Overview and Comparative Analysis of Game Engines for Desktop and Mobile Devices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17083/ijsg.v4i4.194Keywords:
Game Engines, Comparison, Mobile devices, Android, Unity, Unreal Engine 4Abstract
Game engines are tools that expedite the highly demanding process of developing games. Nowadays, the great interest of people from various fields on serious games has made even more demanding the usage of game engines, since people with limited coding skills are also involved in developing serious games. Literature in the field has studied game engines focusing on specific needs, such as 3D mobile game engines or open source 3D game engines. The motivation of this article and at the same time the advancement brought by it in the field, lies in the extension of an existing framework for the comparative analysis of several game engines that export games at least on Android and iOS mobile devices and cover a wide range of different user profiles and needs. In order to validate the results of this comparative analysis a shooter game was developed for Android devices based on official tutorials of the two game engines that came out to be more powerful, namely Unity and Unreal Engine 4. In conclusion, there is not a single game engine that is better for every purpose and the extensive overview provided can help users choose the most suitable game engine for their needs.
References
[1] Andrade, ?., Game engines: a survey, EAI Endorsed Transactions on Serious Games, 15(6): e8, 2015.
[2] Pattrasitidecha, A., “Comparison and evaluation of 3D mobile game engines”, Master of Science Thesis in the Program International Design, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Gothenburg, 2014.
[3] Navarro, A., Pradilla J. V. and Rios O., “Open Source 3D Game Engines for Serious Games Modeling”. [ebook] Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, InTech, 2012. Available at: <http://www.intechopen.com/books/modeling-and-simulation-inengineering/open-source-3d-game-engines-for-serious-games-modeling> [Accessed 5 July 2016].
[4] Trenholme, D. and Smith, S. P., “Computer game engines for developing first-person virtual environments”, Virtual Reality 12:181–187, Durham University, 2008.
[5] Marks, S., Windsor, J. and Wunsche, B., “Evaluation of Game Engines for Simulated Surgical Training”, GRAPHITE, Perth, Western Australia, December 1–4, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1145/1321261.1321311
[6] Petridis, P., Dunwell, I., Panzoli, D., Arnab, S., Protopsaltis, A., Hendrix, M. and Freitas, S., Game Engines Selection Framework for High-Fidelity Serious Applications, International Journal of Interactive Worlds, Vol 2012 (2012), 19 pages.
[7] Alexander, A.L., Brunyé, T., Sidman, J. and Weil, S.A., “From Gaming to Training: A Review of Studies on Fidelity, Immersion, Presence, and Buy-in and Their Effects on Transfer in PC-Based Simulations and Games”, Aptima, Inc., Woburn, MA, DARWARS Training Impact Group, 2012.
[8] “GameMaker,” https://www.yoyogames.com/
[9] “JMonkey,” https://jmonkeyengine.org/
[10] “Marmalade,” https://www.madewithmarmalade.com/
[11] “OGRE 3D,” http://www.ogre3d.org/
[12] “Shiva,” http://www.shiva-engine.com/
[13] Mullen T., 2010. 3D for iPhone Apps with Blender and Sio2. Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana and Canada.
[14] “SIO2,” http://www.sio2interactive.com/index.php
[15] “Turbulenz,” http://biz.turbulenz.com/home
[16] “Unity3d,” https://unity3d.com/
[17] “Unreal Engine,” https://www.unrealengine.com/
[18] Rocha, R. V., Rocha, R. V. and Araújo, R., “Selecting the best open source 3D games engines”, In Proceedings of the brazilian Symposium on Games and Digital Entertainment, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, 2010.
[19] González, A., España, S. and Pastor, Ó., “Unity Criteria for Business Process Modelling: A theoretical argumentation for a Software Engineering recurrent problem”. Third International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), Fez, Morocco, April 22-24, 2009.
[20] “Global Anisotropic Filtering- JMonkey,” https://hub.jmonkeyengine.org/t/global-anisotropic-filtering/27054
[21] “Shiva 3d engine,” https://kuliahvrits.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/shiva-3d-engine/
[22] “Sio2- Project Summary,” https://www.openhub.net/p/sio2
[23] “Making the Move to HTML5, Part 2,” ”http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/187014/making_the_move_to_html5_part_2.php?print=1
[24] “Shadow Optimization and Physics- Shiva,” http://www.shivaengine.com/developer/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7051&p=7118
[25] Friedrich, H., Günther, J., Dietrich, A., Scherbaum, M., Seidel, H. and Slusallek, P.,. “Exploring the Use of Ray Tracing for Future Games”, Sandbox Symposium 2006, Boston, Massachusetts, July 2006. https://doi.org/10.1145/1183316.1183323
[26] Fritsch, D. and Kada, M., “Visualization Using Game Engines”, Institute for Photogrammetry (ifp), University of Stuttgart, Germany, 2004.
[27] Park, J. and Fussell, D.S., Forward dynamics based realistic animation of rigid bodies, Computers & Graphics, Volume 21, Issue 4, July–August, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0097-8493(97)00024-1
[28] Thiebaux, M., Marsella, S., Marshall, AN. and Kallmann, M., “Smartbody: Behavior realization for embodied conversational agents”, Proc. of 7th Int. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, May,12-16., Estoril,Portugal, 2008.
[29] Stokes, M., “Improving the Performance of Skeletal Mesh Animations in the Blender Game Engine”, Master of Science in Computer Science, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Washington, 2014.
[30] Jung, Y. and Behr†, J., “Extending H-Anim and X3D for Advanced Animation Control”, Web3D ‘08 Proceedings of the 13th international symposium on 3D web technology, pp 57-65, New York, NY, USA, 2008.
[31] Basten, B.J.H. and Egges, A., “Evaluating distance metrics for animation blending”, ICFDG April 26-30, Orlando, FL, USA.Bijl, J. L. and Boer, C. A. (2011, December). Advanced 3D visualization for simulation using game technology. In Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 2815-2826). Winter Simulation Conference, 2009.
[32] Harris, A. C., “Design and implementation of an autonomous robotics simulator”, Doctoral dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2011.
[33] Maciel, A., Halic, T., Lu, Z., Nedel, LP., and De, S., Using the PhysX engine for physics-based virtual surgery with force feedback, The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp. 341–353, September 2009. https://doi.org/10.1002/rcs.266
[34] Kosmadoudi, Z., Lim, T., Ritchie, S., Liu, Y., and Sung, R., Engineering design using game-enhanced CAD: The potential to augment the user experience with game elements, Computer-Aided Design, Volume 45, Issue 3, Pages 777–795, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cad.2012.08.001
[35] Kosmadoudi, Z., Lim, T., Ritchie, J.M., Sung, R.C.W., Liu, Y., St?nescu I.A. and ?tefan A., “Game Interactivity in CAD as Productive Systems”, Procedia Computer Science Volume 15, 2012, pp. 285–288, 4th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES’12), 2012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2012.10.081
[36] Scacchi, W., “Computer game mods, modders, modding, and the mod scene”, Peer Review Journal on the Internet, Volume 15, Number 5 - 3 May, 2010.
[37] “Survival Shooter Tutorial- Unity 3D,” https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/survival-shooter-tutorial
[38] “Blueprint Twin Stick Shooter- Unreal Engine 4,” https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Videos/PLZlv_N0_O1gb5sdygbSiEU7hb0eomNLdq/
[2] Pattrasitidecha, A., “Comparison and evaluation of 3D mobile game engines”, Master of Science Thesis in the Program International Design, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Gothenburg, 2014.
[3] Navarro, A., Pradilla J. V. and Rios O., “Open Source 3D Game Engines for Serious Games Modeling”. [ebook] Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, InTech, 2012. Available at: <http://www.intechopen.com/books/modeling-and-simulation-inengineering/open-source-3d-game-engines-for-serious-games-modeling> [Accessed 5 July 2016].
[4] Trenholme, D. and Smith, S. P., “Computer game engines for developing first-person virtual environments”, Virtual Reality 12:181–187, Durham University, 2008.
[5] Marks, S., Windsor, J. and Wunsche, B., “Evaluation of Game Engines for Simulated Surgical Training”, GRAPHITE, Perth, Western Australia, December 1–4, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1145/1321261.1321311
[6] Petridis, P., Dunwell, I., Panzoli, D., Arnab, S., Protopsaltis, A., Hendrix, M. and Freitas, S., Game Engines Selection Framework for High-Fidelity Serious Applications, International Journal of Interactive Worlds, Vol 2012 (2012), 19 pages.
[7] Alexander, A.L., Brunyé, T., Sidman, J. and Weil, S.A., “From Gaming to Training: A Review of Studies on Fidelity, Immersion, Presence, and Buy-in and Their Effects on Transfer in PC-Based Simulations and Games”, Aptima, Inc., Woburn, MA, DARWARS Training Impact Group, 2012.
[8] “GameMaker,” https://www.yoyogames.com/
[9] “JMonkey,” https://jmonkeyengine.org/
[10] “Marmalade,” https://www.madewithmarmalade.com/
[11] “OGRE 3D,” http://www.ogre3d.org/
[12] “Shiva,” http://www.shiva-engine.com/
[13] Mullen T., 2010. 3D for iPhone Apps with Blender and Sio2. Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana and Canada.
[14] “SIO2,” http://www.sio2interactive.com/index.php
[15] “Turbulenz,” http://biz.turbulenz.com/home
[16] “Unity3d,” https://unity3d.com/
[17] “Unreal Engine,” https://www.unrealengine.com/
[18] Rocha, R. V., Rocha, R. V. and Araújo, R., “Selecting the best open source 3D games engines”, In Proceedings of the brazilian Symposium on Games and Digital Entertainment, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, 2010.
[19] González, A., España, S. and Pastor, Ó., “Unity Criteria for Business Process Modelling: A theoretical argumentation for a Software Engineering recurrent problem”. Third International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), Fez, Morocco, April 22-24, 2009.
[20] “Global Anisotropic Filtering- JMonkey,” https://hub.jmonkeyengine.org/t/global-anisotropic-filtering/27054
[21] “Shiva 3d engine,” https://kuliahvrits.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/shiva-3d-engine/
[22] “Sio2- Project Summary,” https://www.openhub.net/p/sio2
[23] “Making the Move to HTML5, Part 2,” ”http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/187014/making_the_move_to_html5_part_2.php?print=1
[24] “Shadow Optimization and Physics- Shiva,” http://www.shivaengine.com/developer/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7051&p=7118
[25] Friedrich, H., Günther, J., Dietrich, A., Scherbaum, M., Seidel, H. and Slusallek, P.,. “Exploring the Use of Ray Tracing for Future Games”, Sandbox Symposium 2006, Boston, Massachusetts, July 2006. https://doi.org/10.1145/1183316.1183323
[26] Fritsch, D. and Kada, M., “Visualization Using Game Engines”, Institute for Photogrammetry (ifp), University of Stuttgart, Germany, 2004.
[27] Park, J. and Fussell, D.S., Forward dynamics based realistic animation of rigid bodies, Computers & Graphics, Volume 21, Issue 4, July–August, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0097-8493(97)00024-1
[28] Thiebaux, M., Marsella, S., Marshall, AN. and Kallmann, M., “Smartbody: Behavior realization for embodied conversational agents”, Proc. of 7th Int. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, May,12-16., Estoril,Portugal, 2008.
[29] Stokes, M., “Improving the Performance of Skeletal Mesh Animations in the Blender Game Engine”, Master of Science in Computer Science, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Washington, 2014.
[30] Jung, Y. and Behr†, J., “Extending H-Anim and X3D for Advanced Animation Control”, Web3D ‘08 Proceedings of the 13th international symposium on 3D web technology, pp 57-65, New York, NY, USA, 2008.
[31] Basten, B.J.H. and Egges, A., “Evaluating distance metrics for animation blending”, ICFDG April 26-30, Orlando, FL, USA.Bijl, J. L. and Boer, C. A. (2011, December). Advanced 3D visualization for simulation using game technology. In Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 2815-2826). Winter Simulation Conference, 2009.
[32] Harris, A. C., “Design and implementation of an autonomous robotics simulator”, Doctoral dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2011.
[33] Maciel, A., Halic, T., Lu, Z., Nedel, LP., and De, S., Using the PhysX engine for physics-based virtual surgery with force feedback, The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp. 341–353, September 2009. https://doi.org/10.1002/rcs.266
[34] Kosmadoudi, Z., Lim, T., Ritchie, S., Liu, Y., and Sung, R., Engineering design using game-enhanced CAD: The potential to augment the user experience with game elements, Computer-Aided Design, Volume 45, Issue 3, Pages 777–795, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cad.2012.08.001
[35] Kosmadoudi, Z., Lim, T., Ritchie, J.M., Sung, R.C.W., Liu, Y., St?nescu I.A. and ?tefan A., “Game Interactivity in CAD as Productive Systems”, Procedia Computer Science Volume 15, 2012, pp. 285–288, 4th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES’12), 2012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2012.10.081
[36] Scacchi, W., “Computer game mods, modders, modding, and the mod scene”, Peer Review Journal on the Internet, Volume 15, Number 5 - 3 May, 2010.
[37] “Survival Shooter Tutorial- Unity 3D,” https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/survival-shooter-tutorial
[38] “Blueprint Twin Stick Shooter- Unreal Engine 4,” https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Videos/PLZlv_N0_O1gb5sdygbSiEU7hb0eomNLdq/
Downloads
Published
2017-12-14
Issue
Section
Articles
License
IJSG copyright information is provided here.
How to Cite
Overview and Comparative Analysis of Game Engines for Desktop and Mobile Devices. (2017). International Journal of Serious Games, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.17083/ijsg.v4i4.194
