I'm super curious to know what game engines you all use and recommend. Cost? Learning curve? Capabilities?

When I use an engine at all, it's usually Twine, but most of my games don't use one. I code them by hand.

I use Godot to make my current games, but also used Blender and Scratch before that.

Unity is also a good, powerful all-rounder, but it might be slightly difficult if you're starting out. If you're not then Unreal is even better for 3D real-time (anything else and you might as well use a different engine). It has a quite steep learning curve though. Both of them are free

I use Unreal Engine. Despite all the hate, I kind of like it. It's great for 3D, but there are a few hoops you have to jump through for 2D. One nice feature is that the starter templates, which help you get to the part of developing a game where it's interesting,  so you don't spend a while learning how to make a player that can move. Also, Unreal has probably the best no-code language in my opinion after using quite a few. The whole flowchart form just makes more sense than an event sheet.

I`m kinda starting or or at least getting back into learning development I currently use Godot. My only published thing is from godot although years and years back I was using gamemaker but never finished anything in it. After having thrown my hands in the air after some bugs in my dev branch for my project I tried scratch and after a few hours I felt like coming back to Godot.

Godot seems to be the best out there free no strings attached and was fun enough to get me to complete something even though I needed help form tutorials.

i use godot and i can say its pretty easy to learn

I cant agree more with Hoiby Unreal Engine always has been the best engine (since the very unreal engien 1.0)  you could use with propably the best graphics you can achieve, they thro out free asset packs every month and you can obtain some everytime again within the humble bundle for such a low price even as they the unreal asset packs are of the highest quality assets you could propably get. BUT sadly my recent rig can't handle creating something using unreal engine 4 - 5, but ive been constantly preparing for a future engine switch, when I finally have the money for a new processsor.

Furthermore Ive tested a lot of different engines,  but these are too much to name, but if youre interrested in game engines, like me (one of my favourite topics :D) I highly recommend to check out gamesfromscratch youtube channel

However, the engines ive used till this day are:

- Gameguru Classic  (very good for starters, easy learning curve) which is payed, one time pay, make as many games as you like

-Gameguru Max (even better then the classic version), also one time pay, but more expensive then classic

-Easy FPS Editor (rather easy to use its a retro shooter 2.5 D engine) which is free

-Easy FPS Editor CE (same like above, but less bugs, more possibilities) which is also completely free, thou not open source

-Yahaha Engine (very easy engine, based on unity foundation, but its a no-code engine, thou you can create your own  plugin modules with lua scriptin, even visual scripting using Visual studio code) it can be used for free, but for 10 dollar a month you can subscribe and the engine has 100000 (really) of already available (lowpoly) 3d assets, which would cost much much more if you for instance would buy that much assets in assetpacks

-GDevelope ( pretty easy also no-code/visual scripting engine) also can be used free but for pretty decent monthly subscription you have a lot of advantages 

- Rosebud AI Engine (im not that much into it yet, but it seems easy enough, and even features 3d graphics) it can be used free but to a very limited extend, as your ai-prompt count is extremely low, but they have a lot of different subscription variants, ive choosen the 30 dollar edition, where the amount of prompts is very high and you even can directly edit the code. its very interesting to play around with this engine as its really something differetn compared to other engines ive used before

best regards, love and peace <3

As I really like this topic, here is a screenshot of all engines ive installed ...

The engines ive installed on steam are not counted within this screenshot of all my installed (currently) engines :)

I had to change/add not official, but created by me icons as some of these engine seemed to have either none included or if I have two different versions of one engine installed I dont like to have the same icon, so I added my own :D

As a visual novel developer, I use Ren'Py. Free, simple modified Python to code in, and actually fun to use. It comes with a GUI which can be modified and folders to keep the files (images, GUI, audio, etc). Ren'Py is specifically designed to create visual novels, so it's capabilities are great for VNs and more limited for other genres.

None.  I have never used an engine.  All my projects are coded from the ground up.

I started out on makecode arcade, helped me get the basics, then I switched to a bunch of other game engines, but i currently use unity powerful 3d and easy 2d i can't currently code tohugh bcs my dad won't let me use his computer anymore, so I'm gonna get a laptop 4 my birthday whitch is soon soon yayyy