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minisphere is a drop-in replacement and successor to the Sphere game engine, written from the ground up in C. It boasts a high level of compatibility with most games written for Sphere 1.x, with better performance and new functionality. The majority of games will run with no modifications.
Like Sphere, minisphere uses JavaScript for game coding. The engine exposes a collection of low-level functions through a standardized JavaScript API, leaving higher-level game logic entirely up to script. This allows any type of game to be made with minisphere; of course, this naturally requires more expertise than making a game with, say, RPG Maker or even Game Maker, but the ultimate flexibility you get in return is worth it.
The engine uses Allegro 5 for graphics and sound and Duktape for JavaScript. As both of these are portable to various platforms, this allows minisphere to be compiled successfully on all three major platforms (Windows, Linux, and OS X)--and possibly others--with no changes to the source.
minisphere includes a powerful but easy-to-use command-line debugger, called SSJ. The debugger allows you to step through your game's code and inspect the internal state of the game--variables, call stack, objects, etc.--as it executes. And since minisphere uses JavaScript, the original source files aren't required to be present--SSJ can download source code directly from the minisphere instance being debugged.
A symbolic debugger such as SSJ is an invaluable tool for development and is a minisphere exclusive: No similar tool was ever available for Sphere 1.x.
The latest stable minisphere release at the time of this writing is minisphere 3.1.0, released on Saturday, May 7, 2016. The binaries are provided through GitHub, and the latest version is always available for download here:
For an overview of breaking changes in the current major stable release series,
refer to RELEASES.md.
minisphere and accompanying command-line tools are licensed under the terms of the BSD-3-clause license. Practically speaking, this means the engine can be used for any purpose, even commercially, with no restriction other than maintain the original copyright notice.