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The Genie Engine is a game engine developed by Ensemble Studios and used in several popular computer games, such as ''Age of Empires'', ''Age of Empires II'' and its expansions (but is not used in other Ensemble Studios games) and ''Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds''. Some of those games have been ported to the Apple Mac. ==Development== The Genie engine was developed as the basis for Ensemble Studios' first game, ''Age of Empires'' which had the development name of "Dawn of Man". The designers received much of their inspiration from the game ''Civilization'', with its proven historical setting; this was noted among reviewers as something positive.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Behind the Scenes )〕 ''Age of Empires'' was designed by Bruce Shelley,.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Behind the Scenes: Bruce Shelly )〕 Tony Goodman (in charge of the game's artwork),〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Behind the Scenes: Tony Goodman )〕 and Dave Pottinger (in charge of the game's artificial intelligence).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Behind the Scenes: Dave Pottinger )〕 The game was described as "''Civilization II'' meets ''Warcraft II''" and this shows in the game's engine design. Like ''Warcraft'' it is real time strategy but unlike ''Warcraft'' and like ''Civilization II'' it is historical and has an isometric perspective. The design team for the sequel, ''The Age of Kings'', intended to complete the game within a year by using code from the original and reusing the Genie game engine. Several months into the process they found they would not be able to complete a game of the quality they sought in that time. Ensemble Studios informed Microsoft they would need another year and instead created ''Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome'', an easily developed expansion pack of ''Age of Empires'', as a compromise which could be released for Christmas 1998. To help meet the next year's deadline, additional programmers, artists, and designers were employed. The original ''Age of Empires'' had been criticized for its artificial intelligence (AI). Because the original AI did not "cheat"〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Dave Pottinger )〕 by attributing itself extra resources or using other techniques the human player could not, it was easier to defeat than in many other real-time strategy games. For ''The Age of Kings'', Ensemble Studios attempted to develop a more powerful AI system that did not compromise by cheating. Industry veteran Mario Grimani led Ensemble Studios in the creation of the new system. To overcome another significant objection to ''Age of Empires''—that of path finding—the team completely redesigned the game engine's movement system.〔 The team was less successful in resolving other issues; programmer Matt Pritchard complained following the release of ''Age of Empires'' that there was still no process by which patches could be issued. Extensive cheating in multiplayer games of ''Age of Empires'' came as a result of several bugs in the game, which resulted in Microsoft promising Ensemble Studios there would be a patch process for ''The Age of Kings''. On release, there were several bugs that needed immediate attention, but the patch process was not yet ready. The first patch was released 11 months later.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings Downloads )〕 Ensemble Studios developed a new terrain system for ''The Age of Kings'', with 3D presentation capabilities that were vastly superior to those of ''Age of Empires''. Pritchard noted an improvement in the team's artistic abilities following their work on the past two games, and he is noted as saying that "''AoK'' became a showcase for their improved talent".〔 However, he complained about the lack of an art asset management tool, while other departments gained new tools and automated procedures to assist in design and play testing.〔〔 ''The Age of Kings'' saw the introduction of a triggers system for its scenario editor. The triggers allow messages to be displayed, or actions to take place, based on pre-set criteria or "events". The scenario editor was also improved by the new AI system. The AI and trigger systems interacted regularly in the single player campaigns. Numerous upgrades were added in ''The Conquerors'' but this was mostly in terms of gameplay and not engine advancements. ''Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds'' was developed by LucasArts by licensing the Genie game engine from Ensemble Studios. The game, as well as the Clone Campaigns expansion pack, was designed and directed by Garry M. Gaber.〔(MobyGames - Garry Gaber )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Genie Engine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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