Hi all,

I wanted to ask (probably a very difficult question) which game engine you all would recommend for someone who has limited time in a day (our 1 year old son takes most of our time leaving only nights to ourselves if we are lucky!) to make a game.

To give a bit of background - I have coded in pascal, older versions of VB, Linux scripting, oh and done some Construct 2 tinkering, started a while ago on Python and did one app (never released it) on Android through SDK. Also started to learn Xamarin , Thunkable had a go at Stencyl (similar languages like Scratch etc) .

So I am familiar with coding but I am just wondering for speed to look at the more Non coding game engines like Buildbox etc. I see alot of interest and use out of Godot but I am not sure if using the Gdscript will work with me as coding a game is very different to writing apps I feel.

Anyone's thoughts would be greatly appreciated and I know its not an easy question to answer.

Thank you

TimCS

Do you want to make a game for fun or profit?

I don't know of any game engine/game maker toolkit out there which has a shortcut to your game. Means, you always have to spend time to get into the engine and you'll experience some moments where you have to even spend more time for example to fix anyoing bugs in your code. The only half-good visual scripting solution I know is Unreal Blueprint, I honestly havent worked with Godot Script so far so can't tell about that but we tried a bunch of solutions in Unity which have had increadible bad performance. Unreal is compiling Blueprint as C++ code so this could be an option for you at least.

Maybe you should start with something more lightweight like SDL 2 (C++) or even better OpenTK (and C#). Yes you'll have to do a lot on your own but this is all coding work and OpenTK already offers everything you need to have something visual in a short time. And C# has the benefit, that you don't have to worry about pointers and memory management.

If you want to make your game just for fun, then I'd recommend Nintendo Game Studio for Nintendo Switch. It is like Mario Maker but with a lot more of freedom to make some funny games in a couple of hours. And if you're running out of time, simply turn the Switch off and you can continue from where you ended last time

What kind of game do you want to make? The systems that require minimal coding are often very suitable for 1 or 2 genres and unsuitable for the rest, so it's hard to make a recommendation without knowing that.

Godot is a good choice but Unity is more mature and has a much larger community.

What are your criteria or preferences?

For a starter, I'd recommend Godot. It has good tutorials, and has good capabilities for a “2D” style game, with some support for 3D as well. Anything 2D and perhaps turn based will do well in Godot.

For an intermediate developer, or someone really in love with C#, I could suggest Unity. It has a big asset marketplace, if you want to trade dollars for time saved, and some good games are written in Unity.

For the high end, or someone who is in love with C++, I would recommend Unreal. The marketplace is reasonable (but not as big as Unity) and the kinds of 3D games you can develop with it are unlimited. It even has networking built in! You also get engine source, for free! Don't try to build a power-saving 2D game in Unreal Engine, though; that's not what it's good at.

Hi all,

Thank you for your replies and thoughts on this. I have used unity in the past and found it difficult to get into, Godot was another option but with limited time to learn a new language and then understand game coding could also take time. I was wondering what you all thought of Game Maker Studio ? I could start off with the free version and if all goes well, subscribe. I see it has the option for both visual and non visual coding.

As for your questions it would be hopefully for profit it would be a 2d isometric style RPG (non action more RPG simulator if that makes sense) it might in the future become 3d so to have a game engine that could do both and even convert the existing game would be a bonus but not essential . It would be good if the player could “create" their scenes like putting moving objects to their required locations.

Thank you all

TimCS

@TimCS I know you mentioned it but I really recommend giving Unity another shot. Especially if you want to eventually convert it to true 3D. I've used Game Maker and it's great for 2D, but 3D stuff really isn't worth the effort unless you're doing something like the original DOOM. RPG stuff is pretty complicated but you can be super organized in Unity with all the data you'll be tracking.

Hi summetgames

thanks for your reply - if I were to stick to 2d what would you recommend ? I really did not get into unity on my last attempt and found it very slow too.

Godot has the better 2D capabilities of the major game engines mentioned, for example more pixel precision shaders and a good part of the community comes from the 2D and pixel art area.

TimCS said:
it might in the future become 3d so to have a game engine that could do both and even convert the existing game would be a bonus but not essential

You should first somehow get into the theory of what you're considering. 2D and 3D are technically the same; our modern graphics cards work with 4x4 matrices so in 3D space anyways, it isn't as for example back in the 90s were you directly accessed the pixel buffer and draw some 2D sprites into it. The difference between 2D and 3D is likely the used 4x4 matrix which somehow eliminates the z-coord or you even use the z-coord for some background/foreground tricks. So in theory, every major game engine can do 2D and 3D as well.

Unity is somehow easiest to start with as, like I mentioned, C# let's you work with much less management overhead on your code (like memory management and pointers) than Unreal and C++ for example but you could give Unreal a try for it's Blueprint (visual scripting, no code writing)

@TimCS I would recommend Game Maker for 2D!

TimCS said:
it would be a 2d isometric style RPG (non action more RPG simulator if that makes sense)

I recommend starting with RPG Maker. If your game eventually outgrows RPG Maker's capabilities, that's OK. The RPG you made with it is your playable prototype that can serve as a basis for the more ambitious project. Now you've learned a lot about the process, and you've also refined your design.