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Viewing post in Inviting suggestions on engine options...
I’m talking about an 3D engine, not a simple browser-like 2D engine.
So am I. My current project is three-dimensional.
Yes, I have never tried, why should I?
You have never tried, so your only view on the matter comes from other people, who also have probably never tried. In other words, hearsay. I have tried, and have direct experience in the area.
My experience shows, that the making the engine takes a very small amount of time compared to the making of the main game. Especially when the game is made alongside the engine, instead of separately.
But if you do it on a commercial basis, time is money and your game should need extra-ordinary functions the usual engines cannot provide. Don’t code stuff players don’t appreciate.
“Time is money” is neoliberalism and is thus an ideology, not fact. My ideology is different.
My choice of a custom engine very much brings with it observable results: my software works on old computers and I thus do not coerce anyone to spend hundreds of dollars on useless hardware. My software does not consume gigabytes of RAM to draw one triangle on the screen.
And I, as a player, do appreciate some effort put into a project, something the use of a custom engine very much shows. This alone proves that such an audience exists. They’re just quiet on average.
I am unlikely to play a game made with Unity or Unreal, and I am definitely not playing a game made with any AI, because it is by implication zero-effort and worthless, and is thus undeserving of my money. Despite not being aware of such an audience, you’ve pulled the number five out of your ass, thanks to your own neoliberal bias.
A custom engine does not mean 100% from scratch, anyway. I don’t know where this misconception comes from. I still use ODE as the physics engine, GLFW as the window library and SoLoud as the audio engine.
Hi, thanks for replying.
I don't at all "curse" clone generators. Game clones are like clichès, they are popular for reasons, I understand that. For people who simply want to reinvent their favorite FPS, there are numerous ways they can do that, and I'm happy for them. But a clone generator won't suit my needs. I need a general-purpose engine that will not constrain my options in unnecessary ways, because my inspiration usually involves things that I've never seen done in any other game, and I'll have to design and program it myself.
Coding is not an issue for me. Each time I've decided on an engine to stick with, the first thing I do is learn that engine's scripting language if I don't know it already. I'm certainly not an expert programmer, but I have no problem scripting what I need, if I can actually find an engine to work in.
Graphics and audio is not an issue for me. I am a 3D artist, and I make my own sound effects and music.
The holdup is not all the things surrounding an engine, it's simply finding an engine (suitable to the general-purpose need I described) that I can get working. Unity is spoiling because it is ready to get and go right away. There are numerous unity-like engines (ie the list in the original post), but the get-and-go setup is not so common. From installers that don't work, to total lack of documentation, most engines have problems that make them useless, and the only way to know is to take the dive and give one a shot. I spent months learning Godot before I gave up. The same/similar is true for several other engines.
Unity has been turned into another clone generator. It's perhaps the most versatile clone generator around, but it makes things I want to do impossible. Beside that, they, as a company, have totally lost my confidence. I won't even play new games made with Unity, those crooks cannot be trusted at all and their crap can stay the hell away from my computer. I took some time to check out Unreal a couple days ago (another respondent suggested it), that's one I'll consider a last-option. For one, it uses visual scripting, and that's the brakes. I will prefer Castle or Titan, where I can write out a script in the conventional way, before Unreal. Also they make their engine only available through Epic. I didn't think of listing this as a qualifier, but having to go through a service like Epic for an engine is also the brakes. That's the only reason I don't consider Leadwerks, they are only available through Steam. If you have to rely on one of those services for your engine, and something goes wrong with that service, then all your work is in jeopardy. A proper engine has the reliability of being standalone.
I appreciate your advice that "If you want complete freedom, you have to develop your own engine", but I don't believe that's true. There are SO MANY engines. Surely, SURELY there has to be one out there that is actually useful in a non-clone context. Over the last few days, I have come to feel like I am getting closer to one. I have found information that I believe may lead to a solution to Stride's big problem, which would be a big relief, but I'm having to wait on other people for help with that, so that progresses at their convenience. The Titan engine installer has passed AV inspection, so that one is now a possibility that I need to take a closer look at if Stride turns out to be no good. In the unfortunate situation that Stride and Titan prove to be non-options, then, my plan presently is to fall back on Castle. Castle is the one fully-working engine I have found that is get-and-go ready and has everything I need. But ooooh I really want to avoid it if possible, because that one's design direction makes it a big gamble, and I don't have anything to wager that I can afford to lose. That's the whole point of this thread, for if anybody knows of an engine I haven't tried yet that will be a better option than Castle.
Ah, well I am sorry to hear you are in a similar situation, then. I have looked into O3D, and passed it up because they use visual scripting, just like Unreal.
Since there are indeed so many currently treading water without an engine to stay afloat on, including many displaced from Unity, like me, and since the world of game engines is so problematic with very few that actually check the boxes of what a developer needs, I wonder if that might be an indication that it's a proper time for us to network and create a new one responsive to this need. One that hits all the basics, is equipped with straight-forward methods, and doesn't constrain the user's creative freedom. Existing engines always give me the impression they are designed by market managers and created by software developers. There really aught to be an engine designed and created by game developers.
It is looking increasingly like there is no way for me to make use of Stride engine. It's not yet a fact, but pursuing it continues to lead to only more problems, and it is taking more time than I can continue to pay. Considering how much time I have spent on that, I am now feeling too pressured to try to tackle Titan engine, and am sinking into certainty that I have no other option but to settle on Castle engine. So, I don't know if that info is any help to you. Maybe you have more open doors than I do, but if you're serious about considering other engines to switch to, maybe Titan and Castle are a starting point.
You can code the "old-fashioned way" with Unreal. Blueprint visual scripting is just one of the options you have.
Here's the documentation for programming with C++ in UE 4.
And here's an example .