Game engine is a paid or free program that companies and independent developers use to create games. It is a kind of base, on which the operation of the whole game is based. These programs consist of libraries that contain functions, classes and other data defined by programming languages. The use of previously created data allows you to use the selected engine to create a new game. The main advantage of game engines is that their use allows you to skip writing the basic game code.
Almost always, however, there are several modules responsible for basic things, including displaying the game world, player support, opponent logic, interaction detection between characters (collisions), sound reproduction or user interface - menu and HUD. Other more advanced modules are, for example, network game support, physics, procedural generation of the world (eg vegetation), or data streaming.
Why should we use game engines? They allow relatively easy and quick modification of existing, basic game resources. In short, the engines make it much easier to write code for new games, while saving a lot of time.
The most popular game engines are:
- Unreal Engine
- Unity
- CryEngine
Unity – developed by Unity Technologies. It was first presented at the Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in 2005. Used for all platforms such as Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, iOS, Android, Oculus Rift. While Unreal Engine is more popular with PC and console games, Unity is definitely more popular with mobile games such as Temple Run. Unity offers Asset Store, which allows you to use paid or free components such as textures or scripts.
The advantages of using Unity engine are:
- The vast amount of learning materials - Very good documentation and community support.
- A lot of free assets, plugins etc.
- The ability to build on any platform.
The biggest disadvantage of using Unity is that because of its huge flexibility, not every solution is as high as it could be if the engine was focused on a particular thing.
 |
| Unity interface |
Unreal Engine – developed by Epic Games. The first version debuted in 1998 in the game Unreal. It was originally used in FPP games, over time it began to be used in RPG, MMORPG and many other computer games. From March 2, 2015, the engine along with future updates became free for all creators who would like to create games on it. In the case of commercial productions, which have earned over three thousand dollars, creators are obliged to pay royalties amounting to five percent of profits.
The series of games that were created thanks to the Unreal engine are:
- Batman: Arkham
- BioShock
- Borderlands
- Gears of War
- Have you ever use any of game engines to build your own game?
- Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
- What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
Comments
While this all may sound reasonable, I would like to admit that creating your own engine is a colossal amount of work, and is totally not the option for an indie or beginner developer teams. They have no other choice other than using already made ones. Even the big companies are often making a choice towards using or buying already made engine. But when they make their own, then we have masterpieces like Metro: Last light, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, SystemShock, and, of course, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Nier: Automata.
Have you ever use any of game engines to build your own game?
Only Unity. I have to try other engines. But if game engine can also be thought as any methods of creating working game, then I also used pencils, pens, paper and dices and a lot of imagination.
Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
Unity is actually quite easy. There is a lot of tutorials for it that can help you get started easily. And its flexibility is actually a great advantage because it will forgive you some mistakes.
What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
Wticher 3. As far as I remember it was using Red Engine.
No, I have not had the opportunity of using any game engine.
Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
I have heard that Godot Engine is quite easy to learn for beginners (it is available on Steam platform) but as I mentioned before I have never tried creating games.
What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
My favorite game is The Witcher (all parts). First Witcher was created using the Aurora Engine, but developers have made a lot of changes in the source code of that engine. When it comes to sequels, they were developed with the use of their own engine - REDengine.
I wouldn't recommend anything more besides those 2: Unreal, Unity. I know they are free to some extend and cover enough to start.
My favourite game is Battlefield, or at least was and last time I played it was built on Frostbite. I'm not sure what they use now. Probably some upgraded Frostbite.
I really wanted to make games, but after the degree work that I did in Unreal Engine, there is no desire to continue to create something, especially alone
2.Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
It depends what game should be 2D or 3D or other.
Corona SDK
libGDX
HeroEngine
Lumberyard
3.What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
I love series of games Tomb Raider.
Games using a version of the proprietary Foundation Engine (original or modified) developed by Crystal Dynamics, Inc. It is based on a heavily modified version of the predecessor, the Crystal Engine.
When it comes to building my own game - nope, but I used Tibia Evo engine to create my own Open Tibia Server(good old times :D).
2. Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
Not really, because I'm not into building games. But from what I know, those 3 you've mentioned are the most popular and that means they've got the biggest community & support - that's important for beginners.
3. What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
I've got few:
- Dead Space series - Visceral Engine
- Crysis series - CryEngine
- Amnesia The Dark Descent - HPL Engine 2
- SOMA - HPL Engine 3
- Resident Evil Biohazard - RE Engine
Unfortunetly I don't know any else game engine but I think that Unity is good for beginners. There is a really big social group and tutorials that everyone can see for free that will show them how to start making their own game.
My favourite game so far is World of Warcraft( if someone want's to join /w) and I guess it uses it's own custom engine.
2. I think Unity3D will be the best choice for newbies. This is a very versatile engine on which you can make both simple 2D games and complex 3D games even with multiplayer elements.
3. My favorite game is the Metro series, made on the 4A Engine. This engine, like the game, was developed by 4A Games. It is also worth mentioning GTA V / Online on the RAGE engine, released by Rockstar Games.
I think the easiest might be Unreal, only because it has visual scripting, you can use a Visual graph like language to create game behavior (game programming). You don't need to know C++ ( it’s default programming language), but the download size is quite high.
My favorite game is Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and the game engine is Unity.
2. I don’t know any :( Sorry, can’t recommend anything
3. My favourite are the games from dark souls series. They were buit on “Phyre Engine”. I don’t know any other popular games using it. I think it gives it quite unique look.
No, I haven't build my own game so I didn't have a chance to get familiar with any game engine yet.
2. Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
I don't know many of them and I think Unity can be good for people who would like to try game development. There is a lot of tutorials and information about how to start and develop.
3. What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
I am not really into games and I do not play in any of them.
I don't really know about any easy to use game engines other than Unity, which you've already mentioned. Unity is definitely a good choice, though, as there's plenty of resources to learn from.
My favorite game is Team Fortress 2, which was built in the Source engine. I don't really play it much anymore, but I've put over 4500 hours into the game, which has made me quite familiar with how the Source engine works.
I used to use 3D unity in this way, unfortunately due to lack of enthusiasm and time, I abandoned the project of my game. With pleasure
I was back to dev games. Do you know any nice unity guides?
2.Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
I think that the three main ones you mentioned, I hardly know any others
What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
I do not have my favorite game, but I'm certainly impressed by the graphics in the crysis game which is on the cryengine engine
. Witcher 3 also has interesting graphics and what I know from it have their own redengine engine
2. Unfortunetely but I can't help. I am a gamer but as I said above I focus mostly on playing rather than on developing my own games.
3. My favourite game is The Witcher 3 which was developed using REDengine 3.
As to other beginner-friendly game engines, I’m not sure there are many out there. Aside from the obvious suggestion like one of the game makers that let you skip coding for the sake of drag-and-drop interactions, one option that seems viable would be Godot. It’s an open source engine that’s similar to Unity in both looks and the feature set, and even though it’s still under heavy development I have faith in the full-fledged product it’s likely to soon become.
Among many games I hold dear I think that Team Fortress 2 would be a good example to bring up for the sake of talking about game engines. It was built in Source, an engine originally developed by Valve for use in Counter Strike: Source and Half-Life 2.
Since i have never used one i have no idea about the other game engines in this world but as far as i remember, i was told that Unity is the best for the beginners, because it is basically for all the aspects of creating the game.
My favourite game is The Witcher 3 by CD Project which was developed with help of REDengine 3. Also I adore Hearthstone, which was built on Unity.
- Once I tried to use Unity to create a simple game, but I failed miserably :) It was at the begging of the first semester when I wanted to join CD Project Red. I did not enjoy it at all probably because I did not know very much about coding.
2) Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
- Unfortunately no, I have only tried Unity and I have heard about Unreal Engine. But in my opinion if you are a beginner you should choose the game engine which is the most popular - so it means that it has a large community which answered on many questions and it has a good documentation.
3) What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
- My favourite game is Crysis. I remember that I bought a new PC just to try it out and it was worth every penny I spend on this PC. I was amazed by the graphic and possibility to defeat your enemies in a way you decided. Of course, the game was built with CryEngine.
As I mentioned, I worked with GameMaker Studio 2 and I highly recommend it to beginner computer game programmers, you don’t even need to know programming to write your own computer game.
My favorite game is PUBG which was created in Unreal Engine.
Yes, Witcher 3 is using Redengine 3 which was built by CD Projekt.
So you like Battle Royale games?
2. Sadly I didn't. All game engines I heard about are those mentioned by you. As far as I know Unity is the most popular one among beginners.
3. This would be Gothic and it was made in ZenGin. ZenGin was developed by Piranha Bytes, the same studio that made the game itself. For Gothic II they created new engine called GenomeEngine.
I have never heard about Godot Engine. I will take a look at it.
Aurora was developed by BioWare as far as I know.
Maybe you have heard about World War 3 (WW3) developed by The Farm 51. It is quite like Battlefield 3, but with more weapons customization. You should take a look at it.
Other good place to start thinking bout game making is RPG maker while not much of a full fledged game engine, its easy toolkit to pickup that will give u a peek in what game dev might look like from the other side.
My favorite game is Age Of Empires 2 and it was made on Genie Engine by Ensemble Studios
I've heard about RPG Maker and Game Maker- people says that these engines are easy.
My favorite game is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and it's built on Creation Engine.
2. I don't even know if it's game engine cause I'm dumb in this topic, but I heard about RPG MAKER which is a popular tool to make your own RPG / jRPG game. You can use assets made by other people and make your game look like budget Octopath Traveller :D Something like this... But Octopath was made with Unreall Engine, don't even know which version, probably 4.
3. My favourite game... I have many games that I consider best, hard to choose.
jRPG - Final Fantasy VII - old game made with probably 5 different game engines :o
also jRPG - NieR: Automata - new game made with studio's own engine.
ARPG / Hack n' Slash - Diablo 1 and 2 - don't know which engine was used, probably Blizzard's own engine.
Assuming, most of games which I like and consider best are made with custome engines. :)
I had used to use apple's scenekit engine to create scenes for augmented reality application. And it was similar work to creating 3d scenes in games.
Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
I think SceneKit is good, if you're newbie in mobile game development.
What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
When I was a child, I'd played a lot in crysis, and it was based on CryEngine.
I am not familiar with game engines at all so no, i do not know any of them.
My favourite game is Crysis and it is build on very famous CRYENGINE game engine.
Yes. Yes, I have.
Mostly Unity and GameMaker Studio.
2) See above.
I can add one more thing about creating your own game engine. Do not do this.
3) It is hard to say. I played lots of indie and AAA games.
Okay.
Unity - Ricoshooter
Unreal - Dragon Ball Fighterz
No, I haven't using any game engine before.
........................................................................................................
Do you know any other game engines that are good for beginners to use?
I have heard that Unity game engine but I haven't tried creating games.
........................................................................................................
What is your favourite game and on what engine was this game built?
My favorite game is League of Legends
LOL develop:-
C++ (core game written in this)
Lua (core game)
C# (game tools)
ActionScript (game hud and pvp.net)
Java (platform servers)
Erlang (platform servers)
Php/sql (web team / platform)