Ok I am new to programming and only have a little HTML experience, so not much programming experience at all and i'm a little confused about a couple things. 1. Is a game engine something that makes up the gameplay or is it just for graphics? 2. this is probably a lot more complicated than I am thinking but i'm just wondering if I use or want to use mostly mathmatical expressions to make the game is that ok to do or not? for(an oversimplified)example if player 1 does "x".."y" happens, etc. I think it would be easier for me to do A.I. behavior for example just based on mathmatical functions, but not sure if I can do it like that or do I just use pre-determined functions using just the C++ language? Thanks

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1. Is a game engine something that makes up the gameplay or is it just for graphics?

Could be either; the definition is very vague. In general an "engine" is something that provides a robust, extensible and efficient means of powering some aspect of a game, or the game itself. Developing something that fits all three of those criteria is decidedly non-trivial and should be the domain of a team of experienced software developers; an "engine" is not required to make a game, and should not be something you concern yourself with at this stage of your career.

(Note that a lot of amateur developers build "engines" but these "engines" are really just base framework code, they don't provide the rich feature set, tool support, and aforementioned software design tenants that large-scale engines provide)

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2. this is probably a lot more complicated than I am thinking but i'm just wondering if I use or want to use mostly mathmatical expressions to make the game is that ok to do or not?

Depends very much on the context.

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example if player 1 does "x".."y" happens, etc. I think it would be easier for me to do A.I. behavior for example just based on mathmatical functions, but not sure if I can do it like that or do I just use pre-determined functions using just the C++ language?

It's possible to both equally well (in any language). There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. A robust game will probably combine both methodologies together with others.