Thoughts on Ogre, PhyreEngine, Cocos2d-x and Construct2

Through my career as game programmer, whether as a hobby

or as way of living I've used several engines, but the ones

i've used the most are Ogre, PhyreEngine, Cocos2d-x and Construct2.

I want to share a bit of what I've perceived on this rendering

Engines, particularly about the power, architecture and

ease of use they have.

OGRE

I think Ogre should be one of the KEYS to learn game programming.

It is VERY powerful, yet very easy to use and master. I used

it for many projects, videogames and VR alike, and honestly

speaking, I could not find something I could not do through

Ogre. Something I particularly enjoyed about Ogre is that its

so well planned, maybe I didn't know how to accomplish this or

that, but I just could sit down for a moment or two, and GUESS

how to do it, because its so well planned, that everything works

in the same way. There was this killer combination of libraries

that I found when using Ogre. 

Ogre + Bullet or Newton + dotSceneFormat

+ OpenAL + BETAGui + CG + Theora for Videos. 

With this libraries, 

I felt unstoppable. The community is very active, and very helpful.

I ended up smashing into a wall, when I tried to port Ogre

to the PS3 platform though. After a few days trying to port Ogre

to then Port my game, I felt it was faster to rewrite my game from

scratch, and thats when I met PhyreEngine.

PhyreEngine

Phyre is like an amazing opportunity for PS Developers. Though is not

as user friendly as UDK, or Havok, it is FREE and you get access

to many things reserved for Engines that cost a lot. When I mean

its not user friendly, I really mean it; I have found classes that have

SETTERS but dont have GETTERS, so I have to store that variable

outside that particular class; other times I have found that the programmers

FORGOT to uncomment this or that and that was WHY my code

was not working. BUT, if you want to program a videogame

for Sony platforms like a pro, but do not have the money, Phyre

is definitely a great option, you have to have the guts to get

deep into the Phyre source code and change it if you need to.

I am working currently working with Phyre in two projects,

and now that I have tamed it, I really enjoy it, and enjoy

the computing power it gives me.

Cocos2D-x

I am a 3d person, I do not tend to feel comfortable with

2D engines, there is something I just dont quite get about making

2D games, BUT if I have to do something in 2D, Cocos2D-x is

definitely my first choice. Aside from all that internal memory

management, like RETAIN and RELEASE that have become

very usual, I really like the architecture of Cocos2D-x; I dont think

the architecture is AS GOOD as Ogre's, and its definitely less

elegant, but its still very good. There is something I dont

really like about the name of the functions and methods, I think

they are elusive to understand for a new comer, I believe Ogre

is way more practical in the naming and general accessing

of characteristics, but it should still be easy to learn.

Construct2

I was amazed when I met this software. Im not normally

very keen to non-programming softwares to create games but

Construct2 beat me. It was very easy, and if you were an

artist and wanted to created your html5 game, Construct2

could definitely be at hand. For me, as a programmer, it

was sometimes cumbersome to use the software, I kept

thinking, I could do something so easily by code, and

in construct it had to be such a pain, but I could get

a game running in less than a week. For hobby programmers,

artists or work for hire games, Construct2 its worth the time.

Also its extremely cheap, 100USD for the complete version.

 Construct2 Game, created in 1 week

 Ogre game demo running in iOS

Phyre game demo running on PSVita