FXGL VS jMonkeyEngine

I downloaded javafx from here: https://github.com/AlmasB/FXGL as a zip, extracted it, then went to my project structure and added it to my libraries. For a couple seconds it seems to work, but then I get the error again, and the folder isn't showing up in my external libraries.

Java seems to have gained a second wind in recent years, and the innovation in this ecosystem is speeding up. Java 20 and LTS release 21 are expected to happen this year. RIFE2, an actively-developed pure-Java web framework, has recently caught my attention. Like Javalin, it appears to be built on top of the successful Jetty server. I also started exploring FXGL for building games with Java. Lastly, as concerns over COVID-19 variants wane I expect an increase in Java developers participating in community events. For example, Chicago finally had its first in-person JConf event and the Chicago Java User Group (CJUG) is easing back into in-person events.

Have you checked FXGL? It’s built on top of JavaFX.

You might get some good use out of FXGL, a Java / JavaFX / Kotlin Game Library. It would probably save you implementing some things from scratch. It might not cover everything that you need, but it probably be at least somewhat helpful.

If you don't mind depending on all of JavaFX you could also try: https://github.com/AlmasB/FXGL Haven't tried it myself but seems like an easy way to start making a game. The author is a university lecturer, so there are plenty of tutorials for games. As the other comment said, Compose Desktop would be a nice choice for a chess game, with the added benefit of easy porting to Android in case you're interested in learning it!

I can highly recommend FXGL https://github.com/AlmasB/FXGL to get started building simpler 2d games before looking into 3d engines which can be daunting unless that’s what you are in for. Nice and easy api’s with everything you need as well as lots of example games to learn from.

Sure. See FXGL

GitHub sources: https://github.com/AlmasB/FXGL

Either libGDX (https://libgdx.com) or FXGL (http://almasb.github.io/FXGL/) . libGDX is more complicated and more powerful, FGXL is better suited for simpler games and so easier for beginners, but recently it's development is quite active and more and more features are available.

At the time of the check, the latest revision was the e584cb1 commit. We checked it using the static analyzer.

> Unfortunately, this is yet another open source game engine with too small a user base.

I wonder why some engines are seemingly destined for success and others... aren't.

Godot got really big, despite a somewhat similar feature set: https://godotengine.org/ (really nice 2D support, 3D rendering was worse until version 4, GDScript has both a nice iteration speed but also has gotten some criticism, while C# was a second class citizen in the earlier iterations)

Stride is really nice and seemed like it should have been the Unity replacement that people would look at, if it had gotten more attention and a community would have formed around it, like Godot's.

There's also NeoAxis which is way more Windows centric, but still seems to be getting updates and is comparatively easy to use, yet similarly never got popular: https://www.neoaxis.com/

Weirder yet, Java doesn't really have that many game engines out there, at least the likes of Unity/NeoAxis/Stride that have nice editors, despite the language being pretty nice. The closest I can think of is jMonkeyEngine which I donated some money in the past to, which is pretty usable but similarly niche: https://jmonkeyengine.org/

I occasionally watch videos on the Gamefromscratch YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@gamefromscratch/videos) and it surprises me that there are so many engines out there, but very few actually are in the public eye. If you don't go out of your way to look for other options, you will most likely only have heard of Unity and Unreal (or maybe also Godot in recent years). I wonder why that is.

There more `bare-metal` engines like https://jmonkeyengine.org/ (well it is not C++, it is Java based)...

jMonkeyEngine (Java, Open source): https://jmonkeyengine.org/

This project develops a cross-platform Subspace client and server written in Java. It was developed from scratch on the idea of extensibility and modularity. The server is based on modules/frameworks highly optimized for scaled, networked, grid-based, infinite world physics. The client is based on the JMonkeyEngine, a minimalistic modern developer friendly, open source, game engine

> Godot is one of those pinnacle FOSS projects that just totally impresses me, especially given the state its in now, with 4.0.

It is definitely one of the success stories, at least so far.

For example, there are projects like jMonkeyEngine (a game engine in Java, on top of LWJGL) that don't get as much attention and their movement forwards is way slower: https://jmonkeyengine.org/

There's also Stride 3D, which is a bit closer to Unity I'd say, which is still a really nice project, but is also limited in how much development can be done: https://www.stride3d.net/

Regardless, I wish all of those projects success and would still be glad if Godot could be one of the champions of open source game engines, perhaps as a viable and easy to use alternative to something like Unity for those who want that sort of thing, even in the professional development space eventually!

It is, or at least was, efficient. Java has a great game engine called https://jmonkeyengine.org/ that at the time could compete with Unity, not sure the status now. And LWJGL, the lower layer for ooengl, was quite nice to use and it is efficient to go that low level if you plan to do a game that does not fit the stereotypes in such game engines, as you will find yourself fighting the engine more than the actual game.

This seems interesting https://jmonkeyengine.org , how would I get started?