Infinity Engine is a game engine which allows the creation of isometric role-playing video games. It was originally developed by BioWare for a prototype RTS game codenamed Battleground Infinity, which was ultimately re-engineered to become the first installment of the Baldur's Gate series. BioWare used it again in the subsequent installments of the series, but also licensed the engine to Interplay's Black Isle Studios.
Infinity Engine features pausable realtime gameplay. The engine uses a three quarters perspective with pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and sprite-based characters. Although graphically 2D for the most part, Baldur's Gate II added the use of OpenGL to accelerate drawing. Designed for six-character party-based adventuring by default, the Infinity Engine was the spiritual successor to the Gold Box Engine, and provided the basis for five Dungeons & Dragons licensed role-playing video games plus additional expansion packs and a number of fanmade total conversion RPGs. It was succeeded by BioWare's Aurora Engine.
A free compatible game engine recreation is in development under the name of GemRB. It runs on multiple platforms, including FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Android and AmigaOS 4. Entire suites of reverse-engineered modding tools were written for Windows, Mac OS, and OS X in the engine's heyday.
Read more about Infinity Engine: Games Using Infinity Engine
Famous quotes containing the words infinity and/or engine:
“We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is perfect, the engineer is nobody. Every new step in improving the engine restricts one more act of the engineer,—unteaches him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)