The Benefits of Using Game Engines for Game Development
Using game engines for game development has become a necessity for many in the industry. These powerful tools offer numerous benefits that can significantly enhance the efficiency, quality, and reach of your projects.
Saving Time with Pre-built Components
One of the major advantages of using game engines is the time-saving aspect. Instead of starting from scratch, modern game engines provide pre-built components such as physics engines, rendering systems, and scripting tools. This allows developers to focus more on gameplay design and less on technical details. For example, Unity and Unreal Engine come with extensive libraries and asset stores, where developers can find ready-made models, textures, and sounds to speed up their development process.
Enhanced Cross-Platform Support
A significant benefit of using game engines is their cross-platform support. Modern game engines are designed to deploy games on multiple platforms, including PCs, consoles, mobile devices, and web browsers. This capability allows developers to reach a broader audience without needing to rewrite significant portions of their code for each platform. Essentially, developers can write their game once and let the engine handle the heavy lifting of making it work on various devices. This saves a massive amount of time and ensures a consistent experience for players across different devices.
Robust Community and Support Systems
Game engines come with robust communities and support systems. These resources can be invaluable, especially for indie developers or small teams who may not have the resources to solve every problem in-house. Whether you're stuck on a problem or looking for tips to optimize your game, there are numerous tutorials, forums, and documentation available. Unreal and Unity have dedicated support and large user communities that are always ready to help. This communal support makes the development journey smoother and more collaborative.
Personal Experience with Unreal Engine
I recently developed an Atari Asteroids clone using Unreal Engine. I could have done it from scratch, but the engine's widget designer (UMG) was a real time-saver for all the UI elements, such as menus, readouts, and info screens. I even used UMG in C for the asteroids, bullets, and player ship, which made the development process even more efficient.
The engine's libraries for math also allow for immediate coding of vector processes and intersection testing for collisions, streamlining the coding process. Furthermore, the renderer not only saves time but also ensures that the end result is easily portable to other platforms. Even though the game requires a keyboard, it should be trivial to build it for Mac and Linux.
Quality and Polishing
Quality is largely a function of the developer's willingness to polish. While the engine won't produce art or make decisions regarding audio, it will accommodate a sloppy approach if that's what the developer prefers. However, if a developer is willing to put in the effort, the engine won't get in the way. At the very least, a good engine allows quick iteration of ideas, which can help a polisher reach their goals faster.
In conclusion, using game engines for game development offers several benefits, including time-saving pre-built components, cross-platform support, and robust community and support systems. These tools can significantly enhance the efficiency, quality, and reach of game development projects.