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Multi platform 2D game engine [closed]

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I am creating a 2D game which I wish to run cross platform (on platforms such as Windows, Mac, iOS and Android as the main targets) and the engine I use needs to be open source.
The main goal is to have the most code portability (possibly through scripting).
I would prefer to do this in C# but using another language is not a massive issue if I have to.
I have considered MonoGame and flash using the Flex SDK as they both claim to be cross platform and open source.
Which one of these would be a better choice considering my criteria? Or would another game engine/library be more suitable?

I would suggest Unity3D. It is a 3D platform. But if you only use 2 dimensions you're good to go. In Unity3D you can write your game in C#, Javascript or Boo.
Unity is free and can export to Windows Phone, Windows 8 App, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Blackberry, iOs, Xbox360, Wii and PS3 but for those last 3 you need a developer license from Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo. But the possibility is there.
UPDATE
You had to pay for the ios and android addons earlier. Now they are free:
Today, we’re taking another step on this long road: as of right now,
independent Unity developers will be able to deploy their games to
Android and iOS platforms completely free of charge. Update Unity and
you will find Android and iOS build options (previously basic add-ons)
ready and waiting for you to use.
Source: http://blogs.unity3d.com/
In the meanwhile, support for other platforms has come out (including windows phone, winrt & blackberry). Those are all free. If you want pro features you need a pro license. But most of the stuff you need is in the free version. To compare look at this page.

The engines below allow you to reuse pretty much all your code, only thing you need to change is resolution and touch input/controls from desktop to mobile or the other way around. I would suggest you check out these engines, they are all open source:
libgdx - Uses Java and is almost as fast as XNA, but faster than MonoGame. "Publish your games on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS and HTML5, all with the same code base." - off their website, anything that can run java, can run your game. Big community so you shouldn't have problems asking questions when you need help and getting it.
Qt-Project - Qt is a cross-platform application and UI framework for developers using C++ or QML, a CSS & JavaScript like language. As of Qt 5.1 you are supposed to be able to build for Android and iOS, allowing you to build for all the platforms you requested. Big community.
Moai - Uses Lua and can deploy to all the platforms you requested. Only downside is the community is pretty small and the docs are a little out of date, but people on irc and forums will usually help you, but the answer won't always be immediate. You also have to build your own hosts to build for the platforms you desire, but last time I checked there were public hosts for all platforms out.
libgdx seems like a perfect fit for you. the performance is amazing, the community is big and it lets you reuse the same code for all platforms, just to name a few. Only downside being it doesn't use C#. Of course you should definitely look into them yourselves and see if they are match for what you want. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

There are a couple of options based on your preferences; I will list a couple of ones I recently come across.
Cocos2d series seem very popular these days. If you think C++ isn't
a problem for you then Cocos2d-X would be an option as it offers a
lot of platforms. Other Cocos2d series might get your attention as
well. I guess there are a couple of versions like HTML5, Javascript,
Python. etc but i think only cocos2d-x is cross platform.
Unity3D(C#, Javascript, Boo) seems as an option but it's not open
source, as well as UDK(UnrealScript) also same, but if you think to
buy a license they offer source code I guess
Flash also can be a good option, as you mentioned. It uses AS3 which
is an OOP language and can be very useful if you are a beginner.
And ImpactJS offers a lot of platforms also, it uses HTML5, you can
check here http://impactjs.com/
The list can be longer and longer, and depends on your needs. You should specify your needs clearly like; how much deep you wanna go, which platforms are most important for you? etc.
Good Luck

You can try this: http://www.appgamekit.com/ (AGK)
Code in c++, but working perfectly. A very simple engine.

C# Windows Application Developer - 3rd Party Tools [closed]

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Scenario
I have recently graduated from university with a degree in Computer Science.
My degree mainly focused on C#.
I want to learn more and get better at what I do.
I notice a lot of companies always want their developers to know and use 3rd party tools.
Question
If I was developing C# Windows Forms applications, what 3rd party tools/libraries/controls etc. would be of use to me and for what reason?

The answer to this question depends on how you define "3rd party tools". I usually take that to mean products from companies other than MS but excluding free open source software. When it comes to 3rd party products (for-profit) I cannot think of any common products that I've used or been asked to learn over the last decade that I've been doing .Net development. Most MS shops I've worked with turn to MS solutions (for good or ill depending on your personal view).
That said, in recent years the number and quality of the various FOSS solutions out there has risen dramatically. I use the following whenever I can:
Logging: log4net
Inversion of Control Container (plus more): Castle Windsor
ORM: NHibernate
Unit Testing: NUnit
Mocks for unit testing: Rhino Mocks
For most of these projects there are many other options, these are just my current favorites. Learn to use these (and WHY they are needed) and you'll be many steps above the average .Net developer (sad but all to true).

The DevExpress and Telerik controls are pretty popular, but not free.

Some 3rd party .Net component providers that I've seen used in companies most often:
Telerik
Infragistics
They are not free. These kinds of providers offer large libraries of controls that you'd pick from to achieve your specific goals.

Many good suggestions here, I would also add a few other categories of tools:
Software configuration management/version control: CVS, Subversion, Git/Mercurial/Bazaar, Perforce, etc. Good use of SCM is essential for professional software development.
Issue tracking: Bugzilla, Trac, FogBugz, etc. I would also consider an issue tracking system to be a critical piece of software.
Documentation: Like it or not, it becomes very handy to know your way around Microsoft Word. Knowing how to manipulate styles, headings, numberings, cross-references, etc. can make your life a lot easier when writing documentation.

You'd probably want to have a look at Silverlight. It's a Microsoft alternative to Flash and uses C#. WPF are also something to look at for interfacing.
It might also be worthwhile looking at MOSS.

I've always liked the Xceed controls. In a lot of cases you could always build your own controls. The biggest advantage to using some of these packages is that it saves you the time and they have also been well tested (if not by the company then by the people that are using them).
I've used a couple of different packages over the years and found that if you can use one it's not that hard to use another. The biggest thing is knowing what is available out there so you don't spend two weeks building something that you could have just paid a few hundred dollars for.

You should know about resharper (helper for VS)
Crystal reports - for reports,
Some Grid tools (google it, there are many - I wouldn't bother to learn until need one)
and study advanced topics like: WCF, WPF
Cruise control or other building tool, bugnet or trac - bug management tools...
And of course - AQtime or other Profiling tools.

.NET Reflector
Hawkeye - The .Net Runtime Object Editor
Infragistics

I'd throw mono in there as well. Since you're looking to give yourself an advantage over other developers and improve your value to companies - having cross platform experience is advantageous as well.

There are a lot of 3rd party controls that will help you achieve more in less time. But I don't think many of them will really improve your coding skills (calling someone else to do all the work doesn't teach you much about how to actually do thise things yourself, but familiarity with them and the ability to learn new libraries is a good skill to practice)
Resharper is good for improving your coding skills (code analysis), coding style (autoformatting), and it's a great refactoring tool. It's expensive, though.
Microsoft do some free code analysis tools for Visual Studio (FXCop for code analysis, and there is also a Static Analysis addin) which will help improve your code quality.
AtomineerUtils (my own addin) encourages excellence in documentation and generally improves your code quality (by encouraging good naming style, etc)

Focus more on the tools used in the software development process. Enterprise Architect is used for designing applications from a high level. Once you design you application's business classes you can generate your classes' skeletons. You will be responsible for you code implementation once the class structure has been created.
For implementation purposes look at several C# platforms mentioned earlier. You want to focus Microsoft's WPF, WCF, WF. WPF is ok but it can not be used prior to .net 3.0 so check your client's requirements. I'm working on a project that targets the .net 2.0 because of restrictions by the client so the applicaiton was designed in WinForms. Silverlight is an option as well.
In addition, read up on design patterns as this will help you avoid creating high maintenance applications. A good book is Design Patterns in C#.
For testing look at the Visual Studio TFS system or third party programs like NUnit. You can google NUnit. This will help you ensure that your code does what you intended it to do on a granular scale.
Also, take a look at some of the source control software avaialbel like Subversion, Rational ClearCase, Visual SourceSafe. For large projects with multiple developers you'll need a source control tool that has multiple branches so that each developer has his or her own sandbox within the source control system.

I'm a big proponent of ComponentOne and use it in my new applications regularly. I find that if you're proficient in .NET winforms in general, C1 are very easy to pick up on and usually do what you want with little effort.
A couple people mentioned Telerik. I demoed it fairly extensively and found them to be a bit more complicated because they contain a ton of configuration options for look and feel. Awesome if you're some sort of graphic designer, but unless you're building the next Windows Media Player, I think it's overkill. The learning curve for the theming seemed a bit much for what I was trying to accomplish.
C1 and Telerik both run about $1000 to $1300 depending on what license you get.
You should also check out the Krypton toolkit. It free and has a lot of nice controls.

How to prevent decompilation of any C# application [closed]

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We are planning to develop a client server application using C# and MySQL. We plan to sell the product on the shelf like any other software utility. We are worried about the decompilation of our product which does have some sort of edge over our competitors in terms of usability and bundled functionality.
How can we prevent our software from decompilation, so the business logic of the product remains intact?
We have heard about Reflector and other decompilers which makes our code very much vulnerable for copying.
Our customer base is not Corporates but medical practitioners who themselves may not do it but our competitors may want to copy/disable licensing or even replicate the code/functionality so the value of our product goes down in the market.
Any suggestion to prevent this is most welcome.

If you deploy .NET assemblies to your client machines, some kind of decompilation will always be possible using reflector and similar tools.
However, this situation isn't materially different to what you'd encounter if you wrote the application in native C++. It is always possible to decompile things - if it were impossible, the processor couldn't understand it either.
You're never going to defeat the expert cracker - they'll treat your security as an intellectual puzzle to be solved for the challenge alone.
The question revolves around how hard it is to defeat your licensing practices and the return on investment.
Sit down with a spreadsheet and look through the possible scenarios - the danger is probably less than you think.
Factors like "ease of use" are visible in your software for any user to observe - so you'd think it easy to copy. But, good User experience is rare (and seldom copied well), because most developers (myself included) are nothing like typical users.
I'd suggest you concentrate on making the job of a cracker harder, cause you can never make it impossible, just non-profitable.
One possibility to try: It's possible to pre-compile assemblies into native code as a part of the installation process. Paint.NET does this for performance reasons. I believe that once you've done this, you can discard the original assemblies and use the optimised, native code editions.

If it were me, I wouldn't be attempt to obfuscate; I would:
Not worry about it and aim to continually improve and stay in front
But secondly
Consider providing the 'secret' services over the Web. It's up to you to decide how critical and possible this is; but it does "prevent" decompilation, because the end user doesn't even have the code.

Google for .NET Obfuscator. You will find a lot of products that will help in this. Also there are related questions already asked in Stack Overflow.
Here are some:
Dotfuscator
Secure Team
EDIT: While searching for De-Obfuscating tools, I came across an open source tool De4Dot. This tool supports decompiling obfucated dlls created by most commercial tools and does a pretty good job too.

Intellilock has served our purpose well in terms of obfuscation as well as licensing. But I would not recommend the product as the support is not upto the mark. We never got replies in time for the problem we were facing. We had to search and research on our own or even change the business requirement to achieve some goals.
Via this answer I am not intending to promote or demote any software but just want make people aware about the product we are using so they can make wise decision.

The last time I looked into this, Spices.Net Obfuscator looked like the best thing on the market.
No, I don't work for them. :)

I use smartassembly. It is simple to use and also has the ability to send crash reports back too you built in.

The obfuscators others have mentioned are likely very good.
An alternative approach you might not have considered is to code some of the core business logic using a language that is fully compiled to machine code, such as C++.
The benefit of doing this is that it makes it far more difficult for someone to decompile your code. A drawback to this is that you have code in two languages to maintain. This might not be the best approach for your situation, but is useful in cases where only a small part of the code needs to be obfuscated while the remainder of the code is UI fluff.
As an example, your medical software package might be performing edge detection of say, certain glands for the purpose of telling a doctor the size of said gland. The algorithm for calculating the size of the gland from a bitmap image would be contained in a DLL written in C++.

to answer your question about the C++ wrapper around the .net code; I dont think it would work, because when you deploy the application the final c++ dll and .net dll containing the business logic code will be separate entities and the ones who want to get to your business logic would still be able to just pick out the .net dll and peek inside.

you might want to consider Remotesoft Salamander Protector
this is much better than anything else in that it makes it impossible to decompile to the high level language.
Of course, anybody who is an expert can spend enough time with your software and figure it out because it does decompile some,but it hides all the set and get methods
So, they can get a peak,but that is about it. they have to figure out the rest which lowers the probability of anybody just cracking it.
hope this helps

Writing on this thread after a long time. We have purchased a software called Intellilock which is helpful in preventing decompilation, obfuscation and also has a strong licencing module.
We did not go for .Net Reactor even though it has more prevention controls as Intellilock was serving our purpose well enough.

What advantages are to be had by using Java+Swing over C#+WinForms/WPF? [closed]

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There is a group here using Java, server-side and client-side, with Swing for the client UIs. I plan to suggest that they change the front end to C# and WinForms or WPF, but I want to come prepared with:
A list of benefits to be had from moving to Winforms / WPF from Swing.
A list of Swing benefits that might get thrown back at me over using WinForms / WPF (the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the ability to share more code across server and client due to being the same language - given the fact that the server side will stay Java).

I'll preface this by saying I'm a .net developer so the following might be heretical.
It sounds like your company already has a significant investment in java. People, software licenses, and code base.
If my company (or group) was primarily java and we were successful in meeting business demands, then quite frankly there would be no way I'd switch.
The only way I'd consider switching technology stacks is if the stack we were on was truly dead. Meaning that it was very difficult to find programmers for, it could no longer meet business needs, we had a high number of failed projects, and/or the language itself was no longer evolving.
Switching just because someone prefers one language over another is non-starter and ultimately wouldn't make any business sense. The very act of a change like that will mean that the company is going to lose those people who are still committed to the old stack. Replacing people is extremely expensive just in terms of knowledge lost.
Another thing, if you don't already know what the hard reasons are for switching platforms then you shouldn't even try to encourage it. Take the accountants point of view, what really would this provide?

1) Swing stinks. (Almost just kidding, but really, in my opinion, it's pretty awful.) Even if you're going to develop in Java, use SWT or some other decent looking/behaving toolkit. Moving to Windows Forms or WPF will (potentially) give you a lot more powerful user interface options on Windows, but only on Windows.
2) You're tying yourself to Windows, and losing the cross platform nature of Java+Swing. You're potentially losing some ability for shared code. You're having to redevelop in non-java, which may mean a lack of experience/training/knowledge on the part of other developers on your team.

Performace & startup time. You just can't compare Swing to Winforms/WPF in the performace/startup time aspect.
Really don't know... if you have a high qualified Java team that does not know .Net APIs, stick to Swing, otherwise, don't think twice... Use Winforms. About "the ability to share more code across server and client due to being the same language", don't bother... there is zillions of ways to make two different applications from different languages that each other.

The performance of the GUI should be faster with a .NET winform app compared to a Swing app running on Windows. It's not really a huge difference at this point for most apps though, computers these days can run Java pretty fast.
Either way you would still be talking to the Java backend code. Depending on what they've done you may be better off just sticking with the Swing front end.
If it's an option you should think about a web front end. If it can be made in XHTML/Javascript/CSS, you would retain the cross platform benefits that the Java GUI gives you.
But really, you need to think about why you want to change to Winforms instead of Java. Is there something about the existing Java app that you don't like that would be better and worth the cost of redeveloping in another language? Is it something that can be fixed without a full rewrite?

Do you have any custom components which would be a pain to migrate from Swing to .net? Do you have staff that are expert at developing custom Swing components (Java2D expertise, familiarity with Swings input subsystem etc.) who know little about WinForm custom development?
If the answer either to these questions is yes then you should probably stick with Swing.

1) It is easier to make a Winforms app feel like a Windows app. Java applications usually feel "funny" if you aren't careful.
2) Everything you are programming is using Java. Having one component that is not Java means that the project is harder to work with. Overall maintenance will also be more annoying. Currently, everyone on your project team needs to know Java only in order to be able to work with anyone else on your project team. From a recruiting and maintainability perspective, this is convenient. Personally, I be against switching the GUI unless you were getting some other benefit out of it.
You have not provided any reasons why you plan to make your proposal.

If using windows .net is the better choice because yo have:
1. Good designer in Visual studio, good documentation and examples
2. Better startup, CPU and memory usage at runtime: see http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/RuntimePerformance.aspx
If using Linux, you have Mono versus Java, but it is more complicated to make a comparison there due to the large number of distros.

The big advantage are free libraries you can use in java.Most of the nosql systems are written in java , the best of all Neo4j (only java will give you ability to run these products embedded). This is something dot net can't do, and these will give your applications ability no winforms, wpf can have.

What tools exist to convert a Delphi 7 application to C# and the .Net framework? [closed]

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I maintain an old PC-only application written in Delphi 7. Although Delphi has served me very well in the past I now only use it for this one application and find my skills with the language diminishing. Its syntax is too different from my 'day job' languages of Java/Ruby so it takes me longer to get into the groove of writing new code, plus it is so old I have not used many interfaces so the code is not managed which seems ancient to me now!
Many of my users are moving to Vista which may run the app in compatibility mode or may have GPF problems depending on how their PC is configured by their IT department, so I have to do some maintenance on the application. I'm wondering if I should jump to a more familiar stack.
Is there an automated tool that will do the legwork of converting the code base to C#, leaving me to concentrate on the conversion on any non-standard components? I'm using an embedded database component called AbsoluteDatabase which is BDE compatible and using standard SQL throughout, and a native Delphi HTML browser component which can be swapped out with something from the Microsoft world.
How good are these conversion tools?

I am not aware of any automated tools for making that conversion. Personally I would suggest you stick with Delphi, maybe just upgrade to a new version. I have seen a couple code DOM's that attempt to convert from Delphi to C#, but that doesn't address the library issue.
CodeGear (formally Borland) has a tool for going from C# to Delphi that works OK. I would assume the tools that go the other direction will work the same (requiring a lot of editing). Here is a Swedish tool that works on the same CodeDOM principle to go from Delphi to C# (and a number of other languages). There are others, I just can't find them right now.
Another option would be to upgrade to a more resent version of Delphi for .NET and port your code to .NET that way. Once you get it working in Delphi for .NET (which will be pretty easy, except for the embedded DB, unless they have a .NET version) you can use .NET Reflector and File Disassembler reverse the IL to C#. You will still be using the VCL, but you can use C# instead of Object pascal.
Another similar solution would be to port it to Oxygene by RemObjects. I believe they have a Delphi Win32 migration path to WinForms. Then use .NET Reflector and File Disassembler reverse the IL to C#.
In short, no easy answers. Language migration is easier then library migration. A lot of it depends on what 3rd party components you used (beyond AbsoluteDatabase) and if you made any Windows API calls directly in your application.
Another completely different option would be too look for an off shore team to maintain the application. They can probably do so cheaply. You could find someone domestically, but it would cost you more no doubt (although with the sagging dollar and poor job market you never know . . . )
Good luck!

There has been a scientific report of a successfull transformation of a 1.5 million line Delphi Project to C# by John Brant. He wrote a Delphi parser, a C# generator and lots of transformation rules on the AST. Gradually extending the set of rules, doing a daily build, lots of unit tests, and some rewriting of difficult Delphi parts allowed him with a team of 4, among which some of the original developers, with deep Delphi & C# knowledge, to migrate the software in 18 months. John Brant being the original developer of the refactoring browser and the SmaCC compiler construction kit, you are unlikely to be able to go that fast

Many of my users are moving to Vista
which may run the app in compatibility
mode or may have GPF problems
depending on how their PC is
configured by their IT department, so
I have to do some maintenance on the
application. I'm wondering if I should
jump to a more familiar stack.
Unless you are doing something non standard, D7 applications should run fine in Vista.
As for conversion to C#, I would think that most conversion tools would be a waste of time. A better approach may be to rewrite the application from scratch.

There is no easy answer, but bear in mind that the Delphi.net variant of the language targets the .net runtime, and that different languages on .net can interoperate closely.
You could try getting it to compile in Delphi.Net, factoring into different assemblies and then converting the assemblies by hand one by one. Reflector could help be reverse-engineering compiled code into a skeleton of C# code - equivalent but without comments, internal variable names etc.
On the other hand, Delphi.net may be good enough (TM) for this project.
But unless you have a good test suite (I'm guessing probably not, given the state of the art in Delphi 7) you're going to introduce bugs.