Welcome to the Code Monkey Club games engine review. Looking to choose a games engine for your next project and aren’t sure where to start? Then look no further, we have reviewed several games engines, so you don’t have to.
Our collection of reviews is forever going, you wouldn’t believe how many game engines are out there! If you have a specific one which isn’t on the list, please feel free to leave us a comment or contact us and we will add it to our list to review.
Wondering about how we have rated each area of the games engine? Then scroll down and look at the “our rating system” section.
Without further ado bring on the reviews, for a full rating click on the full ratings button:
Games Engine Review Summary
What is a games engine?
For those new to game development, you might be wondering what is a games engine and why do I need one?
A games engine is code created by another group of developers to implement games development specific functionality, so you don’t have to. Game engines vary from covering almost everything you are going to need to create a game, right back to basic media handling. Some only cover 2D, whilst others also cover 3D.
There are some games engines which are a “one size fits all” (for example Unity), where others specialise in specific areas. Some game engines come with a full UI (for example Godot), where others are a library, you add on to a native application.
Choosing a games engine
Choosing a games engine at the start of a project can be a long and time-consuming task. If you enjoy lots of R&D time, then we would suggest going ahead and looking into a few. If you want to just hurry and get started with learning a new engine and starting your game, then we have reviewed a selection for you.
There are many factors to be considered when selecting a games engine:
- Level of difficulty?
- Is there support for 3D games or just 2D?
- Is it a library or full IDE?
- Does it natively support a programming language I am familiar with?
- What platforms can I build my game for?
- Is there an active community for the engine?
- Is the engine still being developed?
- What is the license and cost model?
- Is it specific to the type of game I’m creating or general?
- What (if any) are the inbuilt tools?
That’s a lot of questions to get through and we’re sure the list above isn’t full. Some questions will be dependent on your experience, some of the selection will fall to personal preference. What is important to recognise is that with so much choice out there, that there isn’t a right answer for every developer and every game.
Our rating system
We have evaluated several games engines based on a number of factors. This might not be a full list of everything you will want to consider but is our personal views. You may disagree with some of the ratings depending on your level of experience, but the purpose is to help inform your decision. For each engine we provide a blog article where we go more into detail about each one including links to get started.
We have rated each engine on the following factors and scales if applicable:
- Level of difficulty (1-5) from 1 being best for beginners to 5 for experienced/advanced devs.
- Active community (1-5) from 1 being a small number to 5 being large scale support.
- Cost to use/license model (1-3) 1 being licensed to use, 2 being licensed with limitations to 3 being open source.
- Inbuilt tools (1-5) from 1 being “built it yourself” to 5 being a large number of tools built in plus additional ones you can freely download.
The above factors allow us to provide a general overall score out of 5.
We also answer the following questions for each engine:
- 2D, 3D or 2D/3D support?
- Library or full IDE?
- What languages can I use out of the box?
- Which platforms can I build for?
- Is the engine still in active development?
- Requested by (Code Monkey Club selected, supporters request or by development team/community).
The information we provide is correct at time of publishing If you spot things have moved on since we reviewed, please let us know and we will update our records.
Future Reviews
Also, if you or a team you work with would like us to evaluate your engine then just contact us. If you have requested a review once complete, we will share our ratings with you prior to publishing and will discuss them fully with you.
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