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Best quote from the author's article explaining how it was done (even though by his own admission he didn't follow his own advice in the case): "If you want to
by chaoticmass 6y ago
Best quote from the author's article explaining how it was done (even though by his own admission he didn't follow his own advice in the case):
"If you want to make a game, make a game. If you want to make a game engine, make a game engine. But never, ever, make a game engine to make your game!"
I spent a good five+ years working on my own game engine to make my own games with it. Never finished a single game, or the engine-- but it was a fun learning experience so there's that.
- Bekwnn 6y agoIt's a much better quote than the annoyingly common, "Don't write a game engine!" If you work in games or want to work in games, writing a game engine is a very valuable experience. Probably the best thing you can work on for personal growth. That said, I think you get substantially more value out of the experience if you've already gotten your feet wet making games with a commercial engine.
- kragen 6y agoWell, one day last week I wrote this game http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/invaders http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/invaders without a game engine. Then I decided that it would be a lot better with a game engine, so I wrote a game engine for it http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/qj2d.js http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/qj2d.js and rewrote the game over the next couple of days with the engine http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/qvaders http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/qvaders. Then during the rest of the week I used the engine to write http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/qabbits http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/qabbits and http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/offscreen http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/offscreen † but both of which were a lot easier to write with the engine than they would have been without it, and for which I had to improve the engine, which also improved the Invaders game. Now obviously QJ2D is not going to replace Godot or even LÖVE2D or TIC-80. It's a couple of days' worth of work, less than 200 lines of code; anyone could have done it. And nobody else is going to use it unless they have Greek letters on their keyboard. But not only did I learn a lot, it's also a substantial improvement for this kind of thing over the raw browser. I think I'll probably rewrite it differently for the next project, though... I don't want to "work in games", but of course I enjoy writing games. I mean that's all computers are good for, really! ______ † not really games