Why a New Game Engine?

I have shared the dream of Omega Connection with a wide variety of people over the years, from friends to artists to software developers to philanthropists and everything in between. When it comes to coders, and especially game developers, I invariably get asked why I would want to create a game engine from scratch when there are so many out there to choose from. Being honest, there really have been a plethora to choose from over the past several years such as the Unreal Engine, Unity, FPS creator (and now GameGuru), etc; and as most of the 3D game engines have had some great games created on top of them why on Earth would I choose to write my own game engine?

Ignoring the obvious answer of my having an extreme god complex, it really comes down to two reasons. The first, and simplest, is that I want complete control over every aspect of the game. “But you can…” I know. I can write my own AI scripts and create my own graphics and design my own animations and so on with many of the existing game engines out there, but in doing so I lose control of my frame per second processor cycles. Let’s face it, if writing AI components using C# was the same as hand coding AI from scratch then there would be no research funding in Artificial Intelligence. nVidia would be dumping money into Unity instead of deep learning.

The second, and much more important reason (well not more important than stroking my own ego) is for future game development. Creating all the pieces that make up a game engine for Omega Connection will allow much easier reusability in additional game titles that Proverbs develops. I know that there is only a small segment of the game player market who enjoy medieval fantasy style games, and you know what? I enjoy games in other genres as well.

I have this recurring thought of other worlds when it comes to Omega Connection Online and I know exactly where this stems from. Just about every medieval fantasy game has been influenced by Dungeons and Dragons (which, yes, was influenced by Tolkien), but as a geek who grew up playing D&D there were also many other games made by (then) TSR (now Wizards of the Coast): Boot Hill, Gamma World, Star Frontiers & Top Secret. I loved these games and they have greatly influenced the genre of video games that I play today; and influence the games I want to create. Obviously TSR cannot take all the credit for the game styles I like, as there were a ton more games I played growing up, but it serves as example.

I want to create worlds beyond medieval fantasy and maybe (hopefully) even incorporate some of these worlds into Omega Connection Online. Creating a set of (more) easily reusable libraries and applications will allow Proverbs to offer these worlds in the form of different games, all while maintaining control over every aspect of the game’s creation. Without the need to find work arounds from someone else’s code. Without compromising the integrity of the games we offer.

If myself and others are going to devote so much time to creating a single game, doesn’t it make sense to devote a little additional time to create our own game engine for use in future games to speed things up and reduce frustration in the long run?