Stephanie

So I did a bunch of reading on game engines, and forgot to blog it like 2 weeks ago...awesome. Anyway, about game engines! From my understanding, a game engine is a program that is used sort of as a template upon which a new game is made. It seems like a good idea because it saves a ton of time and money on writing a new program for movement, environment, etc. Basically the game engine is the under-layer and the new graphics, environments and stuff are put into it. This isn't to say that there isn't a ton of programming left for the new game developer to do, but it can save some time on some component of the game. This is probably really important considering how competitive the gaming industry is and how quickly it moves. If a company spent a ton of time developing every single detail, their technology might be outdated by the time the game was actually done! Something that I thought was really interesting is that game engines allow a game to be played on many platforms without changes to the source code. I'd always wondered if they had to make 2 or 3 versions of the game to release on PS2, Gamecube, and PC and I thought it was probably a huge pain in the ass. Apparently, not so much.