> If you're not using an engine, with a good editor, then you're already firmly among a niche few.
Not really. SDL, SFML, Monogame and FNA (and more) do not have editors, but a lot of popular indie titles are shipped with them.
> folks who willingly toss all that aside to write a game from scratch are among the fringe
Check out Dear Imgui. Indie shops such as exok (makers of Celeste) and AAA companies such as Rockstar Games (GTA) use it to create editors for their games.
You don't really need an engine. You probably need a framework if you're going cross-platform. If you're exclusive, you don't even need that.
If we start depending on proprietary engines instead of platform APIs, we're shooting ourselves in the foot in the long-term.
I'm aware of options like SDL, Raylib et al; despite that, indie is still dominated by editor-heavy tools, like Unity. I've been shipping games for nearly 20y; indie and AAA, and good Editors always win.
Even programmer-focused pipelines tend to evolve into designer and artist focused pipelines over time. It's simple: Dear Imgui doesn't solve the problem of rapidly iterating on an asset from Blender/Maya/Houdini; or from rapidly iterating on level design and scripting; or rapidly iterating on sound import and design; or... Over the course of development many indie studios end up reinventing tools that are already cheap or freely available.
Not really. SDL, SFML, Monogame and FNA (and more) do not have editors, but a lot of popular indie titles are shipped with them.
> folks who willingly toss all that aside to write a game from scratch are among the fringe
Check out Dear Imgui. Indie shops such as exok (makers of Celeste) and AAA companies such as Rockstar Games (GTA) use it to create editors for their games.
You don't really need an engine. You probably need a framework if you're going cross-platform. If you're exclusive, you don't even need that.
If we start depending on proprietary engines instead of platform APIs, we're shooting ourselves in the foot in the long-term.