So whatever happened to the whole PGDCE thing?

[AthenaOfDelphi]

And I absolutely agree with those two points.

[LP]

The problem is that you should Write Games, Not Engines (bold intended). Even if a hobby developer(s) have the appropriate software engineering background with an actual work experience (many of developers of hobby engines don't) to be able to come up with a "not so horrible" architectural design eventually, without any well-thought objectives and reasons behind the developed engine in question, it still won't be very useful even for original developer itself.

So my suggestion would be, just stop making any new engines - not for your own projects, not even as a learning experience. If you want to learn, just make an actual game, maybe a very simple one, you don't need an engine for that: just a TCanvas, TBitmap and its magical Scanline property are the only ones you would need. If you want to learn an API like OpenGL, then just learn it, but without any helpers such as SDL, GLFW or similar, which distract you from learning what's actually happening behind the scenes. Just my two cents...

[AthenaOfDelphi]

The problem is that you should Write Games, Not Engines (bold intended). Even if a hobby developer(s) have the appropriate software engineering background with an actual work experience (many of developers of hobby engines don't) to be able to come up with a "not so horrible" architectural design eventually, without any well-thought objectives and reasons behind the developed engine in question, it still won't be very useful even for original developer itself.

So my suggestion would be, just stop making any new engines - not for your own projects, not even as a learning experience. If you want to learn, just make an actual game, maybe a very simple one, you don't need an engine for that: just a TCanvas, TBitmap and its magical Scanline property are the only ones you would need. If you want to learn an API like OpenGL, then just learn it, but without any helpers such as SDL, GLFW or similar, which distract you from learning what's actually happening behind the scenes. Just my two cents...

Performance wise, it's not going to be great using TCanvas and TBitmap etc. And as for learning OpenGL, if you're just starting out, it can be a bit daunting.

When I first joined this site there were quite a few nice little frameworks that worked out of the box and allowed people to make games easily. Many of these are not developed anymore and as a consequence there is a lack of some basic functionality that allows people to create games with decent graphical performance.

So whilst I fundamentally agree, writing games is the ultimate goal, for those that have a great idea in terms of gameplay but lack some of the finer technical skills to make it work when it comes to the graphics etc. what can they do? Some people may simply never be able to develop the skills required to build even the basics because it's beyond them, but give them a tool chain that facilitates their ideas and hey presto, they may be able to make a game. There are enough skilled people on this site to be able to do this, I'd like to see a well documented engine focusing on say 2D for now, created and maintained by the community for the community so that those people who simply want to make games without having to focus on the technical aspects of OpenGL etc. can do so.

[laggyluk]

When I first joined this site there were quite a few nice little frameworks that worked out of the box and allowed people to make games easily. Many of these are not developed anymore and as a consequence there is a lack of some basic functionality that allows people to create games with decent graphical performance.

So whilst I fundamentally agree, writing games is the ultimate goal, for those that have a great idea in terms of gameplay but lack some of the finer technical skills to make it work when it comes to the graphics etc. what can they do?

Pick up any other existing engine? There's no reason to stick with pascal if someone wants to make a game, on the contrary. And if someone wants to make a pascal engine he should first make couple of games in other engines to see how it's done anyways.

For example people arguing over using VK key codes in previous posts might discover that in proper engine it's necessary to define input actions and map them to keys instead of using key codes directly.