Last month FierceDeveloper discussed Intel subsidiary Havok in a story about how mobile gaming engines like Unity are making bigger efforts to court indie devs by waiving fees or providing extra functionality. The competition will be tougher than ever now that Havok has released Project Anarchy, a completely free gaming engine that was created through a combination of its Havok Vision Engine, Havok Physics, Havok Animation and Havok AI technologies.
Though many of its toolset are Windows-only, Intel said Project Anarchy will allow developers to create mobile games that can be published to iOS, Android or Tizen, a new mobile OS developed with Samsung that's still in the works.
Immediately following its release, several developers commenting on social media sounded thrilled by the idea of having an alternative to the established game engines.
Sweet! - "@TechCrunch: Havok's Completely Free 3D Engine For Mobile Game Developers Is Now Available http://t.co/cpzeHQwixY by @grg"
— Andy Mui (@andy_mui) June 26, 2013
Unleash anarchy! http://t.co/zm8wQKf1qE
— Clodéric Mars (Pro) (@clodericmars) June 26, 2013
Great free mobile game engine for all you budding indie devs out there! Havok Unleashes Project Anarchy http://t.co/JbHsxJiq6a
— Colin Martin (@cmdluke) June 25, 2013
A new game engine, interesting. Havok releases 'Project Anarchy,' a free mobile development toolkit http://t.co/7ujNs6hp4r via @joystiq
— Bigmac1910 (@Bigmac1910) June 26, 2013
Nice RT @Kotaku Havok has released Project Anarchy, a free 3D mobile game development engine. http://t.co/nUozCoZATR
— Victor H. Lizcano (@VictorLizcano77) June 26, 2013
With #mobilegames becoming more powerful, Havok's done a great thing in releasing a free engine http://t.co/MMaG4SDhYH
— Liquid Entertainment (@GoLiquid) June 26, 2013
Finally!!! Gamasutra - News - Havok launches free 3D game engine for mobile: http://t.co/0UV4roZukw @project_anarchy
— Mike (@michalputo) June 25, 2013
Some wondered how vendors would respond.
This is huge for Intel, and also the Intel XDK (cloud-based dev tool). How will Microsoft respond? http://t.co/P0b4KolS5z
— Prof. Nick Flor (@ProfessorF) June 27, 2013
Good luck fighting back Unity3D world domination... "Havok Unleashes Project Anarchy, A Free 3D Mobile Game Engine" http://t.co/OSVJy1FvNK
— Virgile Delporte (@_vd_) June 26, 2013
Though obviously aimed at existing game developers, Havok has indicated it hopes Project Anarchy will encourage others to start making titles for the first time. There's reason to believe that some technology professionals will do so.
Me thinks it's time to move on to Game dev #project_anarchy http://t.co/176nuurVPM
— Giorgos Ampavis (@abavisg) June 26, 2013
Developers can download Havok's Project Anarchy engine here.