I’ve been tinkering with game development for around 5 years now. I’ve worked with GameMaker: Studio (1.x, though I’ve seen 2.0), Unity, and Unreal Engine 4 along with some exploration of Phaser, Construct 2, and custom C++ engine development (SFML, SFGUI, EntityX). Through my journey, I’ve struggled to find an engine that has just the right qualities, including…
- Graphics:
- Dedicated 2D renderer
- Dedicated 3D renderer
- Accessibility:
- Powerful scripting capabilities
- Strong community
- Good documentation
- Preferred: visual scripting (for simpler designer/artist/writer tooling)
- Preferred: Simple and intuitive scripting architecture
- Publishing:
- A large variety of cross-platform support (non-negotiable)
- Continuously expanding/improving cross-platform support (non-negotiable)
- Cost:
- Low monetary cost
- Indie-friendly licensing options
- Customization:
- Ease of extending the editor for custom tool creation
- Capacity for powerful optimizations (likely via C++)
- Preferred: open source
- Preferred: ease of editing the engine itself for community bug fixes / enhancements
For each associated field, I’ll examine some various features in the top engines and include a comparison with the new contender on the block: Godot Engine, a community-driven, free and open source engine that is beginning to expand its graphics rendering capabilities. Note that my comments on the Godot Engine will be in reference to the newest Godot 3.0 pre-alpha currently in development and nearing completion.
https://willnationsdev.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/godot-the-game-changer-for-gamedevs/