Ray Game Designer Home Page

Create 3D games without programing

NEW: XMas demo game added to the download section.

Back in 1997 I made a commercial game authoring tool named Ray Game Designer (RGD). It was based on a pretty poor RayCaster renderer, but had the particularity to fully assist the user in a game creation process without writing any line of code.

Even if the core 3D engine is really outdated (320x200 rendering), I think this tool still has a lot to offer, at least for educational purposes. For this reason, I've decided to turn it freeware. Here are the specs of this tool and, of course, the tool itself !.

RGD is a 3D Game building system for Windows 3.x and Windows 95. It allows you to create games based on a RayCaster engine without any knowledge of coding: you only use a point-and-click interface and your favorite drawing tools. You can concentrate yourself on the most interesting part of your game: designing the scenario, the sounds and the graphics. RGD can create action, adventure or role playing games, but it can also simulate virtual or existing places (Museum, etc ...). Software developped with the RGD engine can be freely distributed without any royalty fee.

RGD consists in 5 different editors, available in 640x480, 800x600 et 1024x768:

The Image editor allows you to group PCX 128x128 pictures in order to design your levels,
The Texture editor allows you to define the animations of the textures of the game,
The Mobile editor allows you to create new mobiles (monsters, etc ...),
The Path editor allows you to visualy define the path and the behaviour of each mobile of the game,
The Level editor allows you to design your levels with cubic walls.

Technical caracteristics of an RGD game:

3D Engine: fixed-height cubic walls for each level, patterned textured floors and textured ceiling (or sky). Fog available. Screen resolutions: 320x200, 320x160, 256x128, 320x100, 160x180, 160x100.

Unlimited number of levels. Each level can hold 8 exits to other levels, and can have a time limit.
255 animated textures among 100 PCX pictures for each level.
50 mobiles among 6 different types for each level. Each mobile is completly user-defined, from its graphical appearance to its inner properties (life and spell points, weapon, ...).
User defines the behaviour of each mobile of the game with the visual Path editor. Each path is defined by high-level commands which allow the mobile to move itself, but also to dynamicaly modify the level, or to react according to the player's actions, ...
Link FMV or WAV samples to a lot of game events.
Unique RELIEF Mode , which provides you a stereoscopic rendering by the use of GREEN/RED glasses.
8 different saved games available. Automapping possible.
Lot of objects available: 64 types of keys, numerous weapons and spells, specific objects (end of game, Automapping, ...).

RGD is also provided with:

- A game compiler & installer generator,
- A game player that you can freely provide with your games,
- An element importing software,
- A general parameters setting software (speed, keys,etc ...),
- Mobiles, Heroes and textures for your games,
- PCX and FLI utilities.

System requirements: a 486 DX2-66 PC or above with 8 Mo RAM. Windows 3.x, Windows 95 or Windows 98. Won't work on NT.

Screenshots of XMas, a game made with RGD.

Download RGD

RGD is now freeware. This download is quite big, so it has been split in 3 parts:

Download the CORE RGD system (3.80 Mb) (English version)	This is the main RGD system. It includes the engine, the editors, the help files and the tutorial data. This is all you need to create a basic game.
Download the CORE RGD system (3.80 Mb) (French version)	The same as above, but in french language.
Download the Data sets (4.35 Mb)	This is a collection of monsters, objects, texture sets and sounds that you can use in your games. They can be imported in your game using the "IMPORT tool" of RGD.
Download the Tools (485 Kb)	Some DOS tools that allow you to create PCX pictures and to generate FLI animations from a set of images or an AVI file.
Download the Xmas Sample game (2.14 Mb)	This self-installing game has been written using RGD. You can download it without downloading any RGD component. It will show you what kind of games you can make with RGD.

Important note: You will see some references to web sites or e-mail addresses in the support part of the help files. These addresses are no longer valid.

Last modified on 12/31/2000.