Devlog pt.2 - engine wars

Transcript for video:

Hi everyone, and welcome to my second devlog. Another week has passed and I need to look back to what I have done, where have I succeeded and where I failed.

So first of all my first fail- , I got burned out of my Match3 game, I can’t think of it, I nearly vomit thinking of it. I guess I need to step back from it. Maybe find someone who plays casual games? Or implement match3 as battle mechanic? Maybe move forward in very slow steps? No idea. There is not much to do, but there is not much of a game, so i dont think it would be successful.

To get something done in gamedev I worked with my Roguelite game and it’s starting to shape up. Found in my hoarded assets collection very nice Rexard game assets and will be basing my game on them. Currently I want to implement grid based roaming with turn based battles and that is mostly done.

You can see exploration mode, which later will be covered in fog of war. Knight is the player, skeletons are enemies, food is buffs and the portal is the exit. If you step on enemy tile, you would start a battle mode There you exchange blows in turn based style. As you may have guessed, most of UI is placeholder right now.

Have to say, I spent too much time editing some graphics, probably needing to look for contracting work for that, it would be cheaper in the end. But I already tried that, and could not find anyone. I guess I would have to search online.

Today in the traditional “Tea time with Arvis” section let’s talk about the holiest of holy wars in gamedev- game engine choice.

 Which engine should I choose? As much as I love learning, tinkering with new stuff,  I need to stick with one engine and become proficient in that engine. I chose Unity. Why? There are several reasons. First of all, Unity is the most popular game engine and there are job postings for Unity. In my area there are a bit of Unreal jobs, but otherwise it’s Unity all the way. Also Unity asset store is most successful asset store, so I can try my luck in creating and selling gamedev assets, legend says that in the time of gold rush, one who sold shovels, were the ones who became rich.

Secondly Unity can achieve good results in 2D and 3D. Just look at the Hollow Knight for 2D and Escape from Tarkov for 3D. Also mobile ads and in-app purchases support for Unity is easy. I don’t care about console support for now- one step at the time, I need to get my foot into PC gaming now.

For downsides - first of all, it’s slow. Sometimes I feel that Unreal is faster than Unity, no idea why. One day, Unity loaded my small project in five minutes. Like Why? Also “Made with Unity” loading screen carries a bit of stigma in the PC gaming world, people think it will be asset flip, so definitely need to be aware of that.