I’ve been using Godot 4 lately — it’s lightweight, easy to learn, and I really like how clean the workflow feels. For bigger or more visual projects, I sometimes switch to Unreal Engine because of its strong visual scripting and rendering tools.

By the way, there’s a similar thread you might find interesting: https://itch.io/t/1890638/what-tools-do-you-use-for-game-development

UPBGE. Pretty old engine, but tutorials are abundant and it's 100% free and open source. If you have ANY prior coding experience (visual or script) it's a breeze to learn, and the only learning curve that I found was addons. The default game engine is good for starter games, but it's harder to get top-of-the-line results. With some community-created mods it's at least competitive with Unity (if not slightly better because who uses C#). It's no Unreal, but UPBGE is a great option for new devs who don't need all the features, and it's based on Blender so it's been around forever. Stability is something you might want to look into if you get an old version, so I'd recommend either 2.5b or the latest release.

Blender 2.79 is from 2017, and is still available for download. Might solve the whole stability thing.

I'm using Easel! It's a game engine I'm making for 2D webgames with a hierarchical behaviors model and automatic multiplayer.

Gamemaker Studio 1 is my main game engine. It's where I got started and which I am the fastest with. Got Gamemaker Studio 1 when it was on Humble for a dollar or so with all exports. Don't like Gamemaker 2, I'd rather switch to Godot but I'm having trouble learning it.

I've dabbled in Pico-8 and made a small game. Very fun to use, but the restrictions are too much for me personally though.

Sometimes I create games with Flickgame which some wouldn't regard as a real game engine because it's extremely restrictive. I love the colour palette and enjoy concentrating on making art. I make those games entirely on my tablet, which I find very cozy. It exports to HTML5 and you develop in your browser.

Unity, Game Maker Studio, Flash/AS3, Allegro/C++, The Games Factory & MMF, HTML5/Canvas, Adventure Game Studio

Mostly Unity lately, tho.

Depending on the project I went with the following approaches:

• Built the game from scratch in C++, using DirectX for multimedia handling [1], [2]
• Built the game using my own 2D game engine, called Casual Game Engine (written in C++, uses DirectX, features AngelScript for game implementation) [3], [4]
• Built the game using Phaser when I wanted the game to be played as a web build [5], [6]

Games:

1. Casual Desktop Game, a fan remake of the ancient Desktop Destroyer featuring community content
2. Hyper Frenzy, an arena-styled space shooter / shmup game
3. Casual Pixel Warrior, a 2D top-down wave-shooter with RPG elements, seasonal events and pets
4. Solitarius, a story-driven space shooter, originally designed as a tech demo for the CGE game engine
5. Krepagotchi, a virtual pet game where you take care of a Krepa (depicting a Minecraft Creeper)
6. Bouncy Garden Fox, a jump&run game, originally designed as a present to the HortusFox plant parenting community

I also posted some articles about the progress of developing my games / game engine:

• The story of building my own game engine 🛠️🧱
• Krepagotchi - the story of building my own virtual pet
• Diving into outer space via gamedev 👾

No engine: I code all my games in C and use the SDL2 library.

Unreal Engine 5. All because of Blueprint which makes creating mechanics super easy!

Phaser CE and Phaser 3 Mobile friendly HTML5 2D framework for videogame development

My favorites are Unreal and GDevelop. GDevelop is wonderful because it has a lot of prebuilt features you can quickly use. Also GDevelop is super easy when developing for mobile.

Godot is best for beginners i believe. it integrates perfectly with cursor ai so you can just vibe code your game. this is how i make all my games.check out the games i've made.

I'm using UE5 because Blueprint is super useful!

I use Unity and used Unigine in the past:

•  Unigine is very beautiful, but doesn't render as fast a Unity. This was the issue that made switch back to Unity with the amount and size of my meshes. 
• The creation of UI isn't as comfortable as in Unity. I could live with it though.

i use clickteam fusion 2.5 for create 2d games or horror fnaf content

I currently use "Scyndi's Creative Interpreter", which I whipped up myself, using C++, which relies on SDL2. It may not be the most user friendly engine out there, but  it fits most of my needs

I was using Scratch before years, but I currently Use Godot because it's Easy and open-source, so I advise any beginner to start with Godot.

I currently use GB Studio as I’m accustomed to it’s layout and the games I’m working on feel right at home on the Game Boy Color.

I’m also planning on dabbling with MD Engine as soon as it releases.

I'm not using any game engine, just Replit.com - an AI agent does all of the web coding for me.

I use scratch, very easy but if you know what your doing it can  really good.

i like gamemaker 2

As a VN developer, I use Ren'Py!

Not an easy question! There are tons of engines out there, but if you're starting out, I’d definitely recommend checking out these two because they’re very beginner-friendly and great for actually finishing projects:

RPG Maker

• Paid (usually one-time, often on sale)
• Learning curve: Easy / Medium
• Capabilities: Perfect for 2D RPGs, but flexible enough for story-driven or adventure games

RPG Maker is kind of the “classic” beginner engine. It comes with built-in assets, a visual editor, and systems for maps, battles, dialogue, etc, so you can start making a game without coding.

You can go deeper with scripting (JavaScript in newer versions), but you don’t have to. It’s great if you want to focus on design and storytelling first.

Twine

• Cost: Free & open source
• Learning curve: Very easy
• Capabilities: Interactive fiction, branching narratives

Twine is amazing if you're just starting or want to prototype ideas quickly. You basically build your game like a flowchart of story nodes, and it exports directly to HTML so you can share it instantly. You don’t need to code at all to begin, but you can add logic, variables, and even JavaScript later if you want more complexity.

So in conclusion, If you want something more “game-like” with visuals and systems, go with RPG Maker. If you want to experiment, tell stories, or start today with zero friction, go with Twine.

Curious: what kind of game are you thinking about making? 

It's not strictly a game engine but rather a framework that I use: MonoGame

I'm using UE5 myself :)

I’m using GB studio for my current project! It’s an engine that lets you make games for the Gameboy (DMG/Colour) specifically, it uses visual scripting so it’s very easy to get into (but the limitations can make it hard to code exactly what you want, but it can be a fun challenge)

Unreal Engine, and its major reason is that I basically have a reading/writing disability that makes trying to code the normal way extremely difficult and mentally painful for me. So, thanks to Unreal's very robust blueprint system, I have been able to create the games without this issue.

And yes, I know engines like Godot and Unity have their own form of visual scripting through plugins, but I don’t have any interest in touching Unity do to a few reasons, and for Godot, the plugin is still being worked on and isn’t as robust as Unreal’s blueprints at the moment.