Comment by whateveracct | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whateveracct | Hacker News Reader

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I think it's wrong to be dismissive. Or rather, it seems to be the product of an efficiency mindset.

If your goal is to release as fast as possible or create as many games (for some definition of game) in your lifetime, then I guess there's a case against building your own engine or - as I would call it - using libraries.

But big engines definitely have distinct "feels" and can't quite hit certain gamefeels.

There's also the long view: What if I spend 5 years making an engine, learning gamedev and computer graphics, and come out highly expert with an engine built to my tastes? At that 5 year mark, suddenly my engine is better for me than the generic ones.

You may say - there's no guarantee! True. But what if I know I'm technically excellent and that I'd be wasted that advantage of mine by _not_ going that route?

What if I really only want to make a handful of games in my lifetime. Maybe I'll release smaller ones along the way as learning exercises, but I'm fine with spending 5-20 years in the dirt growing and come out the other side with something truly special?

Tools affect your art. Especially programming & gamedev which is so psychic. I may not want my mind tainted by engines with product-mindset values I don't agree with.

The reasons go on.

Eh, of you spend five years not telling stories, you will be woefully out of practice as a writer, with an underdeveloped craft. You are how you spend your time - spending five years on an engine means that there are a lot of things that you're not.

There's a list are great reasons to make a new engine, but making a great game is not on it.

You can do other things concurrently, you know. I find it not hard to both draw and write and make music along with the programming. Most knowledge and skills development in those areas happens subconsciously in my experience.

Viewing things like this as zero sum is a bad mindset imo and not one I want affecting my art.

I would think you would be making games with and without your engine as its being developed.

It kinda sounds like martyrdom, or a monk or philosopher, pursuing enlightenment or, in this case, knowledge and expertise.

But like with any software development, technological self-gratification doesn't make a product. Every programmer loves writing code, but you need to be aware whether you're writing code for writing's sake or if it has an objective.

If you want to develop games, develop games; focus on results first, only when you've proven to yourself that it's games you want to develop instead of the technology behind them can you start to think about what the existing engines are lacking that your custom engine would do better.

It has the same energy as PHP developers from a decade ago that for some reason all insisted on writing their own frameworks, CMSes, etc.

Right exactly I'm not trying to be an efficient gamedev pumping out money making products.

I have my boring software career to make me money. I am seeking higher satisfaction at this point in my life.

You make your own tech in part because current tech doesn't satisfy your needs. One huge weakness of the popular 3rd party engines is iteration times. The author alluded to such. When you get to a point where a few lines of code takes 5 minutes to compile so you can test a small tweak, you quickly lose your motivation.

So I get it. These engines are made to help medium-large scale studios create high profile games, collaborated on by dozens, hundreds over a few years. An single dev doesn't need all that tech but it's tech that bloats down their iteration cycles. Especially if your goals are a small 2D game.

Thank you. For me, I like making engines. It’s my time off, I can do what I want. I know someone else will make something leagues better with premade engines. But it’s not a race. And I make many of my own art assets too. They’re terrible. I make these things for myself and to share with a few people dear to me. Maybe they makes me no more grown up than a kid hoping their drawing gets on the family fridge, but I want to create these things, not just produce.

Undertale was made in gamemaker. Superhot games were made in unity. Rocket league was made in unreal engine.

Undertale is a good example. Toby Fox has taken YEARS and said he has struggled implementing the follow-ups.

And regardless, a few counterexamples aren't gonna get me to use trash.

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