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Platinum Arts Sandbox Game Maker is an easy to use Game Maker featuring in game and coop editing based on the Cube 2 Engine. Now Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight Projects have been launched to greatly accelerate and increase the features in the engine. Check out all the features that are going to be added and if we are successful you will be able to create games super quickly even if you aren't good at coding. Sandbox is available for Windows, Linux and Mac.

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About Myself:
My name is Mike and I originally started the Project in 2007 because I wanted the kids in my before and afterschool program (K-5) to be able to create more than just 2D art on the computers, I wanted them to be able to create worlds and stories too! I wanted them to be able to unleash their imaginations and walk around in it. I ended up releasing the project online and it ended up taking off and now is being used worldwide and I'm really excited to say has changed people's lives in very positive ways and saved at least one child's life. The project is free and open source and will always have a free and open source version but to help fund the development and new features we want to add we've decided to start a Kickstarter and Steam Greenlight Project to help fund a commercial version. The commercial version would be too intensive graphically for schools anyway but I'm hoping to port over a lot of the core features so that everyone can benefit if the commercial version is a success. Your support would be much appreciated and I have also have created an open facebook group for people that want to connect with us more on a personal level! Thank you for your time!

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sandboxgamemaker/
The open source free version of Platinum Arts Sandbox is available here: http://SandboxGameMaker.com Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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9 comments

Superuser Feb 23, 2014
Strange that it still says it's based on Cube 2, given that it has been based on the Tesseract engine for a long time now. Tesseract is the spiritual successor to Cube 2with a whole new renderer that's on par with Unreal Engine 4 and goes beyond that, even (it has support for Global Illumination, for one). It's also a (pretty bad, because it's instagib-only) game, but its real draw are the cutting edge graphics, of course.
PlatinumArts Feb 23, 2014
It is based on Cube 2 though. The lighting features of Tess have indeed been integrated into Sandbox but Sandbox still includes all the Game Modes it once did such as the FPS, Vehicle, RPG, etc. All of that stemmed from the base provided by the Cube 2 engine and is what we built on top of, not Tess. Just to provide some info on the subject :) Take care and have a great day!
-mike
manny Feb 23, 2014
indeed worth supporting this open source project.
Superuser Feb 23, 2014
Quoting: mannyindeed worth supporting this open source project.
From what I can tell, it will no longer be open source. It has a stretch goal of $750,000 called "Fully open source". The Cube 2 Engine is permissively licensed so they're perfectly within their rights to do this, but yeah.
PlatinumArts Feb 23, 2014
The commercial edition will no longer be open source that is correct, though I want to have as much of the source available as I can to the user. Also if the commercial version does well then I can pay to port features into the free and open source version. The main thing is I need a budget to pay people to help Sandbox progress, that's what the funds are for, not my financial well being. I already have a job I love, but I just don't get paid enough as a teacher to also pay for what needs to be done in Sandbox. And to be clear, the free version will always be free and open source! And I would even like to put a team together to solely work on progressing it if I can because that version is still very important to me since it is what will be used in schools and what I'd be using myself in schools. If you have any more questions please feel free to ask. Take care!
-mike
Pic Feb 23, 2014
Then why not raise funds for the open source and free version? 0 a.d. did a fundraiser, RotC did, OpenShot did, and they were quite successful.
PlatinumArts Feb 23, 2014
Definitely an idea I'd be willing to try especially if this one doesn't work out but the idea was to prepare a version for Steam so there is a constant budget and so that Sandbox can keep moving forward far beyond just the Kickstarter features. I really want Sandbox to be as easy as possible to make all sorts of creative works and be developed far into the future. Thanks for your insight on those projects, I'm going to check them out and see what I can learn from them and perhaps even go the same route. Thank you and take care!
-mike
A current Sandbox User Feb 23, 2014
I was about to donate to this kickstarter until I realised that the new features would be in a 'Commercial Edition' and not shared with all users of PASB. Its sad to see someone do this to a wonderful piece of free and open source software.

If it were guaranteed that the money was purely being used to accelerate development of the entire project, keeping everything available to everyone freely I'd reconsider, but splitting it into a 'Commercial' and 'Free but feature-limited' editions is horrible.

Also, whilst making the software available through a distribution platform with the reach and audience of steam could be seen as advantageous, it still marries the software to one of the most restrictive forms of DRM in widespread use, and further discourages any financial backing by conscientious users and contributors to the project as-is.

Mike, if your object was to make an educational tool, it should be available to ALL, not just those able to pay.
Anon Feb 28, 2014
>steam
>most restrictive forms of DRM

...What?!
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