Game engines: a survey

Abstract

Due to hardware limitations at the origin of the video game industry, each new game was generally coded from the ground up. Years later, from the evolution of hardware and the need for quick game development cycles, spawned the concept of game engine. A game engine is a reusable software layer allowing the separation of common game concepts from the game assets (levels, graphics, etc.). This paper surveys fourteen different game engines relevant today, ranging from the industry-level to the newcomer-friendlier ones.