> if you decide to not use an engine when making your game, don't abstract it and also make an engine.
Exactly this. Do the minimal thing correct for your situation (your own rendering if desired/required or integrating a third party solution, free or otherwise) and don't spend a year on stable rigid body simulations in a completely general-purpose and reusable tool (that is only reusable for you because it's almost a guarantee it won't be general purpose enough or documented well enough for anyone else) if you don't need the objects to behave with some level of physical realism.
Smaller personal and hobbyist projects have the freedom to make a lot more choices around 'how' they get to their end goal, and I think they should use that opportunity. If you're genuinely intending to make the next indie hit, the actual tech is not likely to be the most difficult thing for success, whether you use Unity or your own tools.
> because everyone thinks everything is too hard to program yourself these days?
Without getting too cynical, it seems like there's a culture of ignorance in some places where large long-lived software projects created by other people over time are treated as black boxes, impossible to understand, and not for the likes of mere mortals to even attempt to comprehend.
Unreal exists because studios want to be able to hire hundreds of contract artists on a short schedule. These non-technical contributors need to be able to import whatever permutations of data they spit out of Maya, without conflict, and have it work efficiently on all platforms.
Solving that problem sucks and is complex which is why people pay for their product.
But anything you make yourself or with a few friends doesn’t have that problem.
Exactly this. Do the minimal thing correct for your situation (your own rendering if desired/required or integrating a third party solution, free or otherwise) and don't spend a year on stable rigid body simulations in a completely general-purpose and reusable tool (that is only reusable for you because it's almost a guarantee it won't be general purpose enough or documented well enough for anyone else) if you don't need the objects to behave with some level of physical realism.
Smaller personal and hobbyist projects have the freedom to make a lot more choices around 'how' they get to their end goal, and I think they should use that opportunity. If you're genuinely intending to make the next indie hit, the actual tech is not likely to be the most difficult thing for success, whether you use Unity or your own tools.
> because everyone thinks everything is too hard to program yourself these days?
Without getting too cynical, it seems like there's a culture of ignorance in some places where large long-lived software projects created by other people over time are treated as black boxes, impossible to understand, and not for the likes of mere mortals to even attempt to comprehend.