Developer Diary 3 - Engine (Patreon)

This post will be a little more practical. I’ve been trying to weigh my options in terms of which engine I would like to build my project in. Since my programming knowledge is limited this means I was looking for an engine which has some visual solutions to lower the difficulty curve a bit. I eventually slimmed my list down to two choices:

GameMaker is an engine I have used in the past when I was playing around with game design (~2015). I had become quite comfortable with the engine back then, but most of that knowledge has sadly left my head. On top of that, I was working in a version which is now no longer being supported (they switched from GM1 to GM2, making users pay for the upgrade). So choosing this engine would mean spending money upgrading. I would also need to spend (quite a lot of) money on their ‘modules’ so I can actually export it to various OS. This engine has produced some really solid games (Spelunky HD, Risk of Rain) so I know it is capable of producing quality in the right hands. But because I’d basically be starting from square one in this engine I was open for alternatives.

The alternative turned out to be called Godot (after my favorite Ace Attorney character funnily enough), an open source engine which is completely free to use. The way it is constructed and handles the project pipeline is very different from GameMaker and it uses a custom programming language (upsides and downsides to that) but overall it seems like a really solid choice. I’ve not really gotten much done in the engine yet. Mostly I’m getting used to the environment and learning to understand how a project is supposed to be structured. They use some very interesting instances techniques which could be useful if I fully understand them.

In the end I have chosen to give Godot my attention. It seems like a very solid choice (it also has 3d capabilities so that’s a potential bonus for future projects) In the following weeks I will share with you my progress as I learn to use the engine and narrow down on my first project idea.

Thank you for reading and for the support!

Albatross