available game engines have.

Another choice is to wait until the Zen software is finished or you can go ahead and start writing your own.

The best option is contribute to the Zen software. If you're not a C++ programmer, don't worry... I have started a Software Development Apprentice Program and I can teach you what you need to know. If you are a C++ programmer then welcome aboard... where's your keyboard? :P

Think about it... right now there are 5 contributors and we've already made a huge dent in what needs to be done. If you contribute, you only have to write about 10% of the code... if 10 more people join up, you're only stuck with 5% of the code. That's a whole lot better than having to write it all yourself.... and when we're done, we all get the source code and we're free to do whatever we want with it. You are even free to make your own plugins to keep for yourself, sell them commercially or do whatever you want with them.

It's your code and it's truly free. Save your time, money and hair... come join us and help us to make Zen Engine the best game engine in the world.

Click here to comment on this post.