Why I don't use Unity, Godot or Unreal Engine - Which Game Engine I use? 

Exactly!

Wait, what?

@@CoolModderJaydonX most Mac devs like to be lazy with UI of their apps and will straight up use tools to port the Mac UI on another platform. This happens when porting mac apps to windows though.

Yup remember when Unity was small. Must be in 2008 or so. I just mailed David Helgasson and then one hour later I was on a Skype (yes we used that back then) call with him pushing to port Unity to windows and also and animation features (it has not curve editing etc at all back then) - feels like a complete different universe

Indeed, I should have mentioned it. I agree with you. I think it's a fair price and I pay for it myself. 1 - I don't have much time, and it allows me to save time. 2 - even for solodev / hobbyist, most hobbies are more expensive than that.

@@Zizaco of course, if it saves you time and you actually make money with your games, thats worth it for sure! me, who just likes to tinker around with some game programming, that is a little blocker for me :/

24 dollars a month for a hobby still seems accessible to me especially if you are already familiar with web dev. If you have zero programming experience or experience in a language supported by the free option then the free option would probably be a better choice.

I completely agree. This is a huge turn-off, especially when there are such good viable free alternatives out there.

Damn, good thing I checked comments before searching for the engine. I almost wasted my time. But in all honesty my time is actually worthless...

Except Unity betrayed everyone. Back in September, Unity announced that in January 2024, they're going to start charging everyone 20 cents per install. They modified the terms later that month to make it look like they rescinded that change, but it still applies to future versions of Unity. I don't trust these guys. #StallmanWasRight

Currently have to wait until unity has fixed their pricing problem

I'm just after learning so much from brackeys tutorials, I need to look for new one. To this day, I haven't found such a well detailed and perfectly explained course is that.

i'll never touch unity after that fiasco

I loved the old days of Unity, late 2000's, and it laid a great foundation for me to learn game dev. Then the prices shot up and the whole Unity atmosphere changed. I fled for the hills, exploring other engines and learning that hey, the whole world isn't Unity after all...😂

You still can play them with Flashpoint tho

the new Swords and Sandals (best Flash game ever) was made in Godot..

they are back!

Indeed! Let's look at the bright side :)

Awesome, thank you!

Thanks! :)

I need to check Gdevelop more in depth tbh. The main thing missing for me are flagship games and games that were ported to other platforms (like Mighty Goose with Construct). Still, I have to give it another try.

I agree with you. Currently, I'm all about productivity, that's why I went with a Game Engine once again. My point is that people who require high-fidelity graphics have a more limited choice of engines (Unreal, Flax, Unity and not much else). In my case, I'm free to also pick from Godot, Construct, Defold, Solar2d, GameMaker, Gdevelop, etc. As a bonus, these engines tend to be less bloated.

I know right? Since Scirra added better scripting support (with modules) and now TypeScript, I don't feel it gets in the way of making any kind of game (2d or basic 3d). It's easy to get caught up with all the optimization and theoretical technical scenarios (and I'm guilty of that!). With Construct I can focus in shipping games and only code what matters, not what is expedient

I gave it a try, and I think it is very helpful! It's an generic level editor that can work well for most games. At the time Phaser Editor had less features and it was not a good fit for the game I was making (hex grid tiles) so I decided to make my own editor. TBH, I should have mentioned Phaser Editor on the video. Yet don't forget that this editor is "mostly" a level editor, one still have to put a lot of work to make a game (or prototype) out of it.

It can export to Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS out of the box. You need a third-party porting company to bring it to consoles. Here are some examples of games that were brought to consoles: www.madewithconstruct.com/

I pay for it. Indeed, Construct is not the cheapest option, but for me, it's worth the price.

+1 Programming for 17 years myself. Found Unity and Godot to be unproductive for me. Great thing about Godot is that it's GDScript reminded me I should give Pygame another look. Wow, it all felt right this time around especially when using an editor like LunarVim! Pygame unfairly gets a bad reputation! Python 3.11 plus pygame.sdl2_video is a bit of a game changer.

Thanks Rikus!

Tbh, it's just a random video from the interwebs :P

At the time Phaser Editor had less features and it was not a good fit for the game I was making (hex grid tiles) so I had to make my own editor from scratch. TBH, I should have mentioned Phaser Editor on the video. Yet don't forget that this editor is "mostly" a level editor, one still have to put a lot of work to make a game (or prototype) out of it.

Thank you!

The ones I showed in the video were the ones that interested me the most. @FoozleCC posted a video on algorithms for Enemy Separation while Pathfinding where he shows some libraries that he's using.

Indeed. I pay

the struggle is real!

11:13 seems interesting to me too!

Thanks! Both are example projects that come with Construct. You can play it in your browser by going to editor.construct.net and browsing the examples. You can also see the source code and modify it there in the editor.

Hey, It is possible. If you look at the examples here: www.construct.net/a/20712?t=construct3 you'll find many examples. Check the following examples: "Living Card", "Alchemist", "Farming Lines", "Interior Designer", "Card Memory Match", "Connect Four", "Slide Puzzle 3d". (These are pixel art, but you could make it in different styles). Here's a few more examples build with Construct (with better/3d graphics): codecanyon.net/user/zupga (check the live preview)

Thanks a lot!!@@Zizaco

Yes

It does. I find it worth it.

I'm glad the video was helpful in some way, shape, or form. Take care buddy :)

TBH, I haven't given PixiJS much thought. Since Phaser brings more things out of the box that go beyond rendering (scene, inputs, splines, tweens, hex tile map, etc), I think I would recommend it over PixiJS.

YW! By "editor" I mean a visual level editor. A tool where I can place the planets, ships, obstacles, enemies, etc. So that I can build levels visually. Game engines often come with such editors, while game frameworks don't. Search for "level editor" on google images to get an idea.

@@Zizacothanks for the answer! Man, then, you created a GUI editor for Solus Sector to work with phaser while creating the game? Impressive

It was a very icky and buggy editor... It was not impressive at all 😅

JavaScript is indeed a tough sell, but have you tried TypeScript? :) WebAssembly ecosystem is in its early stages, but I agree with you that it holds great potential for multi-platform solutions in the future. I'm a big fan of Rust and Bevy. I can't wait to see what's to come!

I'm also trying out Bevy and it is quite nice although I feel like making a game in Rust requires that you rewire your brain on how to make applications. The component based approach is super cool, but as an analogy it sorta feels like working "on site" with a portable set of tools and components that you take with you and unpack, as opposed to working "from home" with a library of books and a workstation on hand. I'm like you though, JS (or TypeScript despite it being better) I really do not like using at all, and that's despite loving the strengths and simplicity HTML5 can afford me, but the headaches in having dealt with confusing errors, obfuscated object and return types (especially from libraries), breaking changes and having to deal with versioning with package managers all together on top of focusing on developing a game is too much for me.

I have to give it a try!

It was great! With a few lines of code you could get a lot going on! And later they released the "professional" version: DarkBasic Pro 😅 And have you tried Blitz3d at the time?

@@Zizaco I had heard of blitz 3d but I was like 10 at the time so I never learned it or anything. But blitz was big back then and then if you wanted to go c++ you also had ogre3d as well. Early 2000s good time for indie game development lol

1. Because it's fun 2. It's better to use the tool you know than a new tool you don't know how to use. Is there a phrase that's similar to that?

Why do you need to explain? I made a to do list for grocery app for my mother and families using godot. As long it works, it doesnt matter. I can use node js to do that, but I like using godot because it was easier to do the UI.

It's okay to use tools that you are familiar with since it helps speed up your development process, and if the application can achieve the same goals and give the users a good experience, users usually don't think too much about the engine/tool it has been built with.

Indeed! I've seen a few apps that were made with Godot for example. It can definitely work! If you are picky with performance, then apps made with game engines tend to use more CPU & GPU because they clean/draw everything on every frame, contrary to most desktop apps that only draw when there is a visual change (example: notepad don't need constant 60fps) [over simplified explanation].

@@Zizaco thanks for the information, that makes sense

YW! Maybe you are talking about Clickteam Fusion, formerly known as Multimedia Fusion. The ability to combine (no-code and code) with a clean API is what makes Construct interesting IMO.

Yep, sounds like Klick&Play to me.

@@Zizaco Well, I'm sure it's not that one, but yeh, combining a graphic interface with the posibility to add code was what it also did. But I guess it's not important anymore, I don't even have the games I started to make, they are forgotten in some old hard drive from a PC I used to own. Guess I could start over with this one now that I also program lol

@@BastetFurry And nope, I'm sure that's not the one either!

I think JavaScript in GameMaker is an amazing idea! Not only that, I think the landscape of gamedev would be very different if we had JS and/or C# in GameMaker a few years back. GameMaker would be a no-brainer even for big commercial 2D games if it had a better programming language.

Construct 2 is still a thing. It can be used offline while Construct 3 can not. Construct 3 is much more modern and have more features but it's subscription based. If you just want "buy once" - Construct 2 could still be your choice. Of course it will not support any new features but it was updated just a year or two ago, so it's not THAT obscure.

For 114 euros a year im staying with Godot.

@@thechosenone729 Totally fair. I didn’t realize it was a subscription license when I wrote that. I’m using unreal and enjoying it. I’ll stick with it. Lol

@@igorthelight Construct 2 is no longer an option if you not already own a copy. You can no longer buy it. I would also not recommend an engine that no longer gets any updates.

@@TackerTacker I didn't know that it's not selling anymore. So fair point!

Yes I'm still new to the whole RU-vid thing. 😅 Thank you for subscribing! :)

​@@ZizacoI'm gonna subscribe too, nice vid!

Thanks! Godot is a solid choice. If most of the gameplay is 2d based (with 3d graphics) Construct 3 with the 3do plugin may also be an interesting option. See this example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TCWX4ndEjXM.htmlsi=BejdSKtcHDToq7vI&t=181

@@Zizaco came back to say i landed on bevy. it's great, i highly reccomend it!

I need to check Gdevelop more in depth tbh. The main thing missing for me are games that were ported to other platforms (like Mighty Goose with Construct). Still, I have to give it another try.

@@Zizaco you should, from what i read there are few game ported on Nintendo switch from Gdevelop. And open source foundation gives us plenty of possibilities ;)

I'm glad to hear that! Can you please share which games have been ported? I'm interested in learning more about it. This makes GDevelop an even more interesting option.

Sure I will try find that info, btw did you try phaser 2d editor? For fan of that library like you it should by very helpful;) ?

Yes. I gave it a try, and I think it is very helpful! It's an generic level editor that can work well for most games. At the time Phaser Editor had less features and it was not a good fit for the game I was making (hex grid tiles) so I decided to make my own editor. I think I should have mentioned Phaser Editor, Ogmo-editor and Tiled on the video. Yet we shouldn't forget that these are "mostly" level editors, one still have to put a lot of work to make a game out of it.

soon : )

@@Zizaco let me know why you choose a construct than Gdevelop;)

I just answered your other comment. It's mainly because Construct 3 has more examples of real games that were ported to consoles (just in case I want to do that in the future).

You caught my mistake! 😅 BTW mindustry is also made using a game framework: libGDX

A small story about Factorio: it was created in Allegro. After a few months of tweaking it, developers decided to switch from it (to SDL) because it's very outdated and cumbersome (there is an article where they explain that in details). They were REALLY trying not to call Allegro "shit" xD

Great suggestion!

Hey @alexsilva42361. Scirra just dropped a video about a workflow to work with TypeScript on Construct 3. Check it out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LuV5XBfu2t0.html

Thanks for the sub!

Well said! Thanks! : )

I agree, gdscript would be almost zero context switching for someone who works with python. Good for you : ) Dependency management got a lot better in the last few years (package-lock.json, semantic versioning, and more). It's true that it is not ideal to bloat a project with all sorts of dependencies, but sometimes it can be quite helpful (even if it's to fork things to make it your own). So far I've used packages for MessagePack, Voronoi, Curve Interpolator and Wave Function Collapse.

Glad it was helpful! C# is awesome. If you have the time and don't mind the context switch, go for it!

Not yet, but I should definitely give it a try, especially since there's a way to use TypeScript with it. : ) ts-defold.dev/

Why not GDevelop?

@@nowonmetubenever heard of it ill have to check into ut

@@DoomCatcher yes please do 🙏

@@nowonmetube Wheres the best place/video to get a good break down of what its strengths are and why to use it over other engines. I've recently been looking into construct, defold and game maker. So far Im liking the look of game maker but I have very little experience with any of them and have just mostly been going of forum posts I've created and Im open to be being told why develop maybe better.

Construct 2 is really fun, GDevelop is free and is very similar, has evolved quite in these years, not perfect but the change is smooth and for funny little quickly projects its useful, you should try it ;)

It's a sample game that you can find in construct's website (with source code): If you want to see how it was made (and see it in the editor, online) go to: www.construct.net/a/20712?t=construct3 ,click "browse examples", and search for "zombies". That's an example of how quickly you can put together this sort of game in construct.

Porting a Construct 3 game to consoles is similar to getting a Godot game to consoles. You need a third-party porting company. There are many C3 games in consoles. Check this websites: www.madewithconstruct.com/ Here's an example of a porting company: www.ratalaikagames.com/games.php AJ Ordaz talking about his C3 game on switch: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-E9Yx43pg6jc.html About pricing, it's all relative. For me having the ability to use TS, npm, and making games much faster are worth it. All my other hobbies are more expensive than C3's license. =P

Hey Joseph. I'm curious to know why are you having some regrets? @__sleepingpanda wrote an interesting article about releasing C3 games on steam. Maybe it can help: twitter.com/__sleepingpanda/status/1721948609678082543

@@Zizaco The biggest regret is lack of Steam Workshop integration. I got achievements working great in C3, but I can't find a way to set up Steam Workshop so users can share levels made with the level editor. Also, Greengrinds and Greenworks both lack the option to allow the overlay to open directly to the game's main storefront, so I have no way to, for example, make a button in the demo that opens the overlay straight to the main game so they can wishlist or purchase the full game.

Oh the Workshop I got it! Indeed, there is no built-in support. I don't know how tricky it is to integrate with the Steam Workshop with other engines, but UGC is often not a simple thing to do. Even thought there is no "built-in" support, as a web developer, It seems totally possible to achieve via Steam's Web API partner.steamgames.com/doc/webapi to search, subscribe and fetch UGC. You might need a server or some lambdas to get that to work though (to secure your API Key). I haven't tried to use the Steam Overlay yet, but I remember playing steam games made in C3 that had the overlay working. Maybe this video can help: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-D1ZF6pnsFeA.htmlsi=Qd7TXjYr-QRf8UFo Please let me know if you get it to work!

Hey@@DocHollidayGames I'm preparing my game for the Steam release and I just found a way to use the Steam Workshop: You can create a code/javascript block within your event sheet, require greenworks and use the API const greenworks = require('./greenworks'); greenworks.ugcGetItems(...); github.com/greenheartgames/greenworks/blob/master/docs/quick-start-nwjs.md github.com/greenheartgames/greenworks/blob/master/docs/workshop.md

@@Zizaco Thanks! I’ll give it a shot

I like Rust and Bevy. But my priority is not to make games as optimized as possible, so I prefer to pick something that prioritizes productivity. Have you looked into Haxe? It's a very "portable" programming language that can compile to any platform. Maybe that's what you are looking for :)

my bad

Yes. 5:41 - 5:57 is BabylonJS. It's written in javascript / typescript.

Could you explain please? And tell me what Godot has that GDevelop doesn't have for instance?

@@nowonmetube I've just started with Godot, but I had a sprite following a path and rotating to face ahead as it went. And there's conveniences to help move diagonally such that a character doesn't go faster diagonally than vertically or horizontally etc. Maybe these are in GDevelop? My previous experiments have been in GOSU and SDL and way back, my own low level VGA libraries.

I downloaded Godot, created empty project, compiled release build, started: 50% CPU load. That's a big HMMMMMM

@@JohnCena-te9mi hmmmmmmmm!

Indeed, it's not the cheapest engine out there. 🫤 I find it helps to analyze its time saving benefits in billable hours. I (personally) found that it helps me save a lot of time. So far it has been worth it. :)

😂 sorry for that

Thanks for the sub! :) Indeed, it's always complicated to bring games to concoles. There are many games made in C3 that release on PS4/5, Switch and Xbox, but it was always through a third-party porting company. BTW: É nóis!

​@@ZizacoHue Hue, it's a BR? Hahaha

Sim mano!

Wow, thank you!

Awesome! I would love to check the game you made. Indeed it costs, but so far it has been worth the time saving benefits for me :)

Here it comes too much text. I hope I don't get you bored. I know you aren't looking for advice, but I think the fact you have given up on learning languages is a shame because you CAN actually program. I think almost any human can. What you may lack may be the true basics of programming: making algorithms. It's way easier than you think if you have a technique for doing so. Search for something called "top-down, stepwise refinement". If it helps, it's in the 10th edition of "C++ How to Program" (Deitel & Deitel), chapter 4.10.1. That's where I learned that form. As deceptively simple as it looks, it's quite powerful. Back in my day, when I was at university, my algorithms used to outperform the ones from the cool (and obnoxious 😛) kids that loved to brag how good they were at math and programming. Another thing I would suggest you is to try another language and by that I mean a DIFFERENT language, not yet another C clone. You may find a language that actually reflects the way you think if you try one that is actually different, like Haskell, Prolog or Smalltalk. I've been programming regularly for almost 30 years by now and I even took a formal programming degree at my university (though I never cared to work in that field) and I tried many languages in all those years. As of late, I've been openly vocal about how if had to teach someone how to program, I wouldn't go for the usual stuff people want to learn because it's cool, like Python (I personally like that language), Typescript, Rust or (gasp!) C++. I would go for F#. I you like the way it works and really like to learn solid programming principles, Scott Wlaschin has a website with tons of articles about it and wrote a book called "Domain Modeling Made Functional". In that book he teaches you a way to program with F# that feels like you aren't programming, but just describing what your program should do. Anyway... too much text. I hope at least I could convince you to not give up on programming. There's nothing wrong with you. Maybe it's just that you haven't found yet a way of programming because you haven't found a language that actually suits you and you like the basic skill of making algorithms (that last one can be learnt in a single afternoon, since it's a natural way to think for all humans).

Hey javascript kid. Yes, I did. Bevy is really nice! However, I don't think I would be as productive as I am with Construct. Also, even though I really like Rust, I'm still very slow when writing rust code.

😂 indeed it's not the cheapest engine out there

Small cheat - buy Construct 2! ;-) It's a little bit more outdated but it's almost the same in it's core!

@@igorthelightEven more smaller cheat - there are some countries that get x5 times less price than others. So VPN and select Turkey, you'll be surprised.

Indeed, it's always hard to optimize games for mobile. Even with other game engines. My approach for UI in Construct is the following: 9-patch objects + labels + hierarchy. I could get some pretty decent results relativelly quickly. You can check the UI in my games on itch or download the source-code of my latest game (link in my latest video)

@@Zizaco Hierarchy was a game changer, i remember having to use pin behavior everywhere in C2 and early C3 with subpar results. Sub layers and the ability to change layer interactivity are also useful when creating UI. I think the new dynamic layers feature will make it easier for creating and showing pop ups, but i don't have time to play around with it yet

@@Zizaco Scirra is also always pushing to use HTML elements for UI, but the fact that it can only be on top makes it hard honestly even if you don't mind writing HTML. There's hope tho, i saw Ashley showing off HTML element that renders behind sprite objects on his twitter, so we might get that in the next few releases

Yep, we finally got HTML layers on the latest beta, seems like HTML UI will really be the future on Construct 3

That's true! I haven't used HTML UI in Construct yet. But I did used that with Phaser. It might be interesting to give it a try. We'll see.

That's nice! I just learned about ts2gd. I will give it a try

Construct can export an actual xcode project (or AndroidStudio project).

@@Zizaco Yes, but they are Android and IOS projects that are based on web, so it's basically an IOS/Android web app

​@@amirosman8797Would it be able to do same with Ubuntu touch or various types of ARM Linux? Am wanting to develop something for Ubuntu touch as really like it but it's not got many games yet