Hello! I am wondering what is a game engine best suited for beginners? Preferably one not too expensive, since this is my first time making a video game. I've tried my hand at programming only once, and I am not that good at it. Despite my lack of ability, I'd like a game engine that requires a bit of programming so I can hone my skills. After all, you gotta practice something if you want to get good at it. ;) When it comes to price, I'd buy anything up to about $500 or a little over it. Anything closer to $1,000 is a big no for me. That's it, thank you for reading.

As you indicate you're a beginner, you may want to take a look at engines that require less coding. Maybe GameMaker or Unity (just google them) are relatively easy-to-use. Both allow you to code to expand features, but Unity requires coding to build a bit more exciting things and it may be a bit overkill for your purposes.

You could also take a look at the (totally free) Angel2D prototyping engine (just google it again...). It's made to create games fast and the source code of the engine itself is easy to understand and made to be edited. The downside of this is that it will take longer to create content-rich games. Also, if you don't have any experience in C++, you will have to learn that first, books are always a good starting point and there are many lists with recommendations on the internet.

But I want to warn you that making a game is not easy. You have to prepare to start creating Pong and Tetris clones before starting with the "real" games. Game development is not something you learn in a moment and you won't create a video game the first time you create something. Just prepare yourself for that. ;)

Stencyl seems to be cited a lot as a good one for beginners, and you can download a free version. http://www.stencyl.com/

GameMaker also comes up a lot. They also have a free version. http://www.yoyogames.com/studio

Polycode

It's not released yet and you will have to compile everything yourself, so it may not be the best choice yet...