What engines can do

As we said, there are several engines to choose from. Some are very easy to pick up and learn, though limited in their capabilities, which makes them excellent tools for educational purposes. Others target a single platform, as it is with Cocos2D, which in its first versions only allowed game development for the iOS. Most game engines, on the other hand, target multiple platforms, as is a more profitable marketing strategy to widen the potential gamers audience as much as possible. There are even engines which are considered genre-specific, as it is the case with the Unreal Engine, which many people regard as the perfect tool for crafting only 3D shooters, although several unconventional games showed that with good ideas and a little bit of programming, almost any game genre can be developed with a professional tool.

There are several functions that all game engines share. In the following sections, we will list the most important.

Importing graphic assets: All game engines...