Havok brings Anarchy to GDC

GDC 2013: Project Anarchy that is, but it isn’t that impressive

Havok_logoHavok is finally talking about what they call Project Anarchy, and the name sure sounds good. Other than that, you are not going to be amazed, and going to their web site gives you an almost instant headache.

What is Havok’s Project Anarchy? Take several of their components, the Vision game engine, the Physics simulation, AI but not that AI, just a script engine more than anything, and throw them in a bundle. Rev the products a bit and voila! You get a game engine, physics, AI in the sense of pathfinding only really, and some animation/behavior functions too, and together it is called Project Anarchy. Hmmm, you don’t sound impressed either.

The biggest thing is that Project Anarchy is free to publish on iOS and Android, but you pay for other platforms. That would be consoles, Windows the larger, and other desktop OSes, but not Wince. I do question the wisdom of giving away the two likely largest sales targets for free while charging for the smaller ones, but who am I to dictate their license terms? In any case, you do get a full phone dev platform essentially for free, and that is not a bad thing. The name Project Anarchy however doesn’t live up to the pre-billing, but if that is the worst thing you can say about a product….S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate