Assignment 7 - Initial Thoughts

I'm afraid that I haven't had much chance yet to get down to even writing this entry, let alone actually get on with the research. As it stands, I'm now in the midst of moving my belongings into a newly decorated bedroom, but I'm hoping to have this out of the way by Monday.

But to talk on the subject of this new assignment, which is to take a look at 4 game engines and write 1000 words overviewing each of those engines, I have to say that the lecture we had on Thursday was quite the eye opener. I struggled at first to think about how game engines could be used to quicken the working process of developers, and on reflection this stems largely from never having really known just what these engines can actually do NOW, or what technology is just around the corner. I really don't know what I was expecting.

I find the topic to be very interesting, however. I already know that I'm going to take a look into the following;

• Unreal Engine
• Source Engine
• Unity Engine

But I'm still looking for that final engine to fill in the empty space. I'm resisting the instinct to look at Cry Engine... partly because I have no real connection to any of the games made with that engine, and partly because I feel like it would be cheating to look at that on top of Unreal and Source after looking at all three in class. I'm going to finish my move and then think of some games I've enjoyed playing and finding out what engine powers them.

(I did try to look at Visceral Engine, used in Dead Space 2... but I'm really guessing that is an internal engine, I really couldn't find any information on it other than as part of a top ten on IGN. Oh, and a wikipedia entry that only exists in Russian... which I somehow suspect doesn't have anything to do with what I might be wanting to research. 

Onwards and outwards!