Question from a discussion: what would “convince” (hate the phrasing) you to try a game engine?

[ruby0x1@mastodon.gamedev.place]

Question from a discussion: what would “convince” (hate the phrasing) you to try a game engine?

e.g the motivator (time excluded)?

Like a game jam is a good motivator for some. a good video course is for others..

What motivates YOU to step outside of comfort and try something new?

#gamedev

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 so, what convinces me to simply try a game engine (as apposed to commit to being a long term user), if i'm being honest, is probably a mountain of peer pressure (and being able to try it out at all without having to slip into the golden handcuffs first)

Case study: I gave godot a try (briefly) last spring in part because two close friends had been using it for an indie project, and they convince me in a moment of weakness that it might be a good tool for some of my simpler ideas.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 in the absence of being accidentally embedded in an enthusiastic community, I tend to be very sparing about taking up new tools at all, and tend to limit myself to tools that are available under permissive open source licenses if the tool does something I'm convinced I would not enjoy implementing myself (eg I'm gonna probably use kissfft instead of implementing my own fft, whenever I next have a problem that is best solved with an fft)

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 I also tend to shy away from things where there is the appearance of a major time investment developing a set of skills that I would have to pay rent on. So for example, I learned Blender geometry nodes instead of learning Houdini despite being under the impression that Houdini is probably the superior procgen tool. Like wise I've spent the better part of year reinventing audio from first principles instead of buying Reaper or whatever.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 however, that is orthogonal to me simply trying an engine.

Similarly, I've "tried" unreal engine, because my work continues to pay me lots of money to work on unreal games, which in a way is another form of peer pressure. I've considered giving it a try for some small personal projects on the theory that it might be beneficial to broaden my holistic knowledge of the engine beyond what my day to day work calls for, but so far I've decided that my work/life separation is more important.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 another case where I might consider trying a game engine is as a product evaluation for a for profit project where the tradeoff of having to pay royalties incurs some benefit to the production, such as shipping a game instead of reinventing the universe. In that position, I imagine the attractive points are going to be things like cost of training, availability of paid 1st and 3rd party support, showcase examples of other successful games, and other such things.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 however I'm not in a position of evaluating such purchasing decisions at the moment, so that case is kind of academic

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ruby0x1 anyways, tldr my answer is normal human social mirroring behavior and immediacy