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Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

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Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#161

Post by allthetime »

Madmallard wrote: post #11

Has he dealt with some of the more challenging problems in game dev that engines help a lot with? Like... multiplayer netcode. Seems like if you're doing this for a hobby or solo/small team then maybe it's reasonable. For most people where they want to be a game dev but they probably will just work in industry, it seems like learning the major engines to competency cannot be ignored.

Netcode is tricky, but it's a solved problem (in terms of practical use). There are many first class examples to base your own work off of.

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#162

Post by bob1029 »

Zarathruster wrote: post #119
bob1029 wrote: post #5

The primary thing I'm going for in a commercial engine is platform targeting and stability. Some of the defaults are certainly "bland", but that ensures I can actually ship this thing to a meaningful % of the available market. Unity's coverage is so consistent that I've been debating using it for non gaming applications. There aren't many cross platform ecosystems that work this well.

Just a polite heads-up in case you weren't aware: for non-game usage of Unity, the licensing situation is... a little complicated. That goes for the engine as well as a lot of the stuff I've seen in the Asset Store. Just a thing to bear in mind, and potentially a reason to use a different engine.

It's not that complicated.

The pro license at ~$2k/year per seat is all you need unless you are making a shitload of money. In which case, you are going to pay ~5k/year per seat.

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#163

Post by spacechild1 »

roflcopter69 wrote: post #71

I see `dotnet watch` being mentioned for code hot reload which is such a great feature for quickly iterating on a game. Not having to restart the whole game just because one has changed a few if statements and values really helps staying in the flow. But I'm still not too enthusiastic about having GC in C# which is why ideally I'd like to start making a small 2D game just with SDL3 and C++ but how could I get this ni…

If you implement the actual game logic in a scripting language like Lua, hot reloading becomes trivial. sol2 is a really awesome Lua binding library for C++: https://github.com/ThePhD/sol2

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#165

Post by agentultra »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #150
agentultra wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’ll last as long as there are humans who like making things themselves.

That’s what they said about assembly coders.

Guess what, there are still people who write code in assembler.

For plenty of reasons there are lots of programmers who still need to know how to code in assembly, read assembly, etc.

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#166

Post by neonsunset »

roflcopter69 wrote: post #152
neonsunset wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.NET also now has an (amazing) alternate low-pause/effectively pauseless GC: https://github.com/VSadov/Satori Builds: https://github.com/hez2010/Satori/releases how to use? do self-contained publish (but not single file), replace 3 files in the folder with the one from Satori release you can check if it's in use with GC.GetConfigurationVariables().ContainsKey("SatoriGC") It is a far, far superior experience to touchi…

Oh thanks, that looks very intriguing! The maintainer seems to be a Microsoft employee so there's that? I wonder though, is this a niche hidden gem or really something that more people should consider using? Also, what about compatibility with platforms like Android, iOS or consoles? That'd be very important for gamedev.

[dead]

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#167

Post by _zagj »

segh wrote: post #23
dwroberts wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can use in their workflow as a useful tool not a magic solution. Like what? If you can already program your game and create art for it, what is it going to be doing? People are so obsessed with using AI stuff for the sake of it, it’s nuts

I can do long division manually but I still reach for a calculator.

> but I still reach for a calculator

Does the calculator give you a slightly different answer each time, even with the same inputs?

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#168

Post by megalomanu »

YesBox wrote: post #156

I've been working on Metropolis 1998[1] for +4 years now. Custom C++ engine built with a modified version of SFML 2.5 and SQLite. Creating my own engine was both a personal and strategic decision for me. I was really worried about running into performance issues with generalist engines, and I did not want the friction of working with someone else's mental model. Pretty sure that friction would have caused so much bur…

Looks fantastic! Growing up on RollerCoaster (+Transport) Tycoon and SimCity myself, this is exactly the kind of project I'd dream about building, if only I had your dedication!

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#169

Post by jesse_dot_id »

endemic wrote: post #143
jesse_dot_id wrote: post #20

This was a great read. I'm in my 40's and have mostly done web dev/devops type stuff throughout my career. Making video games has always eluded me even though I've always been interested in it. I think it's that everything feels like a brand new language I have to learn. Perhaps creating an engine is the move.

If you're familiar with web development, you can make games with HTML/JS, which is almost its own "engine." Think DOM elements for sprites, CSS animations for movement, requestAnimationFrame for an update loop, etc. This has the extra benefit of zero friction for players -- no native app installation necessary!

I have thought about doing this via PhaserJS in the past, but it just never clicks for some reason. I feel like my brain is missing some important component for making game design make sense.

Re: Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)

#170

Post by S04dKHzrKT »

pjc50 wrote: post #93
roflcopter69 wrote: post #63

I read that article a while ago and highly enjoyed it. C# truly has become a very good language for game development and since NativeAOT has become a thing, we will less and less rely on hacks like IL2CPP or BRUTE which transpile the C# IL to C++ such that it can run on JIT restricted platforms like consoles or iOS. I'd really love to go all-in with C# and SDL3 to make an engine-less cross-platform game but I still m…

Interested in knowing your modern dotnet gamedev stack. Am I right in thinking that Unity are still stuck in ".NET Framework" era? How is Godot?

Stride runs on the latest version of dotnet and c#. I don't have enough experience with it to know its pros and cons though.

https://www.stride3d.net/

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