What's the best(easy to use for beginners) free game engine for C++? What can you recommend for use by beginning game programmers? Something that makes loading contents neat and understandable, has simple game loop structure and has the basic game math classes needed for most games. I'll be using the Code::Blocks IDE btw. Thanks in advance!

Thanks! Will try that.

I've tried ogre3d and it seems too complex for me at this point. What I'm looking for is an easy to use engine for 2D games, sort of like XNA Framework for C# (yes I've already done simple games on it). Now maybe you're wondering why I'm looking for another engine/framework if I could already work with XNA? That's because I've read articles that says C++ is the way to go if a person is really into game development. Am I correct on this? Or should I just stick with C# & XNA? If I should really take the C++ route, what can you recommend that's simpler than ogre3d? Or maybe I should write my own engine? Any help? Thanks!! I'm sort of confused by now..

Quote:
That's because I've read articles that says C++ is the way to go if a person is really into game development. Am I correct on this? Or should I just stick with C# & XNA?

You should stick with C# and XNA for now. If you want to work in the industry as a professional, you will probably eventually need to learn C++. But that will be much easier once you already have a solid foundation in another language (like C#). How old are you? The younger you are, the more time you reasonably have to explore other languages.

It's more important that you learn to make games, regardless of language, than you learn to make games in C++. Much of the skills will translate, and if you're having fun and being productive in C# now, there's no real compelling reason to switch unless you just want too -- although I wouldn't recommend C++ as a language for a beginner, nor would I recommend switching around languages too often too early in your career as a programmer.

Quote:
If I should really take the C++ route, what can you recommend that's simpler than ogre3d?

Irrlicht is a wee bit simpler, but is still a 3D graphics engine like Ogre. There's APIs like Allegro, Haaf's Game Engine, and SDL or SFML if you really want to stick with C++ and a more 2D focus. Be aware that if you don't know C++ you'll want to spend some time learning it before you dive into more complex projects involving graphics -- for that I'd recommend you Google for "Thinking in C++" or "C++ A Dialog," (free online books) or if you are willing to spend money on real books, check out Accelerated C++.

Quote:
Or maybe I should write my own engine?

No.

I think you're actually looking for simplicity in its use, as for a beginner, few steps to get it running, and few steps to achieve something but powerful enough to keep using it. IMHO if I was going to use C++ and I was a beginner I would use GLFW + Horde3D both are actually really simple to use and their API's are powerful, and simplistic in mind.

http://glfw.sourceforge.net/
http://www.horde3d.org/

I hope you find them useful and simple enough to start with.

Hi, thanks for all your replies. As for my age I think I'm on the older side now :D I'm already 23 and I program C# and Java business apps for a living. I've used C++ back when I was in college and my knowledge in it is up to STL and OOP. This whole game programming thing is pretty new for me so please bear with my silly questions.

I'm thinking of going the C++ route because it might have something that C# can't provide. But if I can do everything that can be done in C++ on C# (I know C# don't have pointers), I might as well stick with C#. What do you think? Many thanks in advance!!