Hello, everybody. I've been trying to develop games for about a month, but I'm not sure if I like my engine. Maybe there's a different engine that I'd feel more comfortable with. So I'm going to give a description, and I'd like a match as close a possible from your personal experience. I'm currently using JMonkey Engine 3.0.

• I can use Java to work with the engine.
• Has a really strong and active community.
• Has plenty of tutorials whether it'd be video or typed
• Has great documentation
• Easy for newer developers

Now I doubt that there is a game engine with such specific and great needs, but it'd be nice to get close.

Thanks

How flexible are you on the programming language constraint?

IDK how many Java Engines are out there, but JMonkey must be the biggest of them. Its the only one I know of and certainly was the first one around.

So if you are ready to move to C# or C++, your choices would increase considerably. And seeing how they all share common roots and moving over from Java to both of them is not the hardest thing in the world (I am a Java programmer, but thanks to two different engines needing either C++ or C# for development I am now quite fluent in both of these languages), that might be not to hard to achieve.

How flexible are you on the programming language constraint?

IDK how many Java Engines are out there, but JMonkey must be the biggest of them. Its the only one I know of and certainly was the first one around.

So if you are ready to move to C# or C++, your choices would increase considerably. And seeing how they all share common roots and moving over from Java to both of them is not the hardest thing in the world (I am a Java programmer, but thanks to two different engines needing either C++ or C# for development I am now quite fluent in both of these languages), that might be not to hard to achieve.

The thing is I don't really want to spend time learning another language. I'm trying to basically be a lone wolf, meaning I want to possess all the skills for game development whether it'd be programming or creating graphics, etc. I just rather stick with Java for the time being, so I can get things done faster.

Do you think it's even worth it to switch from JME3?

The thing is I don't really want to spend time learning another language. I'm trying to basically be a lone wolf, meaning I want to possess all the skills for game development whether it'd be programming or creating graphics, etc. I just rather stick with Java for the time being, so I can get things done faster.

Do you think it's even worth it to switch from JME3?

Well, I hope one of the guys developing in Java will tune in. Personally I guess JMonkey will have one of the biggest communities you will find in the Java Game Engine world.

But I haven't used any Java or Java Engines for Game development in a long time.

Personally I would not care too much about different languages and go for the engine that best fits your purpose or has the biggest community / best documentation no matter what language it supports.

If you are a good programmer with enough expierience, picking up a new language should not be THAT hard as long as they share common roots (which most of todays languages do, C).

You might find, after an initial uphill struggle to learn this new language, that the new engine might save you time later on because it has features you would else need to develop yourself, because the community / documentation is better, or because the Editor is more intuitive.

But I can relate to not wanting to learn new languages. I hated having to deal with C++ in the beginning :)

Is a 3D game your immediate goal? If not, I'd suggest looking at a 2D game engine, maybe slick2d. It seems to have tons of features, including other game-oriented methods outside of graphics, audio, and input.

3D is my main goal for now, and I guess I'll stick with JME3 for the time being.

I recommend JME3 too, I'm getting along quite well.

I know you said that you did not want to learn any new languages, but if you can stretch as far as to move from java to C# (which is not that far from java anyway, and IMHO a much better language than java for several reasons) the wonderful world of Unity opens itself to you.

However, if you want to stay with java, my suggestion is to stay with JMonkey as well.

I would also do 2d. I've been doing lone development for a long time, sometimes 2d sometimes 3d. The problem with 3d is it's hard to make enough content on your own. Eventually, you give up and start using programs that create generic looking humans and buy some generic looking models to go along with what you make. Your game becomes more and more generic. 2d is the opposite. You find tools, like anime studio, and get a cheap tablet and develop a style of your own. Your games become more interesting and individual. I have done some fun games in 3d creating all my own content also, but it's a lot longer and more tedious and most games go unfinished. I'm finally back to 2d and having more fun making smaller games that I can hopefully upload on the web.