Too many engines!
Published December 23, 2007
Well I just joined an indie group to start development on an FPS. I also joined as one of the programmers, so I have been having an endless discussion about which engine to use for our game. I know, the most discussed topic since ninjas vs. robots. Well I have been looking at C4, Torque, Vicious, and even Unreal. The most impressive is the Vicious engine. It has cutting-edge graphics, multi-platform conversions, next-gen capability, almost everything our team wanted. HOWEVER their site stinks:( The lack of information is really quite depressing. Does anyone know about the license or its expense? Could anyone recommend the engine? Has anyone WORKED on it?? Slightly frustrating:)
Our backup plan is to use C4, since it is a stable engine and the second best. The license is inexpensive and they have a good support community. Another question I'm facing is, would it be too much effort to change engines later in the game if C4 doesn't work out? My gut instinct says yes....
So as I mindlessly dig deeper into the internet for scraps of information, maybe one of you lucky souls out there could drop me a line! You know you want to!
I assume the expense is set depending on your product plans -- they probably have some kind of royalty deal for indies similar to the "cheapo UE3" deal.
Switching engines mid-stream probably isn't impossible, but is more pain than I'd like. As always, I suggest relentlessly decoupling your game code from your rendering code.