Developer Paul Snively is coordinating a new game level editor development project called Seppuku. Billed as “the suicidally ambitious Unreal technology project,” Seppuku is promised as a cross-platform system that will enable both Mac and Windows users to create and edit levels for games based on Epic Games’ popular Unreal graphics engine.
Targeted initially at Unreal, Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex, Seppuku will feature a plug-in architecture that should make it extensible enough to support other games based on the same graphics engine, and boy, there sure are a lot of them: Games created using Id Software’s popular Quake III Arena graphics technology and Unreal engine variants are the most frequent 3D games that come to the Macintosh.
To help develop Seppuku, Snively is actively recruiting what he calls “really, really brave C++ programmers.”
“By ‘brave’ I mean people who are quite familiar and comfortable with current, modern C++ design and implementation idioms. Template parameters can’t scare you; you eat Run Time Type Information for breakfast; the Curiously Recurring Template Pattern is the slickest thing since (well, OK, before) the new iMac. You’ll be faced with a cross-platform app framework written by a former member of Adobe’s InDesign team; he didn’t really have time to write any documentation to speak of,” said Snively.
So, if you’re interested in helping out and you don’t find Snively’s warnings, drop by the Seppuku Web site and drop Snively a line.