Making game engine is the fun part, making actual game with it is the boring part.
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I don't think everybody thinks they can make game engine, nor do I think nobody has ever shipped a single game in their life
So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
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Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#22Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#23Making game engine is the fun part, making actual game with it is the boring part.
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The first time i tried to make a game engine i didn't knew how to make a game engine and failed. The second time, same thing. But eventually i did manage to make a game engine. I even got to work professionally into making game engines for years. Nowadays i can make a game engine just fine.
Sure, trying to make a thing you don't know how to make will most likely end up with you not making it, but that is the case for pretty much everything.
Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#24(Considering the linked section) that is more or less how Petra Engine[0] came to be - making a gamejam game[1] for MSDOS over a few weeks. Though while i did make it for that specific game, i always had in mind that i may want to use it for other games in the future too so i tried to make it more "generic" and keep the engine and game bits separate while avoiding too many game-specific stuff (didn't fully manage it…
> perhaps i do need to be making an engine from scratch to keep myself interested
you're not the only one. jonathan blow has made tons of money selling games and also needs to write a whole programming language for 100h to keep him interested enough to yield 1h of content.
i can't really say much about the people who say don't program game engines (or whatever thing they don't like) in terms of opportunity costs (a generous name for this category of complaining), other than they would be bad at both making art and making money.
Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#25Making game engine is the fun part, making actual game with it is the boring part.
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Speak for yourself dude. I programmed a game engine in Java in 2011 right after I graduated college, and it powers a game that I launched on Steam in 2015. https://github.com/FourSeventy/sylver_engine
Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#26Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#27Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coding for pleasure I mean. We start a project and then get bored. Like Doomscrolling, for pleasure.
I don't think I agree with this. Doomscrolling has a negative connotation - of wasting your time and being unhealthy for the mind. I don't see coding the same way. Sometimes, I code to finish a project and it's a major milestone and I feel accomplished. Other times, I just code something because it sounds like I'd enjoy it and it's fun. I feel fulfilled nonetheless, even if it goes nowhere. I wouldn't equate it to do…
Yes coding itself is not like doomscrolling. I wanted to use that term because I lost so much time bu trying to reinvent stuff.
I wanted to make a game, and had an idea, but then I thought "why not making a game framework so I make my game". It was fun to build a game framework by mixing PixiJS, Rapier2D, ECS, writing my own loop logic and state management but then I lost the motivation. I just coded a framework for pleasure but at the start my point was making a game.
The desire to build something can cause our idea to be dropped.
Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#29(Considering the linked section) that is more or less how Petra Engine[0] came to be - making a gamejam game[1] for MSDOS over a few weeks. Though while i did make it for that specific game, i always had in mind that i may want to use it for other games in the future too so i tried to make it more "generic" and keep the engine and game bits separate while avoiding too many game-specific stuff (didn't fully manage it…
> perhaps i do need to be making an engine from scratch to keep myself interested you're not the only one. jonathan blow has made tons of money selling games and also needs to write a whole programming language for 100h to keep him interested enough to yield 1h of content. i can't really say much about the people who say don't program game engines (or whatever thing they don't like) in terms of opportunity costs (a g…
> i can't really say much about the people who say don't program game engines (or whatever thing they don't like) in terms of opportunity costs (a generous name for this category of complaining), other than they would be bad at both making art and making money.
What a ridiculous take. Making a game engine is to games like building a camera is to making movies. Once a blue moon some new camera enables some new technique (the Matirx), but mostly people just use the tools that exist.
The same is true in games. Tons of super popular and successful games didn't write their own game engine and made both art and money.
I'm watching a friend, claiming he wants to make a game company, burn through all of this money instead making a game engine. If he succeeds, great! But I suspect he'll just run out of money before he's even started working on a game. If it was fun to make, great too. But I think he'll look back on it as throwing away an oppotunity.
Re: So, you want to make a game engine (2023)
#30I believe the instinct to develop a game engine or framework comes down from loving programming and being passionate about mastering a tool. We humans love mastering something and we love masters, when we build something from scratch we own it, we are master of it and we lead the decision. That's so comforting and pleasurable, and the reward we see at the end of the path motivates us. But on the process it's too hard…
The instinct to make a game engine is it's well known how to do it and you just follow examples all over the the place and each few days you check off a box and feel like you're making progress. It's much easier than making a game itself. There is no known list of do X, do Y, do Z that leads to a game. In that sense, games are harder than game engines because a game is unknown, a game engine is well known.
IF you want to make a game engine, building one is progress
If you want to make a game, building a game engine is the illusion of progress. When you're done making the engine you'll be no further along on your game than if you'd used an existing engine. Usually you'll be behind because those other engines have so many features and tools that you have yet to implement. Sure, you don't need every feature, but you may be surprised at all of the little things you end up having to write.