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I think the best advice for making your own game is: do what you're most excited to do. Do you spend time thinking about making your own game engine? Then start

I think the best advice for making your own game is: do what you're most excited to do. Do you spend time thinking about making your own game engine? Then start making it. Be willing to change course later if it's too hard, your time will not be wasted. I got into gamedev by messing around with making my own engine, mostly focusing on low level graphics APIs, and that knowledge transferred well when I switched to a professional game engine. I knew about shaders and such and knew I was somewhat prepared to alter the engine I was using if needed. Or, the other way, if you start making a game in an engine and you hate it, your efforts are not wasted. The truth is like 10 or 20 thousand lines of game logic can make a lot of games, and that's really not much code to port to your own game engine compared to the rest of the engine. All the art and other assets can be ported too. Plus, if you know a professional game engine you can use it for tooling or get some good architecture ideas to use in your own engine. So, just get moving with whatever excites you most and be willing to change course.

stroupwaffle 2y ago
Another way to think of this is not making a “game engine” but just “making a game”. Get rid of all the generic stuff and use some common patterns that fit the game exactly. No need to over-abstract!
- MattRix 2y ago
  That’s not what the person you replied to is saying though… They’re saying just use an existing engine, and if you really need to, you can always write your own engine later if you really need it.
  - stroupwaffle 2y ago
    Yeah I’m just saying in general. I probably shouldn’t have replied to anyone in particular—just jumping in the conversation. =)
  - zelphirkalt 2y ago
    I read it to mean the other way around: If writing the engine interests you, do it, you can switch to another existing game engine later, and your experience is not lost.
fpgaminer 2y ago
> The truth is like 10 or 20 thousand lines of game logic can make a lot of games, and that's really not much code to port to your own game engine compared to the rest of the engine. I intuitively want to agree, but on the other hand I've also seen many, many hobby/indie/etc projects deadlock when they switched engines. Or even engine versions (Unreal 4 -> 5).
- Buttons840 2y ago
  Granted, but I don't think there are many people / teams who are capable of writing their own engine and then fail to port a few thousand lines of game logic. So I stand by my advice that if you decide later to write your own engine, porting the logic will not be the difficult part.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    you'd be surprised. It really comes down to how tightly you couple yourself to engine features. It can be as easy as copy/pasting your code or so annoying that a fresh re-write is faster.
- sph 2y ago
  Probably because most of their logic is locked in "no code" systems, such as Unreal's blueprint or as Unity component data. A well- and hand-written game is easily portable, see the original Doom, where separation between core logic and side effects, such as drawing in a screen, is clear. Actually, this is a good architectural model for all types of software.
  - runevault 2y ago
    An interesting example of someone who structured their game in a way that was easy to port is Caves of Qud. Supposedly he got it from Unity to Godot (after the pricing fiasco) in a pretty short amount of time. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16lphwe/caves_of_qud_dev_ports_his_game_from_unity_to/?rdt=64502 https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16lphwe/caves_of_q...
geepytee 2y ago
I find that this is the best advice for life, not just making your own games. Do what you're most excited to do :)
- 437938438 2y ago
  [flagged]
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  when you have a monetary incentive, this quickly falls apart. Either you need to focus on what people will pay for or what companies will pay you to do for them. That's sort of why I'm eternally stuck between keeping on top of engine knowledge (even though I have no plans to use those engines for my own game one day) while toying around with a Vulkan renderer here and there. Graphics programming was already hard to hire into, and I'm not even convinced there's more than a few dozen legitimate positions out there in these times.
Fr0styMatt88 2y ago
This gets at something I’ve thought about a lot as a software dev. Making a game engine is a very concrete task, in that you can map out the steps and many of them are well-defined. On the other hand “make a good game” kinda isn’t. Which I think is a big reason why coders gravitate towards the “start making an engine” route and then fall down it :) The developers I admire and look up to a lot are the artists that fell into programming. I think they’re the best when it comes to being a successful lone / indie dev for games. Everyone notices art, but you don’t notice programming unless it goes wrong or you know the tech behind what you’re looking at.
- karaokeyoga 2y ago
  I think this is why there are so many "Learn Hiragana and Katakana" apps and websites. As developers we gravitate towards the known quantity (e.g. web/app development) rather than the amorphous "learn to write Japanese" goal. I am part of this cohort.
  - ehnto 2y ago
    Agreed, but I also think people just underestimate the breadth of language. I think a common exit point is after feeling like you've learned grammar well through your materials, you hit real world content or native speakers and realise you didn't know a single word or phrase. It is really disheartening, but on the flipside the first time you start to understand it will be an electric feeling. Quite addictive.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Japanese isn't that hard to write though. Especially kana. yoou can learn to prounouce those in a week with flashcards (I did so in high school) and honesly, making your own flashcards are good writing practice. Even Kanji is surprisingly structured in how you write the strokes after you do a few hundred. Now, reading kanji... that's where the pain begins.
    - imtringued 2y ago
      There are like 220 hiragana/katakana. You can't learn those in a week. Reading kanji is easy, the problem is looking them up. Jisho has a terrible kanji recognition engine. The one from sljfaq.org works amazingly well, but it is not a dictionary so you have to ugh, copy every kanji by hand, making the process take forever for each word.
nox101 2y ago
I know this will get downvoted. I fully agree that if you want to make a game-engine then make one. It's fun! On the other hand, if you want to make a game, use an existing engine. Analogies: I want to write a novel so I'll first build a typewriter. I want to film a movie so I'll first build a camera and digital editing software. I want to cook food so I'll first build a stove, pots, pans, and knives. In all those other examples it hopefully clear, you just buy the tools you need and then make the thing the tools allow you to make. At this point, the same is true in games. If you like making a game engine than make one. Just like if you like making knives or cameras then make them. But, making a knife is not cooking, making a camera is not making a movie, and making a game-engine is not making a game. I also want to add, making a game-engine is easy compared to making a game. Why? Because all the things to you need are well known. You need a 2d renderer (UI), a 3d renderer (assuming you need 3d), image loaders, model loaders, sound players, music players, keyboard input, joypad input, entity systems. Etc. You build them and it seems like you're making progress and if your goal is to make a game-engine, then you are making progress. But, if your goal is to make game, you're mostly likely fooling yourself that you're making progress. Again, back to the analogies, if you're making a knife, you aren't making progress on cooking, your making progress on making a knife. If your making a camera, you aren't making progress on making a movie, you're making progress on making a camera. What makes making a game harder than a game-engine is the list things to do for a game is unknown.
- hmmokidk 2y ago
  Although it is charted territory it’s very difficult. There is an extraordinary amount of concepts (depending on what you’re doing) and some are quite mathy. And software design seems pretty important, although I am not far enough along that it’s an issue.
- strken 2y ago
  I think making a game engine is less like making your own knives and more like having a herb garden at a restaurant. There are some games that are just not possible using someone else's engine. Consider Factorio, non-Euclidean geometry, the early MMOs, or anything else which pushes the boundaries of what's possible. On the other hand...are you really making a game like that? Similarly, there are good reasons why you'd want to grow your own herbs, and the deep knowledge of growing conditions really does add to your ability to understand why your parsley is bitter this year, but for most restaurants it wouldn't pay off.
yawnxyz 2y ago
In AS3, I made a sound/music engine on top of their excellent sound API, then tacked on other things like simple graphics and then controls, so I accidentally made a game engine out of a sound/synth project. Good ole days of AS3, still ahead of their time. Really wish there was an AS3 WASM or something
- efnx 2y ago
  There’s ruffle! It’s able to play swf files, but there’s no editor, yet.
  - yawnxyz 2y ago
    !! After my post, I discovered several AS3 WASM projects. Maybe one day I could revive my old project!

stroupwaffle 2y ago

Another way to think of this is not making a “game engine” but just “making a game”. Get rid of all the generic stuff and use some common patterns that fit the game exactly. No need to over-abstract!

MattRix 2y ago
That’s not what the person you replied to is saying though… They’re saying just use an existing engine, and if you really need to, you can always write your own engine later if you really need it.
- stroupwaffle 2y ago
  Yeah I’m just saying in general. I probably shouldn’t have replied to anyone in particular—just jumping in the conversation. =)
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  I read it to mean the other way around: If writing the engine interests you, do it, you can switch to another existing game engine later, and your experience is not lost.

fpgaminer 2y ago

> The truth is like 10 or 20 thousand lines of game logic can make a lot of games, and that's really not much code to port to your own game engine compared to the rest of the engine. I intuitively want to agree, but on the other hand I've also seen many, many hobby/indie/etc projects deadlock when they switched engines. Or even engine versions (Unreal 4 -> 5).

Buttons840 2y ago
Granted, but I don't think there are many people / teams who are capable of writing their own engine and then fail to port a few thousand lines of game logic. So I stand by my advice that if you decide later to write your own engine, porting the logic will not be the difficult part.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  you'd be surprised. It really comes down to how tightly you couple yourself to engine features. It can be as easy as copy/pasting your code or so annoying that a fresh re-write is faster.
sph 2y ago
Probably because most of their logic is locked in "no code" systems, such as Unreal's blueprint or as Unity component data. A well- and hand-written game is easily portable, see the original Doom, where separation between core logic and side effects, such as drawing in a screen, is clear. Actually, this is a good architectural model for all types of software.
- runevault 2y ago
  An interesting example of someone who structured their game in a way that was easy to port is Caves of Qud. Supposedly he got it from Unity to Godot (after the pricing fiasco) in a pretty short amount of time. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16lphwe/caves_of_qud_dev_ports_his_game_from_unity_to/?rdt=64502 https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16lphwe/caves_of_q...

geepytee 2y ago

I find that this is the best advice for life, not just making your own games. Do what you're most excited to do :)

437938438 2y ago
[flagged]
johnnyanmac 2y ago
when you have a monetary incentive, this quickly falls apart. Either you need to focus on what people will pay for or what companies will pay you to do for them. That's sort of why I'm eternally stuck between keeping on top of engine knowledge (even though I have no plans to use those engines for my own game one day) while toying around with a Vulkan renderer here and there. Graphics programming was already hard to hire into, and I'm not even convinced there's more than a few dozen legitimate positions out there in these times.

Fr0styMatt88 2y ago

This gets at something I’ve thought about a lot as a software dev. Making a game engine is a very concrete task, in that you can map out the steps and many of them are well-defined. On the other hand “make a good game” kinda isn’t. Which I think is a big reason why coders gravitate towards the “start making an engine” route and then fall down it :) The developers I admire and look up to a lot are the artists that fell into programming. I think they’re the best when it comes to being a successful lone / indie dev for games. Everyone notices art, but you don’t notice programming unless it goes wrong or you know the tech behind what you’re looking at.

karaokeyoga 2y ago
I think this is why there are so many "Learn Hiragana and Katakana" apps and websites. As developers we gravitate towards the known quantity (e.g. web/app development) rather than the amorphous "learn to write Japanese" goal. I am part of this cohort.
- ehnto 2y ago
  Agreed, but I also think people just underestimate the breadth of language. I think a common exit point is after feeling like you've learned grammar well through your materials, you hit real world content or native speakers and realise you didn't know a single word or phrase. It is really disheartening, but on the flipside the first time you start to understand it will be an electric feeling. Quite addictive.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Japanese isn't that hard to write though. Especially kana. yoou can learn to prounouce those in a week with flashcards (I did so in high school) and honesly, making your own flashcards are good writing practice. Even Kanji is surprisingly structured in how you write the strokes after you do a few hundred. Now, reading kanji... that's where the pain begins.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    There are like 220 hiragana/katakana. You can't learn those in a week. Reading kanji is easy, the problem is looking them up. Jisho has a terrible kanji recognition engine. The one from sljfaq.org works amazingly well, but it is not a dictionary so you have to ugh, copy every kanji by hand, making the process take forever for each word.

nox101 2y ago

I know this will get downvoted. I fully agree that if you want to make a game-engine then make one. It's fun! On the other hand, if you want to make a game, use an existing engine. Analogies: I want to write a novel so I'll first build a typewriter. I want to film a movie so I'll first build a camera and digital editing software. I want to cook food so I'll first build a stove, pots, pans, and knives. In all those other examples it hopefully clear, you just buy the tools you need and then make the thing the tools allow you to make. At this point, the same is true in games. If you like making a game engine than make one. Just like if you like making knives or cameras then make them. But, making a knife is not cooking, making a camera is not making a movie, and making a game-engine is not making a game. I also want to add, making a game-engine is easy compared to making a game. Why? Because all the things to you need are well known. You need a 2d renderer (UI), a 3d renderer (assuming you need 3d), image loaders, model loaders, sound players, music players, keyboard input, joypad input, entity systems. Etc. You build them and it seems like you're making progress and if your goal is to make a game-engine, then you are making progress. But, if your goal is to make game, you're mostly likely fooling yourself that you're making progress. Again, back to the analogies, if you're making a knife, you aren't making progress on cooking, your making progress on making a knife. If your making a camera, you aren't making progress on making a movie, you're making progress on making a camera. What makes making a game harder than a game-engine is the list things to do for a game is unknown.

hmmokidk 2y ago
Although it is charted territory it’s very difficult. There is an extraordinary amount of concepts (depending on what you’re doing) and some are quite mathy. And software design seems pretty important, although I am not far enough along that it’s an issue.
strken 2y ago
I think making a game engine is less like making your own knives and more like having a herb garden at a restaurant. There are some games that are just not possible using someone else's engine. Consider Factorio, non-Euclidean geometry, the early MMOs, or anything else which pushes the boundaries of what's possible. On the other hand...are you really making a game like that? Similarly, there are good reasons why you'd want to grow your own herbs, and the deep knowledge of growing conditions really does add to your ability to understand why your parsley is bitter this year, but for most restaurants it wouldn't pay off.

yawnxyz 2y ago

In AS3, I made a sound/music engine on top of their excellent sound API, then tacked on other things like simple graphics and then controls, so I accidentally made a game engine out of a sound/synth project. Good ole days of AS3, still ahead of their time. Really wish there was an AS3 WASM or something

efnx 2y ago
There’s ruffle! It’s able to play swf files, but there’s no editor, yet.
- yawnxyz 2y ago
  !! After my post, I discovered several AS3 WASM projects. Maybe one day I could revive my old project!