I'm a short while away from releasing a game made in C++/DirectX for Windows 8 (using the DirectXTK helpers and obvious APIs like XAudio2) - i.e. mostly 'from s

I'm a short while away from releasing a game made in C++/DirectX for Windows 8 (using the DirectXTK helpers and obvious APIs like XAudio2) - i.e. mostly 'from scratch,' more or less. And I have to say - yeah, you definitely learn a lot from that kind of project, not least because you have to constantly bear the rather large technical overhead. And that learning certainly feels great. =) However, I also have to say this: while the sheer power of the 'raw' C++/DirectX combo is enormous in terms of what games you could potentially make, the fact that even basic ideas take a comparatively long time to prototype is something that I think acts as a substantial disadvantage when it comes to the actual business side of things. I think a lot of really interesting, innovative ideas for game mechanics (or game atmosphere or feedback or other critical and somewhat subjective aspects of game development) don't require the full horsepower (performance or flexibility-wise) of the raw C++/(DirectX || whatever) approach. A few basic ideas (which you don't have to realise from scratch) can combine to give unexpected results, some of which could be really interesting. Maybe it's like spanning a 2D vector space with a linear combination of just two different vectors. (This might link in nicely with what Daniel Cook means by 'finite infinity' in his talk on game design [1].) Just something to think about. =) [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7DFuXDN29M&list=PL1A42B4BE1438E290 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7DFuXDN29M&list=PL1A42B4...