Live data from Hacker News

Luxe Game Engine

luxeengine.com

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#41
post #35

It's neat, but not better than real open source solutions. Pay is what you want unless your at work and then it's price is under NDA isn't friendly. Godot is still probably the best FOSS engine right now. Arguably it's strongly in 3rd place behind Unity/Unreal.

Idk that I’d say it’s in 3rd place. My guess would be that something like Source Engine is 3rd. Having worked with Unreal, Unity and Godot, Godot is extremely rough. It has a terrible scripting language, an abysmal script editing UI, all while lacking the sophistication of Unity and Unreal’s rendering. It gets way too much benefit of the doubt because it’s open source. We desperately need an open source engine that c…

Source isn't really a publicly available engine. Valve doesn't appear to have much interest in licensing it.

You're not wrong about Godot, but;

1. You can always fork/modify it. Getting a source code license for Unity is a 6 figure proposition.

2. Being open source is a big deal. No phone home spyware(Unity). Keep 100% of your revenue.

3. C# support is OK. Its very slowly getting better.

I'm not a Godot zealot, one if it's biggest weaknesses is a community incapacitated of criticism. But still, your getting something very capable for small scale projects for free.

Unity, if Microsoft brought them out and fixed the business side, would easily be my engine of choice.

I learned to program in it. But I don't trust Unity the company. Every time you turn around they're laying off more people or doing something else strange.

Unreal is very bad for the smaller scales projects I actually build.

Lately I've been making weird prototypes using niche engines. I like Raylib, but it's just a rendering system. It's a much harder path to getting a game made.

If you know someone building a better Godot let me know. I'll try it this weekend.

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#44
post #11

I love this bit You may not use luxe for the following, no exceptions: * military use * the gambling industry * crypto/NFTs/related

interesting because you could still make gatcha games which is just like digital gambling

Gacha games are unquestionably gambling but you're right that there are loopholes here.

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#45
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk that I’d say it’s in 3rd place. My guess would be that something like Source Engine is 3rd. Having worked with Unreal, Unity and Godot, Godot is extremely rough. It has a terrible scripting language, an abysmal script editing UI, all while lacking the sophistication of Unity and Unreal’s rendering. It gets way too much benefit of the doubt because it’s open source. We desperately need an open source engine that c…

Source isn't really a publicly available engine. Valve doesn't appear to have much interest in licensing it. You're not wrong about Godot, but; 1. You can always fork/modify it. Getting a source code license for Unity is a 6 figure proposition. 2. Being open source is a big deal. No phone home spyware(Unity). Keep 100% of your revenue. 3. C# support is OK. Its very slowly getting better. I'm not a Godot zealot, one i…

> If you know someone building a better Godot let me know. I'll try it this weekend.

Three.js is better than Godot. Yes, even though it doesn’t have a real editor. Yes, even though it’s exclusive to the web. It is a useful and functional tool for building 3D experiences. It has compatibility with almost every file type under the sun. It supports modern/cutting-edge features like WebXR. It has a talented and disciplined maintainer (mrdoob) who has steered the ship for almost 15 years through many big changes while maintaining the same solid core. It has hundreds of easily browsable examples that are kept working and up-to-date.

I wish we were in a better place, but honestly this is where we’re at. If you want to build 3D games/experiences and want an open source stack, use Three.js and stick to the web. There are no good options for native.

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#46
I've been playing with this engine for a while. I really like the engine. For me the best features are:

- Scripting is really ergonomic, and fairly fast performance-wise. And if you need something to be really fast writing native extension modules for wren is pretty straightforward. So it's a choice between "reasonable" perf scripting and "fast" native code, which is much better than something like Unity where everything is kind of in the middle.

- Wren fibers (a form of cooperative threading) are fantastic for dealing with game logic (NPC state, game AI, etc) without introducing the complexity of true multithreading.

- The graphics/render module is extremely configurable. The whole render module is just a script that sets up a fast c++ execution graph, and you can modify/script this.

- The tools are very nice and a lot of care put into them. I don't use the editor too much, and mostly interact through code, but for things like level design it's really nice to have.

- Many game engines feel like a good fit for a large project or a small one but not both. Luxe is great for small jam games and full-sized projects. A project can be pretty much just a project file, a few configs and a script, or a large structure and the editor encourages (but doesn't enforce) a good project layout.

- Drawing is super flexible. You've got sprites and shapes and meshes and tiles and everything, but there's also an "immediate style" drawing api that is very high quality. Similar to having "Shapes" extension in unity but it's a first class citizen and built in.

- The "Modifiers" (which is Luxe's ECS-like component thing) took me a while to get used to using, and can be a source of friction at first, but once I got it it really feels like a better way to do things. And it's entirely optional so you don't have to if you're still learning.

- Outside of code and raw assets like images and mesh, almost everything is stored in ".lx" files which are very json-like, which can be really helpful for debugging and understanding what's going on, and on many occasions I've been able to automate stuff from script just by writing out or modifying lx files.

- Features and fixes are added constantly, but done carefully in a way that doesn't break existing code too often or without a clear migration strategy (glares at bevy).

It feels like an engine built for small teams and experimental workflows. Especially if you're looking for alternatives to Unity, I'd recommend it.

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#47
I see two games in progress by the engine authors' studio mentioned, but has anyone actually shipped a game in this framework?

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#48

Maybe I missed them but given they say at the top of the page > make games for Mac, Linux, Windows, and *Web* it would help a bunch if they linked to some web demos/games

Some Jam Games with web builds:

https://itch.io/jam/luxe/entries?ref=luxeengine.com

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/terrarium-combinarium

https://joeld42.itch.io/bridges

More jam games that I didn't make a web build for but downloads are available:

https://joeld42.itch.io/lighthouse-keeper

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cargo-space

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/last-mile

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/artichoke-key

On Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1836400/Mossfield_Origins...

Re: Luxe Game Engine

#50
post #35

It's neat, but not better than real open source solutions. Pay is what you want unless your at work and then it's price is under NDA isn't friendly. Godot is still probably the best FOSS engine right now. Arguably it's strongly in 3rd place behind Unity/Unreal.

Idk that I’d say it’s in 3rd place. My guess would be that something like Source Engine is 3rd. Having worked with Unreal, Unity and Godot, Godot is extremely rough. It has a terrible scripting language, an abysmal script editing UI, all while lacking the sophistication of Unity and Unreal’s rendering. It gets way too much benefit of the doubt because it’s open source. We desperately need an open source engine that c…

> We desperately need an open source engine that can compete with Unity and Unreal

I think this is a pipe dream. There's a lot of money behind Unity and Unreal, that buys a lot of developers.

Actually I think it's amazing how far Godot has come, and what kind of amazing and big updates they regularly do given how little money they get, and being open source.

It's seeing a lot of active development, so it's definitely not in its final form yet. It can still grow to be serious about filling that role...

> As it is it’s clear Godot’s team is more interested in reinventing wheels for fun than in making a real contender.

This is just a bad faith attack on the Godot's team, and not very much appreciated I'm sure.

Post reply on HN