Introducing Duality Engine

This article is part of a series of academic articles, based on the activity proposed by Professor Luiz Junior, on classes of development of digital games, 
from Pontifical Catholic University - PUC - Campinas-SP-Brazil

The activity consists of the reconstruction of the classic digital game Breakout, 
in different engines, publishing the experience in specialized forums, and made 
available the source of the projects

The scope of this first article is an analysis of first impressions of Duality 
Engine use for the production of 2D digital games.


 Duality Engine is a 2D open source game development framework that offers a 
visual editor and component-oriented development using scripts with support for 
the C # programming language hosted on http://duality.adamslair.net/


There is no official documentation for consultation, however, the source code is 
open (https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/), the community around the project is 
quite active (http://forum.adamslair.net/), 

It also offers tutorials that present 
the fundamental resources to mark learning

(https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/wiki/Getting-Started).


Because it is an open source engine, created largely by a single developer, it is 
amazing how much functionality is available in the editor, and how it all works 
very well.



A simple and clean graphical user interface, you can easily find all the features 
offered.

Images taken from the official website (http://duality.adamslair.net/).

    Following the guidance of the official tutorials, in a few hours you are already familiar with the editor, easily finding your assets, such as importing assets, editing scenarios, colliding, etc. But not everything is flowers, especially the level navigation system, is different from all the editors I've had experience so far, generating a combination of frustration and irritation at certain times.

The scripting system is integrated with visual studio, which is automatically activated when the button is pressed.

Images taken from the official website (https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/wiki/Getting-Started).

       The use of scripts is easy and intuitive, based on the C # programming language, following the systematic pattern of large commercial engines, with Unity.

Images taken from the official website (https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality/wiki/Getting-Started).

       Using interfaces to integrate component behaviors makes learning easy and intuitive. Just like in the Unreal Engine, it is necessary to build each time the scripts are changed. For those who are used to Unity, this may create some confusion, but it is easily overcome. The experience of rebuilding the Breakout game in this framework was quite entertaining.

     Except for the frustration of navigating the scenery (something I have not yet overcome), the editor's features greatly streamlines the creation process. In addition, scripts in an intuitive language like C #, make the experience extremely easy. Considering the simple nature of Engine, the result was amazing! It is highly recommended for 2D projects and for learning to create digital games.

       Assets used in the project are free, and have been taken from a tutorial for Contruct 2, (will be the subject of another article), and are on the website

https://www.scirra.com/tutorials/313/cloning-the- Classics-breakout-video / page-1.

The project and source code have been published in itchio at

https://rodolfogentil.itch.io/duality-breakout.

The download is free.

This article is written by César da Silva Peixoto and Rodolfo Gentil.