New Scorpion Engine for Amiga is even better and faster

March 7, 2021, 19:32 Mikhail Sudakov ред.

We wrote about the wonderful Scorpion Engine for the Amiga a year and a half ago. Recall, that it is made by not unknown Eric Hogan (Earok), who previously released a bunch of demos, hacks, prototypes and even some finished games - for example, AlarCity and The Kiwi's Tale. Like many other fans of this computer, my friend got so tired of the endless stream of slow games created with engines like Backbone and RedPill, that he decided to take matters into his own hands. Using the know-how from his two aforementioned releases, he started to write an engine that allows making games for Amiga with 25-50 fps output even on the basic 500 model without any problems.

Over the last time Eric managed to add a bunch of new functions to Scorpion Engine, and even transferred the editor to Unity. Thanks to that it became much more convenient, plus it's easier to port it to macOS and Linux - it's kind of in the nearest future. It's possible that one day the editor will have an option to create not only Amiga images, but also executable files for Windows, macOS, Linux and even JavaScript, which will help developers reach a wider audience. By the way, importing from Backbone still works, which allows you to speed up your already made and long-released games without too much trouble. Of course, we need some sources for that, but when Scorpion Engine will reach the final release, we'll be sure to keep an eye on it.

Right now the main engine and editor's problem is lack of proper documentation, although it doesn't prevent some English Amiga Board members from developing their own games with Scorpion Engine. Not saying anything about Eric himself - he simultaneously makes about 5-10 different projects, each of them aimed to emphasize one or another (or several) advantages of the engine.

Actually, you can download the engine and all the "technodemks" (essentially unfinished games) from the official repository on GitHub: here full set, and here is the latest experimental version Scorpion Engine, but without games.

You can follow the development of the engine on English Amiga Board. There you can also ask questions to the author about using Scorpion Engine, and express all sorts of respect. It's also worth to subscribe to Eric's YouTube channel, where he regularly posts videos about work on the engine. Here is the most current one dedicated to speed optimization: