Hi there, I have recently been interested in playing around and getting a feel for developing a mobile game. I'm still very new to the concept, so am completely lost as to where to begin.

Ideally, the game I had in mind is something along the lines of a tamagotchi/pet raising 3d game. I was hoping someone could recommend a good open source engine to start out with for a beginner with that kind of game in mind. Ideally, I'd like to have little to no need for handling the programming side. I have basic exposure to other languages such as html, css, SQL, PHP which I did whilst studying and I work in an IT environment, so I have a general understanding of being able to read and figure out how stuff works in a script, but can't program much myself. Though I'd consider learning the languages involved if I get into it. For now though, I'd like to know what you think is a proper engine easy enough for a beginner looking to get started whilst also being able to make a proper game if used right? I'm afraid I'll either choose a way too complex engine or something unrelated to my goals.

Also, what would be the ideal closed-source engine you'd recommend, if I was willing to pay the cash?

Thanks :)

I would recommend learning to program first. Pick a simple scripting language such as python and a library such as pygame, and stick with it. Start simple and write some simple games such as pong and breakout. Once you know how a game works (you said you can't program yet but are able to piece together scripts, this is a start) you can progress into other programming languages like java, used to create android games.

Good luck!

Hello Johnmeister,

an engine will not make you a game programmer no matter how much you pay.

It can make your work easier, but only if you already know what you are doing.

First of all you should learn a programming language and become good at it.

Before you create your first game start with a simple game in scratch or

the command line. Go to http://www.codecademy.com/ or another tutorial of your choice.

Consider starting development on the desktop and only start with mobile programming

after you have developed desktop apps. Mobile programming adds additional steps that

might turn you off or overcomplicate the thing for you.

Check out the many helpful posts in the beginner forums I bet almost all the questions you have

are already answered here.

Regards

Henry

Check out Unity.

You won't be able to avoid getting around the fact that you don't write code well, so you'll have to improve on that skillset.

Gamemaker has a pretty cool drag and drop interface if you're looking to make a game without needing to get into to much coding. I'm not so sure how well it supports 3D stuff (3D was quite limited back when I used it a few years ago). They have a couple paid versions too. Just in case you want to put some cash down ;) haha

Thanks all, I appreciate the feedback.

I heard about Unity, but seems like it has a strong learning curve and quite expensive. Not knowing whether this is for me yet, I was looking for something free or somewhat affordable and easy to learn.

I guess in the perfect world I was looking for something drag and drop, which I can get away with without coding or simply minor tweaking in code, but I knew that would be too good to be true. I also assume, should I find an engine that allows this, I would be limited if I wanted to try and make something different and unique in most cases? However, a person could probably make a very simple game such as, and forgive me for this example, Flappy bird (most basic game I could think which was a success for some odd reason), without really touching the coding side?

I'll have a play around with Gamemaker tonight, thinking maybe a 2d engine to start wouldn't be a bad idea rather?

None the less, I have been recommended Python/Pygame before and rate I need to just suck it up and learn the programming side. Problem is, I have never really had the interest in the programming side of things, which is why I didn't stick with it after my studies and now currently work in a QA position. Maybe if I code something I'm interested in making, I could find a passion for it. Guess it's all getting about getting started and self discovery from here :)

The reason I recommend Unity is because it is a mature engine which has multi-platform support, including for mobile games. It also has a pretty big community behind it, so its easy for a beginner to find articles for the help they need. Yeah, it has a bit of a learning curve. You might spend a month or two, or three learning how to use the tool. But take it from me, a guy who wanted to avoid learning a third party engine as long as possible by creating his own engine, you will save SO much time trying to learn another engine / editor. I spent 12-18 months trying to build my own engine. It works, but its not very good. Certainly not good enough for a shippable game. If I wanted to add extra features and capabilities, I could look forward to spending a large amount of time implementing it, and it still wouldn't be nearly as good as the out-of-the-box implementation done by a team who spent many months sweating over the same problems. I'm not talking about adding a function or two, more like "I need to have multiplayer, which requires network code! shoot, that's going to cost me 2-3 months minimum to just get something up and running" vs. "oh, I need to add networking. Let's just look up how to use the built-in engine tools within the documentation and implement it", which would cost 2-3 days. These days, if you are a very small team and want to make a game -- and you're building your own engine -- you're doing it wrong. If you have a huge and experienced development studio which has a track record of shipping many games in the past, it isn't a bad idea to build your own engine (but you should have a really good business reason for that! Such as licensing, technical limitations, or pushing the tech forward).

Unity has multi-platform support, a mature community, and you can try it out before paying any money for it. You can also write C# code to script out any game behaviors you need, so that's pretty handy.

The most viable alternative to Unity is Unreal Engine 4 (which I'm using). You can pay $20/month to get full access to the whole engine, all of its source code, and be making games in no time (or how fast you can pick it up). You don't necessarily need to write code, you can implement game play logic using their "blueprint" system to visually script together game logic. If thats not powerful enough, you can always add in C++ code to supplement your BP code. UE4 also has multi-platform support, but is a bit newer on the market so the community hasn't had as much time to develop and create tutorial content (though some exists).

Picking either UE4 or Unity will give you more than you'll ever need, so choosing one or the other will never be a disappointment.