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itch.io Community » Game Development » General Development

Any other developers here using own custom engines?

A topic by danielbrendel created Jan 03, 2023 Views: 847 Replies: 19

Viewing posts 1 to 11

danielbrendel1 year ago(+1)

I wonder if there are other devs here that use their own custom game engine for their games. All my games are written in C++ and I have also created an own game engine where you can write your game code using AngelScript. I wonder if there are others out there working that way. :D

No Time To PlayModerator1 year ago

Sure, I made my own graphics engines. Not in C++, but still.

danielbrendel1 year ago

That's nice! In what language did you make it? What platforms does it support?

No Time To PlayModerator1 year ago(+1)

The InRelief engine has Python and Lua implementations; I used it with Pygame and Love2D, respectively, but the resulting games flopped on both platforms, and I gave up.

The EightWay engine mainly has a Javascript implementation. You can see it at work in Electric Rogue and Glittering Light 2. I also ported it to Python for an experiment (involving Tkinter), but meh.

Keep in mind, these are strictly graphics engines. The games are hand-rolled otherwise. Thanks for the nice words!

mid1 year ago(+2)

I often start from zero for each game, though with middleware. How much time I’m willing to spend is a good indicator of the game’s potential quality.

I’m never satisfied fully with my engines as a developer, but as a user neither Unity, Unreal nor Godot will ever reach their levels. The more human labor put in, the more I know the developer cares.

FearCode1 year ago(+2)

I'm actually an engine developer for a carrer, so in my spare time I like investing in my own indie game engine in C++.

I like doing everything from scratch, from physics to graphics. The only external libraries I use are for resource loading like: images, fonts, 3d models...

danielbrendel317 days ago

Really cool! Must be kinda dreamy to also work on C++ game engines as a profession.

FearCode317 days ago (2 edits)

Thanks! And yes C++ and games are a quite good match (it's even unreal's dev. language). Efficiency, flexibility, low overhead, portability. You know C is the mother of all other languages, while C++ is the most scalable version of C.

GameLoom Studio1 year ago(+1)

I’ve never been happy with any engine I’ve come across so I too make almost everything from scratch. External libraries I use is for the asset compiler for loading images and fonts.

I program in C++ with some custom language extensions.

By making the tech yourself you can custom tailor it to your needs and add features like:

asset hot-reloading,
code hot-reloading,
reflection (mostly useful for debugging purposes),
config system,
type safe shader invocations (no more accidentally writing wrong vertex type),
etc.

I never liked any scripting languages so I stick with C++ for game logic as well.

danielbrendel317 days ago

That sounds really nice! Finally some other C++ game developers.

kbrecordzz1 year ago (1 edit) (+1)

I make a game engine in Javascript for web browser games (mainly my own game). I use the library three.js for 3D rendering, but the rest I've written myself with some borrowed code from https://grelf.itch.io. I've written about it here https://kbrecordzz.itch.io/this-is-not-a-car-club-chapter-one/devlog/497670/buil... (now this may look like self-promotion, maybe it is, but the text describes my engine very clearly)

Identical Games1 year ago

I have created my own engines and used Godot. I've modified games using there own engine and ones using Godot or Love2D. If your goal is to make a game. I recommend using an existing engine.

MGDS Studio319 days ago

I have used processing programming language as the core java library for graphic output and user interaction in my videogame "Blue beret" (desktop + android - here on itch) including creation of the levels editor. It is not a game development framework but language for creative codding.

Thunder Perfect Witchcraft318 days ago(+1)

Always going Cpp/SDL2. Less overhead than using a stock engine.

danielbrendel317 days ago(+1)

Sounds really great! I am using DX for rendering/sound which I now kinda regret, because I am kinda stuck to Windows. Currently considering changing that to something platform indiependent.

mid317 days ago (1 edit)

Sound is kind of a pain to do cross-platform. Every library I’ve found is either hard to build or lacking in features.

FTR I’ve used SoLoud, PortAudio and MiniAudio, each in at least one project, but I can’t say I like any of them.

Thunder Perfect Witchcraft317 days ago

Don't know what features you need, but for my needs SDL2_mixer is doing good.

Thunder Perfect Witchcraft317 days ago(+1)

Can really recommend SDL2. If you encounter trouble, feel free to contact me.

danielbrendel317 days ago

Thank you all for your answers so far! Nice to see there are also other C++ devs out there making their own things. I hit the follow button a few times.

KuroGamedev279 days ago (1 edit)

Typically, I use vanilla JS for my projects, but I have my own resource editor for my game projects. I can import the custom binary file and use JS itself to generate the resources I need for the game, then I just need to add the game code and it's all good to go.

The editor can handle a number of game details and if I don't want to include a section for a project, I can mute out it's inclusion on the editor-side.

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