Hey all,

I'm trying to choose an engine for a big game project, and was wondering if you had any advice. I've read the "Best game engine for indie game" thread, and I've looked through dozens of engines, but it's been a little bewildering, and none of them seem to perfectly fit my picture of the "ideal" engine.

Here are my preferences:

*License must be affordable (four figures max).
*Code written using this engine would be easy to port to consoles if we ever got lucky enough to strike a deal with a console publisher.
*C++ is my preferred language.
*Good documentation.


It seems like a short list, but I've had trouble finding something that matches. At this point I'm actually leaning towards Unity, even though it's not C++, because it's easily ported to all consoles, and now has a proven track record (Rochard is an upcoming Unity-made PS3 game, for example). I've used Unity for past projects and feel I'd be able to develop at a decent clip using it.

I just feel like a Unity game isn't as robust and portable as a C++ project, though I could be wrong. Maybe if I write the code in such a fashion that it's abstracted from the Unity engine, it'll be easier to port to some other C# driven toolkit later on, if need be.

I guess what I'm looking for in short is something that's "like Unity, but C++." I don't know if such a thing exists, so I'm 90% ready to start developing in Unity. I just wanted to check here and see if anyone's like "Wait!! Use this instead."

Thanks a lot for any advice.

--Sebastian