Personal point of view (game engine).

(This post is absolutely IMHO so if you disagree with some points, that's just fine ;) )

Since I'm registered in the GameDev.net forum I noticed many people who were quite clueless wether they should make their own game engine or use a premade one.

I kept asking these questions myself back in the days I started game development and so I though it would be a good idea to make a little post about my personal point of view when it comes to game engines.

Before I start, I'll give you some examples of what I'd like to call good premade game engines:

• Ogre3D (which is open source)
• Unreal Development Kit (which is free for non commercial games (I was surpised when I heard about this))
• Unity3D
• RPG Maker (Which I made my first game with back in 2001...Man, that game was shitty!)

Check out the websites of these engines to learn more about them.

The first thing you should ask yourself when it comes to choose between selfmade and premade is why you want to make a game (engine).

Are you doing it for the sake of learning or just to, well..., make a game?
And, secondly, are you just doing it for fun or to make some sort of portfolio to get your foot into the industry (and if so,what kind of job do you wish to get? Developer, designer, etc.)?

Thats the points you should be certain about.

If you just want to make a game and don't care about the stuff going on in the background you should be fine with a premade engine. The learning curve should be much higher compared to a selfmade engine. (If you wish to work as a designer even a level editor like the Hammer editor from Valve (which you can get on Steam), or the Unreal ED (which is included in the above mentioned UDK and a part of nearly every installation of a Unreal related game (Unreal Tournament,Unreal)) should be enough to improve your portfolio).

I know that many people disagree with me on this point, but if you are interested in how things work (and especially as a developer) you should definitely start with your own engine. I learned tons of stuff since I started to work on my own 2D engine. Of course, programming your own engine shouldn't be your first project. I would recommend you to start with 2-3 simple games like Pong,Tetris or Pacman(especially Pacman is harder to realize then you might think at first) to get a feeling what components it takes to make a game.

If you are interested in starting your own engine, I can recommend the following books:

• Game Coding Complete (By Ultima Online developer Mr. Mike)
• Game Engine Architecture (By Naughty Dog employee Jason Gregory)

If you're stuck at one point and definitely have no idea what's wrong you should register in the above mentioned GameDev forum and search for your issue...Maybe some guy had the same issue before.