Opinions of games engines

General Discussions
#1

Hi guys, me again.

I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about the difficulties of getting into the games industry as a recent graduate, along the way our discussion moved on to questions regarding games engines and i admit its a question that has been hanging over me.

Construct 2, Game Maker, Unity these are some of the many games engines (non Java related) that exist and i am wondering why would people opt to not using them. Can the community point out the flaws of such engines to me and whether i should avoid them, do you think they are a cheaters way to make games (my actual opinion at this time)

#2

I think that a Game Engine, in order for me to use it, I look for the following things.

  • Is it easier to code in or more user friendly?
  • Does it limit me?
  • Does it give you more opportunities?
  • Can I learn anything from using it?
  • Do enough people use it, or know how it might work, in order for there to be support in case of debugging?
  • Is it worth more of my time than other ways of making the game?

Code-less doesn’t mean cheaty, it just means you are limited to that software unless included otherwise, so if you feel you are better off using the engine, go for it!

#3

I personally hate Game Maker since it teaches you practically nothing, and all these kids are running around showing off their games made in it and saying they are the next Notch, it just pisses me off more than anything.

Unity is ok, but I barely ever used it, so I can’t really comment on it. Although, I think it costs a ton of money to license the engine so you can release your game, so that may be an issue. Never used construct.

I don’t like using game engines because I like learning how things work behind the scenes, but other people just want to make games. If you’re going to use an engine, realize that you won’t learn a lot, you will be restricted a little as to what you can do with the end product depending on the engine, and you won’t have the same feeling as when you figure something hard out and successfully implement it into your game. I don’t think you’ll ever feel that kind of feeling with an engine.

Some people will say that they only want to make games, and that’s fine. Others will say they want to learn how to make games. There really is a huge difference there. I want to make a game, but I don’t feel pressure to make one. I would rather learn how to do cool things and mess around with different effects etc… Then actually developing a storyline and everything that goes into a game.

It really all comes down to what you want to do in your programming career. Do you want to just make games, or do you want to know how to make games? Some talented people can do both, but for the rest of us it’ll take a while to get to that point.

#4

FTFY

Game Design != Game Programming != Game Development

Design is design.
Programming is programming.
Development is design, programming, and creation of assets.

#5

I was more talking about the underlying programming of a game, not the actual design. Unless by game design you mean designing the engine as well, but I take game design as the storyline, character development etc…

#6

No unreal there? Even with those game engines you will still find you are writing functions and behaviors making your own libraries and the such like you would anywhere else. They key thing is they to some heave lifting for you like physics and setting up many things that have to to with fast rendering. They also have editors to help with level creating which I think is the BIGGEST advantage. Most people on here are tinkerers and would rather tinkerer with whatever they are working on than using some else s code. I know a lot of people who use unity. I have tried it and just can’t get into it most likely due to make lack of experience.

Cheaters way of making games?
hmm…skyrim the Havoc physics lib which I don’t think they created and probably many others. Virtually every COD runs on some engine which will have libs not made by the main devs. Put simply, no it is not cheating in the slightest. As Heroes said, there is a bunch of stuff that goes into developing a game and so any time that can be cut writing in house tools is a plus. If you are really serious about developing a game, use an engine and get a team going.

He made one big game…John Carmack would be a better reference.

Edit: Blah meant Carmack

#7

The ends justifies the means as long as you aren’t breaking copyright law - this is why no one writes games in bytecode. The higher level up, the more features are going to be limited from you, that’s a given. But it’s not a problem for most of us.

#8

If you’re going to use an engine, realize that you won’t still learn a lot

Anybody who wants to get into software industry, no matter what trade, should get accustomed to reuse code that have been written by other people…
For games it may be Unity, the Unreal engine and the like. To know them is a much better qualification than to know how to set up some OpenGL shaders.

#9

It’s ‘Carmack’. Just so you know (if it wasn’t a typo)… and maybe others :slight_smile:

#10

I don’t completely agree to this. When I started game development, I jumped straight into Unity. I did that because it was simple (or at least I thought so) and everybody else used it.

I soon discovered that it wasn’t something for me because I didn’t understand a thing. So then I jumped over to Java and LWJGL; making small steps every day. And now, about three quarter of a year later I’ve made a pretty neat game engine (in my opinion), and best of all: I’ve learned a ton.

I also recently picked up Unity again, just to see. And guess what? Almost everything made perfect sense, and it didn’t take me long before I made a basic prototype.

So I think that it’s a combination of them both; it will make your day easier if you know some of the underlying mechanics (or have some serious experience).

#11

Well i am certainly glad i had asked this question. As mentioned i had recently graduated from college, i was doing computing with Games development and design. The course had given me insight into a lot of areas but not too in depth (which was something i mentioned in a previous thread of mine and yes i am aware those courses only give you the basic tools to what is needed to pursue a career). I had used UDK in college at the request of a lecturer, i didn’t take to it too much, it wasn’t that it was difficult but like some of the people who replied so far, i felt that the engines don’t offer the same experiences you would get when you solve a rather complex problem. About 1 week ago, Game Maker had offered a deal for black friday, buy the professional edition for $25, while this excludes the ability to export (which depending on what you want to export to could cost a fortune) it seemed a logical choice just to give it a try and see what the fuss is about.

I like Notch, due to his understanding of coding and its a symbol of what happens when you put the effort into something, but he isn’t my inspiration as a games developer. I have always had the interest in making games (while lack of motivation is my biggest hinderence).

I became aware of most of the engines i mentioned (and ones i didn’t mention as there are many out there and if i listed them all…) as a result of researching for HTML5 and JavaScript tutorials, i was rather perplexed by the number of engines out there and the fact that they all are now aiming at multi-platform releases and it makes me wonder about the saturation of the games market with crap games (as there currently is), from people who never really took an active interest in learning how to build something from nothing. I don’t believe in the idea of letting other people do my work, i would rather be able to say in a total way “this is mine”. It does make sense in a way, to actually use games engines as it reduces the time needed to produce a game, but i wonder about the limitations posed by the games engines in relation to physics, graphics and plugging in more content at a later point.

#12

I had some experience with GameMaker. It is the tool that created interest towards games in me (You know, I didn’t even play MineCraft or others). When I was first introduced to it, I was amazed by the number of actions it has (I implemented the idea of actions into my game engine) but soon I felt that it was limiting my ability. I had to find other libraries for more actions but unable to install them in lite edition of GM. So I thought, why not make games on my own so I have no need to pay anything. I asked the question on yahoo answers and the most replies said to use a programming language. I asked google to find a programming language for me, it was Java. I learnt programming just for the interest in games. I can’t comment on other tools since I haven’t used them, the only tool I used other than GM was Multimedia Fusion 2 which baffled me on the first sight, I left that too.

#13

I use jMonkeyEngine, it makes my life a lot simpler…

#14

I don’t think you should avoid them. There are a lot of quite successful game smade with Game Maker. These tools can greatly boost your productivity if you game fits to their domain, but they will put limits on what you can do in your game.

I think these tools are aimed at the less technology-oriented, and more game-oriented developers, while the ones who like technology prefer to program themselves.

#15

now this is why i asked the question “if your game fits to their domain” when you say this, what do you mean by fitting their domain? a game engine, like Unity for example allows you to export on multiple platforms, such as IOS (no need to learn Objective C) and Android (no need to learn Java), where you can then use scripting languages to fill in the gaps.
Are you saying that these Game Engine producers would limit what can be released and where?

The other aspect you mentioned was limitations to what you can do, now this is an interesting one because it is an underlying fear i have about their usage, but what types of limitations, i would assume that they would have stuff like a game world editor which is useful (as it reduces time wasted on coding game maps (i would suspect)).

I am going to be honest i think my question was more open ended than i desired, my issues with the idea of using game engines are as follows:

Increased flooding of the market
Less focus on making solid games (since people will rely on the game engine to do its job and focus solely on graphics and music implementation).
The good games developers who work their butts off to make a solid game (having spent months laboriously working through bugs, books, online tutorials to fix, implement and improve their game) but are ignored because of the amount of other games on the market, made by people with less passion and are simply hungry for money.
You wont learn as much about the games development processes (you obviously have to begin with an idea, you then develop your idea etc.)

maybe i am thinking too deeply about it, i suppose it would just be giving me more pride to actually work my butt off to produce something i could say is my own. However since i bought GameMaker professional for 25$ it makes sense to at least give it a go and maybe just use the game i make in it as a prototype and convert the game from that, to a Java game release.

#16

Maybe not intentionally, but it happened in the past that such games did not work anymore on newer operating system versions, and were hard to port to other platforms (if that was possible at all). Unity which you mentioned surely supports a lot of platforms, but there still are some limits.

I’ve not used such tools myself, so I can only answer this from observation and hearsay. Game Maker seems to be very good for RPG style games, also a number of others, but a first person 3D shooter is most laikely best be made with another tool. So you need to know in advance what your game will be like, and which of these tools supports such a game.

It depends. I’d rather say these tools make you think less about the technology, but help you focus on the games mechanics and content. “Game Design” to me is something else than program design.

Game development on the other hand (as it’s usualyl done) includes more than just game design, so you are right, it doesn’t teach so much about game development, but this is probably the intention of the tools - make you worry less about the coding and such, but focus your mind on the game design.

I think Game Maker is good for more than just prototyping. There are a good number of indie games made with Game Maker and they seem to do fine.

#17

It is a broad question, but there are some things that I’ve learned when dealing with Game producing programs. The ones I was familiar with before coming here is Multimedia Fusion, and Game Maker.

About Game Makers

They are limited. Plain and simple. I think one of the things I hated most was the amount you had to pay to get these games released on different platforms. Seriously, there is no reason you should be paying close to $1000 for something that you can do for free just using programming. I think that is one of the major reasons I switched, but there are some minor ones.

The problem is that you can only do so much in these Game Maker programs logically. Usually, they are good for those 1-to-1 things. However, the moment you try to put some complex formula, I always found it hard to reproduce it in a Game Maker. I always had to tone down my features because the tools given could not pull off what I wanted…

But, I think programming is just an “evolution” of these game creators.

If you think about it, it is all about power. It is about how much control do you want from the system. The more power you want, the closer you get to just working with programming languages. (Of course, after that, they allow even greater control by dealing with assembly, but that is a different topic.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is, using a game maker isn’t bad. If anything, it’ll make your logic skills better which is incredibly important to game making. However, when it comes to making games, I’d always agree that learning a programming language is a lot better because it allows a greater range of control. You’ll never get stuck at a point in where you can’t do something (95% of the time).

Developers interested in games should focus on learning a language and/or picking up a game library. You can leave the game creators for everyone else who can’t be bothered. It is about improving your skill set, and programming is always the richer experience.

#18

“It is about improving your skill set” is purely on a person to person basis. At what point have we learned enough that we want to make something real? If you are trying to learning programming and logic, then sure, I agree. But, for everyone that truly wants to make games, there comes a point where they…you know…want to make an actual game. And at that point, it becomes completely unrealistic to do everything from scratch. Engines and libraries can work however you need them to. It’s all about picking the right tools for the project at hand. At the end of the day, to be productive you can’t keep re-inventing the wheel. Things like Slick2D and LibGDX have open source code. They can be modified at will. To say you are locked into a certain framework or something just isn’t true (in most cases). As far as “Game Makers” go, they have their purpose. If you can’t get it to do what you want, then it’s just not the right tool for the project.

You’ve got it backwards. “Game creators” are an evolution of programming.

#19

Lo’d Jes’s thank you.
I thought I was the only one that felt this way. When I entered one of my games in a competition in middle school I was literally the only one that actually programmed it. Then there were these kids that got first thinking that they were so incredible when really they didn’t know horse shit about what they were doing.
Okay I’m done…

#20

It kinda shows the power of the tool though - you can make games (within limits) without much prohgramming knowledge. And this is what Game Maker wants to make possible.

The “be the next Notch” part is, well, kids are this way. Enthusiastic and full of energy. It’s a good thing, I think. They will learn it soons enough how hard a game developers life can be.