[HN Gopher] Stride Game Engine
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Stride Game Engine
        
       Author : fctorial
       Score  : 110 points
       Date   : 2021-06-18 11:55 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (stride3d.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (stride3d.net)
        
       | billfruit wrote:
       | Does it support F#?
        
         | crispyalmond wrote:
         | I don't see why it wouldn't work with F#. It runs on .NET and
         | can interop with C#. Note that I have not tested this and I am
         | just speculating.
        
       | csdtx wrote:
       | Do we not have enough of these fully featured game engines? Game
       | development has become so bloated these days. You need teams of
       | hundreds or even thousands of people to create a full game. In
       | the PS1 era some of the best games were built by a team of a
       | dozen or so people working for 1-2 years. Instead of focusing on
       | graphical fidelity I think we should be focusing on lower
       | development time, gameplay features/diversity,
       | stability/portability and implementation. I have yet to see a
       | proper open world game (Think GTA but you can enter every room in
       | every building) with good draw distances that don't suffer from
       | horrible pop in.
       | 
       | Also how about a game engine where it's easy to build games? The
       | WC3/SC2 world editors are great examples, you can get started and
       | start building stuff from the start. Even though it's an engine
       | made for making RTS maps it's modifiable enough you can create
       | FPS games in WC3 if your willing to put in the effort.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwtteOIksbo
        
         | JabavuAdams wrote:
         | Actually fully featured game engines like Unity have made it
         | possible for smaller and smaller teams to build bigger and
         | bigger games. Not sure where you're getting your numbers from.
        
         | sinuhe69 wrote:
         | One of the hottest game on Steam 2021 Dyson Sphere Program was
         | developed by a team of just 5!
        
           | username90 wrote:
           | Games requiring a lot of custom code are really under rated
           | among indie devs. Most tries to do stuff that are really easy
           | to do, like 2d platformers or shooters or puzzle games, but
           | hard to code games that gives experiences you can't get in
           | other games seems like the easiest way to make a successful
           | game with few people nowadays.
        
         | art0rz wrote:
         | > Instead of focusing on graphical fidelity I think we should
         | be focusing on lower development time, gameplay
         | features/diversity, stability/portability and implementation.
         | 
         | > I have yet to see a proper open world game (Think GTA but you
         | can enter every room in every building) with good draw
         | distances that don't suffer from horrible pop in.
         | 
         | I don't think these are compatible. The majority of man-hours
         | are spent creating graphics, not programming features.
        
           | maccard wrote:
           | > The majority of man-hours are spent creating graphics, not
           | programming features.
           | 
           | Technically, yes but it's not as heavily swayed as you might
           | think. On the four AAA projects I've worked on, it's been
           | roughly 60-40 art to programming/technical design (think
           | level scripters). There is definitely a sizeable amount of
           | the man hours spent by engineers writing C++
        
             | username90 wrote:
             | Programmers writing C++ to support graphics also goes in
             | the art bucket though. If there is a performance bottleneck
             | on art, or if you need to load/unload art resources since
             | they take tons of memory, or if they are tweaking shaders,
             | then that is still work done to make the art.
        
               | maccard wrote:
               | > Programmers writing C++ to support graphics also goes
               | in the art bucket though.
               | 
               | Hard disagree here.
        
               | username90 wrote:
               | You have to do it to support modern game graphics. It is
               | something they could skip if they didn't do modern game
               | graphics. It is a cost of modern game graphics. Doesn't
               | matter if you disagree, this is a fact.
               | 
               | So if you divide it up, how much work is done to support
               | the art and graphics of the game, and how much is done to
               | support the gameplay, you get a much greater ratio art to
               | game than 60/40.
        
         | Tossrock wrote:
         | Sounds like you might be interested in Roblox - fully solved
         | out of the box multiplayer, Lua based development, no shader
         | access or particular graphical fidelity concerns. Some of the
         | most successful games of the current era were developed by
         | single teenagers.
        
         | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
         | Crash Bandicoot was made by 2 people, a dev and an artist.
        
           | midnightclubbed wrote:
           | Do you have a source for that? Wikipedia (and the game's
           | credits) have a core development team of 8 (plus audio,
           | production, testing etc).
        
         | Trasmatta wrote:
         | There are still tons of games made by tiny teams, even moreso
         | than at any point in the past probably. The indie dev scene is
         | huge, and some of the best games of the last 5 years have been
         | built by teams is 10 or less.
        
         | spywaregorilla wrote:
         | > Game development has become so bloated these days. You need
         | teams of hundreds or even thousands of people to create a full
         | game
         | 
         | Hard disagree. The accessibility and availability of free
         | resources is higher than ever before for solo devs. AAA games
         | take large teams because they have more content, and a larger
         | diversity of content than older games.
         | 
         | > Instead of focusing on graphical fidelity I think we should
         | be focusing on lower development time, gameplay
         | features/diversity, stability/portability and implementation. I
         | have yet to see a proper open world game (Think GTA but you can
         | enter every room in every building) with good draw distances
         | that don't suffer from horrible pop in.
         | 
         | That's because it's a difficult problem and machines don't have
         | unlimited resources. Draw distances are a graphical fidelity
         | problem, so I also find it ironic that this is your first idea.
        
           | jayd16 wrote:
           | Agreed. Its never been easier to make such detailed games but
           | he bar for a game anyone cares about is much much higher.
        
       | gentleman11 wrote:
       | C# is nice to program in, but I remember the unity garbage
       | collector used to give me anxiety, it was a nightmare. Every tiny
       | thing you do you have to second guess because it might allocate
       | behind the scenes and you get these awful performance hiccups if
       | you miss too many of these
        
         | jayd16 wrote:
         | Its really not a big deal. Just preallocate as much as you can
         | behind a load screen, and use pooling on your tight loops.
         | You'd be doing this in any language, anyhow. If you really want
         | to go overboard, C# has Span<T> now, if you want to do your own
         | arena allocation.
         | 
         | At least in Unity, the profiling is fairly well established so
         | its easy to hunt down allocations.
        
         | gameswithgo wrote:
         | How long ago? Compared to 5 years ago C# performance has
         | improved dramatically, and you have more tools available to
         | control memory usage.
         | 
         | That said, if you are trying to make a competitive first person
         | shooter than never dips below 144fps, C# may not be a good
         | choice. But there are popular competitive shooters out there
         | using Unity, like Tarkov. But who knows how much pain they went
         | through to get the performance they needed?
        
       | mostelato wrote:
       | Curious - how come so many engines don't support Mac? I am
       | constantly baffled by how few games exist for my MacBook Pro.
        
         | gameswithgo wrote:
         | You can use opengl or vulkan and target every platform, except
         | mac. A very old version of opengl still works on mac but its
         | not supported any more.
        
         | Mikushi wrote:
         | Apple is extremely developer hostile so it's not that
         | surprising.
        
           | pjmlp wrote:
           | Apple is extremely friendly to developers targeting the Apple
           | ecosytem.
           | 
           | Unreal and Unity do support Apple devices.
           | 
           | Plus, unlike Android, they actually provide tons of tooling
           | for game development and graphics programming on iOS.
           | 
           | Google tells you to clone github repository from Vulkans
           | shaderc.
        
             | mhuffman wrote:
             | > Apple is extremely friendly to developers targeting the
             | Apple ecosystem.
             | 
             | Yeah, I don't know where the hell you get that!
             | 
             | Do they offer emulators for non-Mac developers to target
             | their ecosystem?
             | 
             | Do they make even simple development onerous if you are on
             | a Mac and do target their system, but have the audacity to
             | want to share the app with someone else not in the same
             | room with you?
             | 
             | You want to make a free app for your business targeting our
             | ecosystem? Pay us bitch! Also, while we're at it, pay us
             | every year from now on! Whoa! You also want to put it on
             | our store, pay some more you fucking pay-pig!
             | 
             | > Plus, unlike Android, they actually provide tons of
             | tooling for game development and graphics programming on
             | iOS.
             | 
             | ... read, we are so locked into and starved for hardware
             | options that it is easy to release a few libraries that
             | will work for your app ... for now! Has your business not
             | changed at all and your app doesn't need any special
             | privileges ... but it has been more than a few years ..
             | haha! Go fuck yourself, sincerely Apple!
             | 
             | > Google tells you to clone github repository from Vulkans
             | shaderc.
             | 
             | Apple makes you get into a personal relationship with them.
             | I am not sure that is much better!
        
             | suby wrote:
             | Forcing me to pay a dev fee for the privilege of releasing
             | software on their ecosystem is not friendly.
             | 
             | Foring me to get apple hardware by discouraging MacOS
             | virtual machines is not friendly to developers.
             | 
             | Policing what apps people are even allowed to develop on
             | some of their platforms (ie, no custom browser engines on
             | ios) is not friendly to developers.
             | 
             | Deprecating support for opengl to push metal, a solution
             | which is only available on their platform is not developer
             | friendly.
        
               | JabavuAdams wrote:
               | I spend more on eating out in a week than that yearly
               | Apple developer fee (not ideal, I know). Cost/benefit. At
               | some point you realize you're going to die and that you
               | can essentially buy more productive time by paying money.
        
               | username90 wrote:
               | Most people starts out as students or similar with
               | basically no budget at all. To them paying fees to just
               | get others to run your program is a huge hindrance, which
               | is why it is developer hostile. It isn't hostile to full
               | time developers who work on established products, no, but
               | it is hostile to the next generation of developers who
               | are just starting out and experimenting with things.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Apple is not for hippie developers, is for developers
               | that want to make money and understand others like to be
               | paid for their work.
               | 
               | Enjoy the developer friendliness of Steam on GNU/Linux.
        
             | jayd16 wrote:
             | Forcing you to drop everything and do it Apple's way is not
             | friendly.
             | 
             | Forcing you to buy specific hardware and banning
             | virtualization to do builds is not friendly. Cloud builds
             | is a huge pain. You essentially have to rent full macs from
             | MacStadium.
        
             | skohan wrote:
             | Apple's developer hostile in general.
             | 
             | They create a narrow space where it's possible to make
             | money developing for their platform, but there's a huge
             | risk that:
             | 
             | a) they will make a decision which makes your product no
             | longer viable, or
             | 
             | b) they will decide to replicate your product as a 1st
             | party offering and render you redundant (e.g. tile)
             | 
             | Adopting open standards like Vulkan would be the single
             | best thing they could do to support games on their
             | platform. Games are extremely high-investment, and having
             | to develop against a second back-end like Metal is a
             | perfect reason not to support a platform.
             | 
             | Apple's friendly to developers as long as they are willing
             | to stay on the reservation, but there is no reward for
             | doing so.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Producing development tooling unmatched by FOSS is
               | anything but hostile.
               | 
               | Want success with "developers friendly" tools? Try to
               | make a business of using Khronos APIs in GNU/Linux games.
               | 
               | Ask Loki how well did it go.
               | 
               | As for Vulkan it is just the same design by committee
               | extension spaghetti soup that killed OpenGL, just with
               | even more boilerplate.
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | Doom 2016/Eternal shipped with Vulkan and they are two of
               | the best optimized games ever made.
               | 
               | I don't buy that Vulkan is not a first-class choice for
               | graphics. To the extent that it has issues, it's only
               | because of (developer hostile) lack of support from major
               | software vendors.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Pity that outside Android 10+ and a couple to Swift
               | ports, most AAA studios don't care.
               | 
               | Now that Microsoft owns Doom, let's see how long it holds
               | its Vulkan implementation.
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | I don't see what this has to do with your argument
        
               | ykafia wrote:
               | I might be wrong but from what i read on the internet,
               | MacOS don't provide direct access to GPUs, you have to go
               | through the OS GPU API to do your GPU computation. On
               | Windows and Linux, there is no abstraction, OpenGL and
               | Vulkan access the GPUs directly. I'd say it's safer to go
               | the MacOS way but it's a bother for those who want a
               | unified API
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | You are wrong, there is no way to access the GPU directly
               | unless you are the driver author.
        
         | flohofwoe wrote:
         | It's a chicken/egg problem. There are no games on Mac because
         | nobody plays games on Mac, and nobody plays games on Mac
         | because there are no games on Mac.
         | 
         | Only Apple has the power to break this cycle by throwing money
         | at game developers to reduce the financial risk (same way Epic
         | does to get games into the Epic Game Store for instance).
        
           | madpata wrote:
           | It's not a chicken and egg problem. It's Apples
           | fault/intention.
           | 
           | They had really bad support for OpenGL and wanted developers
           | to use Apple's Metal API. But developers stayed on DirectX
           | (Windows-only) or OpenGL/Vulkan for Linux/Windows/Android
           | crossplatform. It just wasn't economically viable to develop
           | for Mac.
        
             | flohofwoe wrote:
             | The importance of cross-platform 3D-APIs for game
             | development is vastly overrated though. The problems of the
             | Mac as gaming platform are much more "holistic" (but yes,
             | in the end it's about the economical viability).
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | They're kind of trying to do that with Apple Arcade, but from
           | what I've seen they don't really understand the market enough
           | to make an interesting offering.
           | 
           | It's insane to me that they're failing so badly at it:
           | Apple's amazing at building brands, but gaming is _huge_ with
           | people under 30, and it might get harder to sell people a
           | computer you can 't run AAA games on.
           | 
           | Google could have eaten iPhone's lunch with gen Z with Stadia
           | if they invested in it properly, but they didn't manage to
           | make it work
        
         | Sandvich wrote:
         | The way I see it, unless you're developing exclusively for
         | Apple platforms, it's not worth the effort to build something
         | with Metal. There are translation layers like MoltenVK that can
         | help, but that still requires a lot of effort for what is
         | likely a very small market segment.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | It's not _that_ hard. With SDL2 /GLFW and MoltenVK you are
           | 90% of the way to a cross-platform codebase.
           | 
           | That said I can understand why there's not a lot of
           | investment in mac, since Apple's shown to be very developer-
           | hostile as far as games, and the market is pretty small
           | outside of mobile games which are kind of a separate thing.
           | 
           | There's some potential with m-series processors - now there's
           | basically one SOC to target for everything from an iPad to a
           | desktop, so it's sort of like consoles where there's a very
           | consistent hardware target to develop against.
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | As I wrote in a sibling comment, Unreal and Unity do support
         | Apple devices.
         | 
         | Plus, unlike Android, they actually provide tons of tooling for
         | game development and graphics programming on iOS.
         | 
         | Google tells you to clone github repository from Vulkan's
         | shaderc.
         | 
         | Vulkan and OpenGL tooling on Android is a joke, to the point
         | Unity are Unreal the official tools.
         | 
         | https://developer.android.com/games#develop-content
         | 
         | While Macs have all of this at their disposal,
         | 
         | https://developer.apple.com/wwdc21/sessions/?q=Metal
         | 
         | The only thing Android Games SDK has is a frame pacing API!?!
         | 
         | https://developer.android.com/games/sdk
        
           | jayd16 wrote:
           | I don't understand how you can respond with how great Apple
           | dev is when the question was why does no one do it. If its so
           | great, what's the problem?
        
       | d0100 wrote:
       | I've tried a few times to start making a game I consider
       | "simple", the basics are:
       | 
       | * Animated character * Top down view * Grid based floor *
       | "Default" RTS/MOBA physics
       | 
       | I've tried both Unreal and Unity but I've always found myself
       | blocked by having to find out how to make something look like
       | water, how to make an animation sync with movement, how to
       | customize movement to something already familiar, etc
       | 
       | This means I can't actually make a game if I first don't make my
       | own pretty much everything
       | 
       | I think that more than game engines, we need game frameworks that
       | provided game designers with presets that present "solved" game
       | mechanics, like water styles, ground tiling, precise character
       | animation for any view angle, character movement, etc
       | 
       | It would be nice if we could have a "democratization" of video
       | game development anytime in my lifetime
        
         | gameswithgo wrote:
         | There are lots of asset packs for things like that. So you can
         | get stuff done if you don't mind things not looking and not
         | performing exactly the way you want, and don't mind your game
         | having assets that people might recognize from other games!
         | 
         | Otherwise yeah, making a game is hard.
        
         | dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
         | You seriously need to go through a few standard unity tutorials
         | they offer just after installing, it will save you a lot of
         | time and the blocks you've mentioned.
        
         | EamonnMR wrote:
         | It helps to start with a less complex game and learn the basics
         | of how the engine works. I know in Godot at least (and I assume
         | Unity is miles ahead) there are prefab things to do what you
         | describe but you will need to know how to fit them together.
         | 
         | Another option would be to fork an existing foss RTS game, like
         | Spring, Warzone 2100, BOSwars, etc.
        
         | qayxc wrote:
         | Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't pretty much all of
         | these issues solved using Blueprint/Prefabs in UE/Unity?
         | 
         | Water has a prefab:
         | https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.1/Documentation/Manual/HOWTO-W...
         | 
         | Tiling is standard for Terrain Layers:
         | https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.1/Documentation/Manual/class-T...
         | 
         | Syncing animation and movement could be solved using root
         | motion: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/RootMotion.html
         | 
         | Etc.
         | 
         | And then there's whole starter packs for all kinds of genres
         | that include solutions for all these as well.
         | 
         | IMHO the two major players have you covered quite well
         | -\\_(tsu)_/-
        
           | d0100 wrote:
           | I can find the resources on how to do those things, I have a
           | compiled list of tutorials & code with what I wanted, but
           | that still leaves me with a ratio of 80% programming vs 20%
           | game design
           | 
           | It'd be nice to be able to create a character and just attach
           | preset behaviors: walk like Dota, add jump, etc
           | 
           | Then I can focus 80% on game design and 20% on development,
           | this way I can know upfront if my game is worth polishing and
           | customizing those presets
        
             | sombremesa wrote:
             | > It'd be nice to be able to create a character and just
             | attach preset behaviors: walk like Dota, add jump, etc
             | 
             | You can already do this via the Unity asset store.
             | 
             | But I'm guessing in addition to having your dream
             | engine/working environment, you also don't want to pay a
             | dime for it.
             | 
             | They do say you get what you pay for.
        
               | d0100 wrote:
               | I have searched in the Unity asset store, and there is
               | either not what I need, or what I need is in several
               | different packages that aren't seamless to use together,
               | or the cost of everything is more than my monthly salary
               | (non US here)
               | 
               | > But I'm guessing in addition to having your dream
               | engine/working environment, you also don't want to pay a
               | dime for it.
               | 
               | Before Unity came out the same could be said about people
               | wanting a more accessible engine, no?
               | 
               | I'm fine with Unity's and Unreal's pricing models, I just
               | want a more creator friendly game editor that isn't
               | Roblox
        
               | sombremesa wrote:
               | Really?
               | 
               | https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/moba-
               | mov...
               | 
               | Come on, man.
        
               | d0100 wrote:
               | I have already done myself what that package provides
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | Marazan wrote:
             | You don't need fancy animations or water that looks like
             | water to work on the game design.
             | 
             | Use place holders for everything
        
               | elefanten wrote:
               | Agree with this. Sounds like you want to prototype game
               | designs more than code/utilize final implementations. The
               | standard advice you'd get in game dev is to use super low
               | production value assets to prototype. People even often
               | "paper prototype" or use other completely non-digital
               | media.
               | 
               | I agree with the sister comment to parent that suggested
               | something like Game Maker. Those tools are simpler and
               | more usable out the box than game engines.
               | 
               | If you want the feeling of completing a simple game as
               | you go, and seeing your (near-)final implementations of
               | elements as you hammer them out -- that's fine as a
               | learning exercise. It will probably be inefficient (as
               | you may change you mind about things later on that you
               | already spent a bunch of time implementing/polishing),
               | but it can be a cool way to learn. However, for that, you
               | may run into what some other comments are saying: you'll
               | have to figure a lot of custom stuff out as you go.
               | 
               | Edit: There's a good series[0] where a game critic /
               | indie game dev makes 12 games in 12 months. He uses Game
               | Maker Studio 2 and the episodes go back and forth between
               | concept/design and execution.
               | 
               | [0]
               | https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/category/v2/yahtzees-
               | dev...
        
               | void_mint wrote:
               | Whiteboxing/Greyboxing/whateverboxing is one of the most
               | important processes that all too many hobbyists don't do,
               | which causes them to burn out on gamedev. They want to
               | _see_ everything working with how it looks in their head,
               | but in reality the game mechanics vs. visuals are very
               | different skillsets that can take a lot of time to
               | master. I would recommend most new gamedevs spend all
               | their time using just default objects in their respective
               | engines. Literally just white/grey shapes that act on
               | user input. If the mechanics feel fun with whiteboxes,
               | they'll feel more fun with actual
               | models/sprites/whatever. But on the flipside, you'll
               | never know if your mechanics are fun if you never make
               | them because you're too busy worrying about water
               | animations.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | It seems to me you would be better served with something
             | like GameMaker.
        
             | tomc1985 wrote:
             | Sorry dude, learn the skills and get it done
        
         | JabavuAdams wrote:
         | Unity Asset Store has done this. Unreal / Blueprints fulfill
         | the same role, but I'm less familiar with them.
        
         | gentleman11 wrote:
         | If you want a game template, there are lots available in the
         | gaming marketplaces. Your game will be almost identical to its
         | competitors though
        
         | TrainedMonkey wrote:
         | Sounds like you don't want game engine, you want a fully coded
         | game with a map maker.
        
           | bee_rider wrote:
           | Wonder how much of the current gaming ecosystem is originally
           | rooted in the Warcraft 3 map making scene.
        
             | elefanten wrote:
             | If you're asking, you may know this already, but the whole
             | MOBA genre (eg League of Legends) came from custom war3
             | maps.
        
         | spywaregorilla wrote:
         | It's a learning curve. You don't need to reinvent all these
         | things, but you do need to learn the tooling.
         | 
         | * Animation sync with movement in unreal is done either by
         | embedding root motion into your animations or just trying to
         | use a blendspace to make movement animation fluidly transition
         | with your speed.
         | 
         | * Movement is customized for basic characters via the character
         | movement controller component.
         | 
         | * Water is a hard problem but the basic ue4 water
         | implementation is good: https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-
         | US/BuildingWorlds/Wate...
         | 
         | * Top down view is just a camera facing down
        
         | lazypenguin wrote:
         | Yes I agree with you. Even with unity/unreal/etc. it's still a
         | monumental amount of work to have a game. Personally, I have
         | more fun modding a fully functioning game than I do starting
         | from scratch.
        
           | mihaifm wrote:
           | Modding is a totally underrated thing right now, but I feel
           | it might become big in the future. Someone just needs to come
           | up with a solution to both keep mods free and incentivize mod
           | authors.
           | 
           | The way I see it, the big boys create games that acts as
           | platforms and users freely create content of their own using
           | these platforms. Bethesda/Microsoft might be in a good
           | position to achieve this, they have good modding communities
           | around their other games, really interested what their next
           | title brings to the table, hope they don't blow it up like
           | the last time they tried to monetize mods.
           | 
           | You also have something like Roblox, where the concepts of
           | game development and modding kinda blend together, so it's
           | definitely a trend to keep an eye on in the future.
        
             | madpata wrote:
             | You should keep an eye out for S&Box! It's the successor to
             | the popular Garry's Mod. Garry's Mod is, imo, the sandbox
             | and modding game and I think that S&Box will be even
             | better. It's based on the Source 2 engine, and the main
             | developer Garry has collected a lot of experience with
             | GMod.
             | 
             | While GMod mods are based on Lua, S&Box uses C#, which is
             | an awesome choice, imo. C# is a bit more verbose than Lua,
             | but it probably enables mods of higher quality.
             | 
             | It's not out yet, but some keys get distributed to chosen
             | people. Sadly, I'm not one of those.
        
               | mihaifm wrote:
               | Thanks, subscribed to their subreddit. Never had the time
               | to jump into Garry's Mod but might give this one a try
               | when it comes out.
        
         | mekkkkkk wrote:
         | All you could ever ask for is available in the Unity asset
         | store. A lot of it free.
        
         | codefreakxff wrote:
         | I'm not advocating for Roblox because it's quite terrible. But.
         | They did make it stupidly simple to make stupid 3D games. If
         | you like getting eaten and slowly have poop stuck to you while
         | falling through the digestive system until you are pooped
         | out...
         | 
         | I have not tried godot yet but it's something I'm going to get
         | to soon
         | 
         | https://godotengine.org/
        
           | isiahl wrote:
           | Why is Roblox terrible?
        
           | madpata wrote:
           | Maybe keep an eye out for S&Box, the successor to Garry'sMod.
           | 
           | It's not out yet, but uses the Source 2 engine and C# for
           | modding, and will probably have an active community from
           | launch.
        
           | Applejinx wrote:
           | Godot is coming up mighty quick. I've been favorably
           | impressed. Also, if your concept is 2D, it's way beyond the
           | 3D-centric game engines for that task: might not be the
           | question being asked, but it's worth a thought.
        
         | hesdeadjim wrote:
         | There is no easy path to mastery with any engine out there.
         | Games are hard and the learning curve is intimidating. Start
         | small and grow from there.
         | 
         | For instance, take a tutorial like this and understand 100% of
         | everything going on:
         | 
         | https://learn.unity.com/project/bolt-platformer-tutorial
         | 
         | Visual scripting in Unity or Unreal, combined with asset store
         | packages, can get you _very_ far. A buddy of mine shipped a
         | game on Steam built entirely in PlayMaker. But he had spent
         | five years learning and mastering the tool and the engine.
         | YMMV.
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | The Unity marketplace has lots of things like that.
         | 
         | Only drawback is, you run the risk of players being able to
         | identify all the readymades you used. Use too many, and your
         | game will feel like an unoriginal "asset flip".
        
         | brundolf wrote:
         | I think that's just the nature of game dev. CRUD apps seem like
         | they're all basically the same, yet we still hand-code them
         | because there are always weird quirks and edge-cases. This is
         | 10x more true for games (at least, remotely interesting ones).
         | A game engine that supports exactly the kind of game you're
         | wanting to make, out of the box, is not really going to support
         | any other kind of game (or even very novel ones within the same
         | genre). So the "everything" engines have to stick to the very
         | most basic, least-common-denominator features, and even those
         | are sprawling and require compromise.
        
       | toddmorey wrote:
       | I read this as "Stripe Game Engine" and honestly got rage about
       | just how much product they are releasing.
        
       | KronisLV wrote:
       | Here's a video on the engine by the Gamesfromscratch YouTube
       | channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugFRSKFMgzo
       | 
       | I would actually suggest that anyone interested in game engines
       | give that channel a look, lots of good stuff over there.
       | 
       | Personally, i rather enjoy seeing new game engines pop up,
       | however i would say that Paradox/Xenko/Stride is about as obscure
       | as the NeoAxis engine (which also uses C# as their development
       | language), even if some of the features seem nice. I'm not
       | entirely sure why Paradox/Xenko/Stride was renamed that many
       | times, though, it kind of hurts its recognizability.
       | 
       | As for the people asking about what engines to use, i think the
       | other comments in this thread have some good arguments. My
       | summary for which engine to choose would be as follows:
       | - In case you want to develop an FPS game or something in a
       | similar genre AND feel comfortable with writing C++ for the
       | performance intensive parts, consider Unreal (or if you just need
       | something really pretty)       - In case you want to develop a
       | game with an engine that will have most of the functionality that
       | you'd need out of the box, a good asset store for the things that
       | aren't included and if you're comfortable with using C#, consider
       | Unity (UNLESS you need multiplayer, since currently the engine is
       | slowly migrating across technologies and AFAIK they still didn't
       | have a good networking solution)       - In case you want to
       | develop a 2D game of simple to medium complexity, or want to mess
       | around with some basic 3D stuff, consider Godot       - In case
       | you don't necessarily expect to sell your game in the future, but
       | would prefer just to learn bunches, consider writing your own
       | engine, or using SDL/SFML/LWJGL or another solution like that
       | 
       | Of course, others might disagree, but personally i've found that
       | only using the more popular engines makes sense, given the
       | abundance of tutorials, blog posts, examples, assets and even the
       | quality of the documentation, in most cases.
       | 
       | Here's another video by said YouTube channel, called "Choosing A
       | Game Engine in 2021": https://youtu.be/rK6ulQaOpso
       | 
       | In case anyone has any information on what Stride does better
       | than those other engines, or perhaps has a unique perspective on
       | why using it would be a good idea, feel free to respond!
        
         | qayxc wrote:
         | > - In case you don't necessarily expect to sell your game in
         | the future, but would prefer just to learn bunches, consider
         | writing your own engine, or using SDL/SFML/LWJGL or another
         | solution like that
         | 
         | Make that "in case you never want to actually _finish_ your
         | game :)
         | 
         | The greatest pitfall with rolling your own is that you soon be
         | stuck spending 90%+ of your time working on the engine instead
         | of the actual game.
         | 
         | There's just too many moving parts involved and even libraries
         | like SDL only get you so far. I'd VERY strongly recommend
         | against developing your own game engine IF your goal is to
         | actually make and finish a game.
         | 
         | In case it's more about the learning experience and finishing a
         | game is just nice to have, rolling your own engine is fine.
        
           | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
           | > Make that "in case you never want to actually finish your
           | game :)
           | 
           | I disagree. People overestimate how much of a time sink
           | "writing your own engine" is. Using a generalized engine
           | often suffers from the second system effect, in the end
           | reducing your flexibility while not really saving you that
           | much time.
        
             | qayxc wrote:
             | Let's not guess and simply checkout a fair comparison, like
             | this gentleman did:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tInaI3pU19Y
             | 
             | From his perspective as an experienced developer, it took
             | 3.4x more effort to implement a very basic project versus
             | using a fully featured engine. And that's ignoring the
             | editor part, not to forget.
             | 
             | I'd call a factor of 3.4 quite significant. In more general
             | terms, it's the difference between actually finishing a
             | game in a 31/2 months vs a full year. In other words, you
             | could finish 3 projects in the time it takes you to fully
             | handcraft one, with the added advantage of OOTB multi-
             | platform support. So reality seems to disagree with your
             | "not really saving you that much much time" assumption.
             | 
             | It's the small conveniences that add up quickly:
             | exporters/importers for assets, in-game editors, readily
             | available prefabs/blueprints for all kinds of components,
             | stuff like that. Of course it's not rocket surgery to use
             | SDL and a handcrafted engine for a quick little project.
             | 
             | Yet, I've witnessed far more game projects die (especially
             | by beginners) that went the handcrafted all-the-way route
             | versus people using game engines.
        
               | username90 wrote:
               | Rolling your own is mostly a fixed cost endeavour. Taking
               | 3.4x more time on a week long project isn't that bad when
               | considering that most projects takes years.
               | 
               | And then you have to consider that the guy got 10x the
               | performance on his hand rolled project, getting unity to
               | similar levels of performance would likely take way
               | longer than just using his own engine.
               | 
               | > Yet, I've witnessed far more game projects die
               | (especially by beginners) that went the handcrafted all-
               | the-way route versus people using game engines.
               | 
               | If you don't have the skills required to make your own
               | game engine then you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't learn
               | how to make a game and how to make a game engine at the
               | same time.
        
             | bitwize wrote:
             | Writing a basic engine takes no time at all.
             | 
             | Writing a complete engine that works across all major
             | consoles plus Windows and mobile, with all the features
             | designers might need including editing and scripting
             | capability, is a HUGE time sink.
             | 
             | If you intend to sell your game, stick with Unreal or Unity
             | and save yourself a lot of time and hassle.
        
             | midnightclubbed wrote:
             | I think it depends very much on how much engine you need. A
             | simple renderer (in 2d or 3d) is a fairly low time
             | investment assuming you are a strong C / C++ programmer.
             | 
             | However every thing you add on top of 'draws stuff to the
             | screen' adds at least the same amount of time again.
             | Physics, animation, editor, UI, audio, streaming,
             | packaging, asset import, networking. Plus each one of those
             | new systems may require new features from the existing ones
             | in order to work (eg animations will need asset import
             | support, shader support, and renderer support).
        
           | KronisLV wrote:
           | Yep, overall i agree with you. Of course, there are a few
           | people who actually write their own engines AND finish their
           | games, but they're probably in the minority.
           | 
           | I guess what i tried to say is that if your goal is to make
           | money, then there are lots of ways to save on time and
           | effort, in the case of gamedev that being using existing
           | technologies and solutions, possibly even assets (as long as
           | you don't mix art styles that don't match).
           | 
           | It's much the same as wanting to produce a corporate CRUD web
           | app vs writing a personal blogging engine for a passion
           | project or simply for own amusement. Both can result in
           | finished products, yet the motivations for each would be
           | drastically different.
        
           | TillE wrote:
           | There's a big difference between "writing your own engine" (a
           | bottomless pit of features your game probably doesn't need)
           | vs writing a 2D game with a framework like SFML.
           | 
           | Engines like Unity can be nice, but they can also be clunky
           | and opaque and get in your way, especially if you're doing
           | something outside the norm. It can be simpler to just write
           | the code you need, as you need it. That said, of course you
           | should use an off-the-shelf engine for a 3D game if you ever
           | hope to finish it.
        
         | whateveracct wrote:
         | > Of course, others might disagree, but personally i've found
         | that only using the more popular engines makes sense, given the
         | abundance of tutorials, blog posts, examples, assets and even
         | the quality of the documentation, in most cases.
         | 
         | But then I have to use their languages and abstractions instead
         | my preference, Haskell. Can't throw the baby out with the
         | bathwater!
         | 
         | Well, I guess Haskell makes rolling your own engine just
         | library composition and standard abstraction, so the decision
         | making in that world is definitely not the same as mainstream
         | gamedev.
        
         | xNeil wrote:
         | That is a wonderful channel, I can attest to that. Superb
         | content, and he's focused on one thing - testing, reviewing and
         | recommending game development tools.
        
       | bitcoin01 wrote:
       | How does it compare to Unity?
        
         | ggambetta wrote:
         | Or Unreal. I think in this day and age any new game engine
         | should start with "why use this and not Unreal or Unity".
        
           | adamdusty wrote:
           | I can't stand this mentality, but here is a list of reasons:
           | 
           | * ECS is built in, not tacked on (unity DOTS)
           | 
           | * Also supports unity/ue actor model style
           | 
           | * Gives you complete control over rendering, access to
           | opengl/vulkan/d3d12 context
           | 
           | * Built in scene streaming (stream objects in and out as
           | needed, similar to UE5 terrain chunking
           | 
           | * Fully built in C#, runs on .NET 5 (xplat), and uses the
           | latest version of C#. I don't know which version unity is
           | stuck on
           | 
           | * The "engine" is just a tool, you can use stride as a
           | framework and make a code-only project (my personal reason
           | for using it when I do)
           | 
           | * MIT license
           | 
           | * Aysnc scripting capabilities
           | 
           | * Technically supports dev on linux (code-only)
           | 
           | * FOSS
           | 
           | * On top of all that it was developed by Silicon Studios, a
           | company that actually makes money off of real-time rendering
        
           | jokoon wrote:
           | Or godot
        
           | nrjames wrote:
           | Unity and Unreal are giant resource-hungry game engines.
           | There are plenty of people making games who only need a
           | fraction of what those two provide. Engines like Stride and
           | Godot -- or any number of other smaller engines -- can be
           | easier to work with if you're resource constrained or looking
           | for something more simple.
        
             | debacle wrote:
             | Your #1 resource is time. Why would you devote thousands or
             | tens of thousands of hours to a game and not use the most
             | powerful tools?
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | It depends on the game. Unreal for example is optimized
               | for large teams, and collaboration between different
               | kinds of professionals (programmers, artists, level
               | designers etc.). If you're doing a one-person project
               | relying on procedural generation and pixel graphics, you
               | might be more productive with a much simpler game engine
               | with a much shorter code-build-run loop
        
               | debacle wrote:
               | Like Unity?
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Unity is on the same league as Unreal, with the
               | difference to target developers that rather use C#
               | instead of C++, other than that the complexity is the
               | same.
        
               | andybak wrote:
               | That's just not true. Unity works very well for solo devs
               | and the build/run cycle is very fast.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Exactly because of that unless there is a whole team of
               | designers, level builders and artists alongside the core
               | devs, there is more ways to spend time than getting a PhD
               | level knowledge on AAA engines capable of producing
               | Hollywood class 3D movies.
        
               | debacle wrote:
               | I have tried out Godot and many, many other game engines
               | in the past. They aren't there yet. Even as a hobbyist, I
               | find Unity much more easy to use, and even still I'm
               | tempted to learn Unreal simply because it seems more
               | powerful and well architected under the hood.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | They are where Unity 3.0 used to be around 10 years ago.
               | 
               | However Unity now is capable of supporting such kind of
               | productions, with the respective increase in learning
               | complexity and development teams scalability,
               | 
               | "Oddworld: Soulstorm at Unity GDC 2019"
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8uAUPGZb3I
               | 
               | "The Heretic short film"
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQZobAhgayA
               | 
               | Using such engine for a basic 2D tiles game or shooter is
               | already over budgeting.
        
               | cridenour wrote:
               | Because 99% of people using these engines are hobbyists
               | and want to use something that works for them.
               | 
               | I personally prefer Godot, its node structure makes sense
               | with my mental model of the games I tinker with. And it
               | has enough there that if I did decide to ever finish a
               | game, I could. That's all I need.
        
               | nrjames wrote:
               | Why wouldn't you buy a Bugatti to take you to the grocery
               | store? The "most powerful tools" aren't always the
               | easiest or fastest to use.
        
               | debacle wrote:
               | If the Bugatti is free, why not use it? Unity is very
               | easy to use, and it gets easier over time. They keep
               | making paid features free, and once ECS is mature (in the
               | UI, I know it's production ready), I think it's going to
               | have a huge positive impact.
        
               | lobo_tuerto wrote:
               | OK, what about a helicopter? I think that better conveys
               | parent's point...
        
           | pizza234 wrote:
           | Money, obviously. This engine has a permissive license, MIT.
           | 
           | The question is rather what one can conveniently do with it,
           | in the context of the given game, when compared to a big-name
           | engine.
           | 
           | Possibly, for non-demanding games, smaller engines are a good
           | tradeoff between performance/features and cost. Godot, for
           | example, is free, but AFAIK it doesn't have a very efficient
           | culling (yet)1, so for smaller games, it may still be worth
           | the savings.
           | 
           | 1=https://www.gdquest.com/tutorial/godot/3d/optimization-3d
        
             | spywaregorilla wrote:
             | Unreal is free for the first million in revenue
        
           | linspace wrote:
           | Why use Linux or not Solaris? Wait... Solaris is not really
           | that relevant anymore.
           | 
           | I actually get your point but I don't think you should frame
           | the differences as a sales pitch. Most probably people
           | interested are engineers looking for some innovation. So the
           | question is not "why use this" but instead "why is this
           | interesting"
        
             | Yaina wrote:
             | When Discord was relatively new they had a comparison table
             | with Skype, TeamSpeak and other platforms. As a long-time
             | TeamSpeak user, I found that very helpful at the time,
             | because it helped me understand what Discord wants to be.
             | 
             | With Stride it is kind of similar. I don't expect an open-
             | source engine to have the same set of features as Unreal,
             | but they should tell me what they think they are good at!
             | Especially in comparison to Godot, which is a direct
             | competitor in the open-source landscape.
             | 
             | The page talks a big game, and makes big claims. So
             | honestly I'm a bit sceptical :/
        
         | TranquilMarmot wrote:
         | Would also be curious in a comparison with Godot, which is
         | another FOSS game engine.
        
       | eliseumds wrote:
       | Stripe has been releasing so many new products lately that I read
       | this as "Stripe Game Engine". Damn Fridays.
        
         | Topgamer7 wrote:
         | You are not alone. Definitely did a double take on this one.
        
         | arduinomancer wrote:
         | With this release you can now charge people's credit cards for
         | micro-transactions directly from the GPU!
        
         | fastball wrote:
         | Don't give them any ideas...
        
       | brylie wrote:
       | If you want to make 2D or 3D games with cross-platform support,
       | the open-source Godot Engine is a really great choice:
       | 
       | https://godotengine.org/
        
         | Q6T46nT668w6i3m wrote:
         | I love Godot but it's a stretch to describe it as multi-
         | platform when it doesn't support any of the consoles.
         | Especially when compared to Unity or Unreal.
        
           | brylie wrote:
           | To be clear, games made with Godot can be exported for
           | Windows (and UWP), macOS, X11 (Linux, *BSD), Android, iOS,
           | and Web
           | 
           | https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/about/faq.html
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | Games made with Stride: presumably zero, or they would be showing
       | them off on the front page of the site.
       | 
       | What makes Stride unique besides "it's MIT licensed!"? The site
       | sure doesn't tell me.
        
         | Applejinx wrote:
         | The Godot engine is MIT licensed. So...
        
       | fotad wrote:
       | It was called Xenko.
        
         | krak12 wrote:
         | And it was a complete failure
        
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