Game Engines Varies Elements
What's a Game Engines?
The core functionality of a game engine can do the rendering, collision detection, 2D/3D graphics, physics (mini)engine, sounding affect, AI (artificial intelligence), networking, threading, memory management, localisation support, scene graph, and some have video support cinematic. The process of game development is often economised in parts by reusing/adapting the same game engine to create different kinds of games, or to make it easier to port the same game into multitude of different platforms (XB1/PS4/PC).
What are there different uses of Game Engines?
As Gaming industry itself has matured overtime, so has the game engines as well. As recent trends in the last couple of years, game engines have adapted to be used for much more serious thing then playing a games itself. For example; it can be used for medical training for inexperienced doctors, military training for new recruits, helping people in recovering, and being used for educational purposes.
Are Game Engines becoming easier to use?
Game engines do take time to learn, they work differently from each but they do have quite similar factors. Game engines have also been changed to become easier to access and learn. It used to take time to understand how to work but as there are several different types of game engines, they are competing with each other. As a result more, if not all are trying to inviolate and simplify aspects of their engines to make easier to use and more rewarding in use or end product.
What are closed/open Game Engines?
Close engines are privately owned by a game's company. For example Rockstar game engine where only the game devs are only allowed to use it. As benefit of having a private engine is that it can be easily modified without waiting for permission of the owners. As well having a support next to the game devs, if they want anything to altered or added to engines itself, making it much more quicker and flexible for devs and game will be completed quicker.
Open engines tend to be better for developers who don't own a personal closed game engine or who have a tight budget. As result, there are open game engines that are well made and easy to use. As result it can be ideal for independent developers, but as result being open engine it will take some income as part of the contract allowing to use their open engines.
What the difference between the engines?
I will be only be comparing the most popular free game engines currently (2016) that are out at the moment. The six game engines are Unity 3D, Unreal Engine 4, Game Maker, Construct 2, Flash Pro and Game Salad.
Unity 3D:
Overview:
Unity 3D has a 2D and 3D support. It also free so they won't be any cost but if the Developer is going to sell the game that using Unity 3D as it engine, Unity 3D has right to take some portion of the profit. Except allowing free publishing on mobile phones, as Unity is more concentrated on Mobile handhelds. There is also a paid version that allows greater customisation and control of the product good for developers who want more control of what they creating and designing. Unity 3D is able to be support Xbox, PlayStation, PC, Mac, Android, Nintendo, IOS, Linux and VR (Virtual Reality) export Unity 3D is available on Windows and Mac to be used on.
The only disadvantage is that it cannot do HTML5 export and it can be quite expensive if you want all the features. As well that if you want to use Unity 3D you will need to agree on the polices and terms of agreement. For example, if you make a large profit from your game they have right to take set percentage from your profit as well needing to get the full version of Unity 3D as the agreement. The major one is that Unity 3D is only able to perform at 32 bit, as most games perform at 64 bit instead. Unity 3D is closed source in which you can't modify the code of the engine to liking you want for it.
Unity has different variation of offers depending on which version of unity is bought and downloaded. The first version is free for download. It provides full engine features, can be played on all platforms, continuous updates to the engine, MWU splash screen, maximum of 100k fundraising revenue, unity analytical (someone who will help and check), access to Unity cloud builder, allowing to have 20 concurrent players on multiplayer, AD for your game and allowing to give beta access.
The second offer is the Unity Plus which allows the Developer to edit skins and add skins to models, items and environment, performance reporting will tell how well the game is running, Unity certified moderator will offer help for a 1 month trial and given 20% discount on community store asset costing total of £35 per a month.
The third offer is the Unity Pro which gives a 3 month moderator as a tutor, giving a 40% discount for community store assets, having the source code access and premium support giving support from the technician and marketing team. Allowing to add own animation to game engine, giving unlimited amount of access to multiplayer. Finally, given prioritised loading for cloud builder; costing a total of £125 per a month.
The final offer is the Unity Enterprise. The Enterprise offer is giving access to custom multiplayer, a dedicated builder agent, a custom analytic. There is not set price as this offer allows the Developer(s) to add and alter the Game Engine itself, making it ideal for triple A game companies.
Unreal Engine 4:
Overview:
Unreal Engine 4 is best looking game engine, well optimised and designed for linear game design. It supports main Console and Console (PS4/XB1). At the moment its free to be used, giving full usage as well having a community created content like assets and video guides. It has a basic interaction using drag and drop mechanic making it easy and simple to use. Unreal 4 has simplified coding, making it more efficient for the designers not to depend on the programmers to programme to much. Its consider to be one of the most visually impressive game Engines that have been made by Epic Games. Its an free to be used by anyone but its not considered to be closed sources. To top it off the Unreal Engine 4 is free to downloading.
Flowgraph is not as easy to use as the Unreal Engine 4. Making it so the developers who can't programme going to depend a bit more on the Programmers who do know how to. It does not export by FBX and it cannot be used for 2D graphic games. CryEngine has a £9.90 a month fee. It does not have a free version like Unreal Engine 4 but it also doesn't have Royalty fee, so depending the Studio size this can be quite beneficial to the publishers and developers.
Game Maker:
Overview:
The main advantage of using Game Maker that its useful for indie devs who don't have the money or/and don't have the experience. This great way of learning how to programme and prototyping game ideas comparable to writing on notepad. Game Maker is able to be exported on Widows and Mac.
It cannot support 3D graphics, obviously only focusing on 2D graphics. It does a have free version but it has different tiers giving more tools higher up the subscription tier(s). It can be exported on to Mac, Linux, PlayStation and IOS but again depending the tiers.
Cocos2D:
Overview:
Cocos2D is game engine that primarily focuses on 2D graphics on Phones,Consoles, PC and browser games. It requires understand and programming skills of C++. It can also be programmed in Lua and Javascript. Its free open source, so any can just download and start creating what they want. There are lots of community created content ready to be used for free.
As company that allows people to use their game engine. If the game that they are allowing anyone to use it but it will have royalty fee from the game's profit. It obviously doesn't support any 3D features like models, animations and etc. As it just primarily focused on 2D artistic style of gaming.
Unity 3D:
Overview:
Unity 3D has a 2D and 3D support. It also free so they won't be any cost but if the Developer is going to sell the game that using Unity 3D as it engine, Unity 3D has right to take some portion of the profit. Except allowing free publishing on mobile phones, as Unity is more concentrated on Mobile handhelds. There is also a paid version that allows greater customisation and control of the product good for developers who want more control of what they creating and designing. Unity 3D is able to be support Xbox, PlayStation, PC, Mac, Android, Nintendo, IOS, Linux and VR (Virtual Reality) export Unity 3D is available on Windows and Mac to be used on.
The only disadvantage is that it cannot do HTML5 export and it can be quite expensive if you want all the features. As well that if you want to use Unity 3D you will need to agree on the polices and terms of agreement. For example, if you make a large profit from your game they have right to take set percentage from your profit as well needing to get the full version of Unity 3D as the agreement. The major one is that Unity 3D is only able to perform at 32 bit, as most games perform at 64 bit instead. Unity 3D is closed source in which you can't modify the code of the engine to liking you want for it.
Unity has different variation of offers depending on which version of unity is bought and downloaded. The first version is free for download. It provides full engine features, can be played on all platforms, continuous updates to the engine, MWU splash screen, maximum of 100k fundraising revenue, unity analytical (someone who will help and check), access to Unity cloud builder, allowing to have 20 concurrent players on multiplayer, AD for your game and allowing to give beta access.
The second offer is the Unity Plus which allows the Developer to edit skins and add skins to models, items and environment, performance reporting will tell how well the game is running, Unity certified moderator will offer help for a 1 month trial and given 20% discount on community store asset costing total of £35 per a month.
The third offer is the Unity Pro which gives a 3 month moderator as a tutor, giving a 40% discount for community store assets, having the source code access and premium support giving support from the technician and marketing team. Allowing to add own animation to game engine, giving unlimited amount of access to multiplayer. Finally, given prioritised loading for cloud builder; costing a total of £125 per a month.
The final offer is the Unity Enterprise. The Enterprise offer is giving access to custom multiplayer, a dedicated builder agent, a custom analytic. There is not set price as this offer allows the Developer(s) to add and alter the Game Engine itself, making it ideal for triple A game companies.
Unreal Engine 4:
Overview:
Unreal Engine 4 is best looking game engine, well optimised and designed for linear game design. It supports main Console and Console (PS4/XB1). At the moment its free to be used, giving full usage as well having a community created content like assets and video guides. It has a basic interaction using drag and drop mechanic making it easy and simple to use. Unreal 4 has simplified coding, making it more efficient for the designers not to depend on the programmers to programme to much. Its consider to be one of the most visually impressive game Engines that have been made by Epic Games. Its an free to be used by anyone but its not considered to be closed sources. To top it off the Unreal Engine 4 is free to downloading.
There is a royalty fee of 5%, if the game makes minimum profit of £3,000. The Unreal Engine 4 can only support 3D graphics but cannot support 2D graphics, making it not ideal for those developers who want to use Unreal Engine 4 for a 2D sidescroller for example. Unreal Engine 4 is able to support next-gen consoles, PCs and Mac but not Nintendo platforms. The last down side is that source code is locked and cannot be given access.
CryEngine 5:
Overview:
CryEngine is extremely powerful engine designed by the development company of Crytek that was introduced in the first Far Cry game. It is designed to be use on PC platforms and next-gen consoles. The graphical capabilities of CryEngine surpass those of Unity and UDK are on par with Unreal Engine 4, with state of the art lighting, C++ Programming, reality physics and advanced animation systems.
Game Maker:
Overview:
The main advantage of using Game Maker that its useful for indie devs who don't have the money or/and don't have the experience. This great way of learning how to programme and prototyping game ideas comparable to writing on notepad. Game Maker is able to be exported on Widows and Mac.
It cannot support 3D graphics, obviously only focusing on 2D graphics. It does a have free version but it has different tiers giving more tools higher up the subscription tier(s). It can be exported on to Mac, Linux, PlayStation and IOS but again depending the tiers.
There a several different purchases that are available for GameMaker Studios. The first one is the free version that allows the developer to have a fully featured engine, Royalt-free subscription, marketing and buying, as well a player export. The Studio professional cost £149.99 to get. It will have addition features like a customisation of splash screen, early access to other GameMaker games, marketing and selling and mobile testing. The final version is Studio Master Collection which allows the Developer to export modules costing £799.99.
Cocos2D:
Overview:
Cocos2D is game engine that primarily focuses on 2D graphics on Phones,Consoles, PC and browser games. It requires understand and programming skills of C++. It can also be programmed in Lua and Javascript. Its free open source, so any can just download and start creating what they want. There are lots of community created content ready to be used for free.
As company that allows people to use their game engine. If the game that they are allowing anyone to use it but it will have royalty fee from the game's profit. It obviously doesn't support any 3D features like models, animations and etc. As it just primarily focused on 2D artistic style of gaming.
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