Start Your Engines

Hello again my dear followers. In this weeks post I talk about: Game Engines.

So what are game engines? Basically it is a software system that allows a game to run, like an operating system. Without it a game simply wouldn't function, content without any directions and instructions to allow it to perform. The game engine is responsible for pretty much everything that happens in a game: graphics, physics animation, AI, etc. Game engines are built by programmers who use their large heads to write the code. They either build one from scratch or use a previous build and then try to improve on it.

Now there are a tonne of game engines out there, some had loads of money and working hours spent just to finish developing them from scratch. Some engines are capable of processing all the necessary functions that are needed in a game, others like to specialise in one particular field, such as rendering. These are known as middleware and they often used to together with the all purpose game engine to cover a part where the middleware will perform and produce better results.

Game engines nowadays are user-friendly and relatively easy to use, they have broadened their usage and applications such as for medical simulation and military training. The Unreal Development Kit is a free version of the Unreal Engine 3 which released quite recently is example of an easy to use engine. Unfortunately for me like most development kits are resource-hungry and my poor old laptop couldn't cope so I was unable to try it out and show a few examples of what can be done on the developng kit.