For 3D
Unity is probably the best choice for indie developers right now, that want a multiplatform development without complications. With Unity, you can develop and prototype games real fast with true WYSIWYG capabilities. Unity’s rendering & lighting capabilities are state of the art, supporting deffered lighting, occlusion culling, SSAO, the Beast lightmapper, many post-processing effect and many more. Unity has physics support from rigid bodies to soft bodies and cloth. Unity’s editor is a joy to work and the asset workflow is also very good. Programming can be done in C#, JavaScript or Boo but also Unity can be extended as it has already been done with some great addons. There exist vast resources and tutorials to get you started and a great community.
Unity Indie is free though it’s missing many features, while Unity Pro costs 1500$. If you want to develop for an iDevice or Android extra licenses must be bought.
Stonetrip Shiva3D is commonly compared to Unity for their similarities in way of use and price. Shiva offers a well integrated editor just like Unity that everything is made from within. Shiva games can be published to Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Android, Palm, PSP and Wii without complications as well. Shiva’s features are many just like anyone could expect from a modern game engine.
Shiva PLE is free but to publish a game there are two licenses with very few differences. One at 170E while the other at 1500E
Graphically, Leadwerks Engine is state of the art. Leadwerks Engine comes with a WYSIWYG editor to design your scenes but also to program them in the now supporting LUA scripting language. In essence, Leadwerks Engine’s games can be programmed with any language since the engine is compiled as a DLL. The supported languages though are C#, C++ and was Blitzmax. A shame they drop support on Blitzmax though, since it was my favorite. Anyway 
A big bonus is that the API of Leadwerks Engine, is probably the most clean, easy to understand than everything I’ve seen so far. The resources might not be as many as in other game engines, but they are well enough to get you along. Worth of note is that Leadwerks Engine 3 is in development and I can’t wait.
A big bonus is that the API of Leadwerks Engine, is probably the most clean, easy to understand than everything I’ve seen so far. The resources might not be as many as in other game engines, but they are well enough to get you along. Worth of note is that Leadwerks Engine 3 is in development and I can’t wait.
Leadwerks Engine 2 costs only 200E
I remember when Essenthel Engine was in early development and found it. I downloaded the demo and got amazed and after some years i am following it, I am still amazed by it’s progress. It support all common features out there and even more. Essenthel comes with an editor as all modern engines should and programming is done only in C++ unfortunately for me at least. The editor and the tools that come with Essenthel Engine are unfortunately very badly design and non intuitive. Essenthel games can also be published to any iDevice, which is a big plus.
Licenses range from 150$ to 400,000$ depending on how much income you have and the amount of source codes you want of the engine. Truth is that the 1000$ license will suit most just fine, with great access to source codes.
Although this engine is a bit obscured, GameCore 2.5, offers excellent graphics quality, deffered lighting, physics and one of the best editors and art pipeline I’ve seen. Importing a model and making a material for it is so straightforward. Games can be published to PC and Mac as well as on the Web. GameCore 2.5 has its own scripting language with a c-style syntax that’s easy to use.
GameCore 2.5 Indie is free with some minor limitations, while the Pro version costs 1500$.
S2 Engine HD is not yet released, but I felt like adding it in this list. From what it seems, S2Engine must be a great game engine featuring rich graphics, AI and fantastic editors.
It costs 200E or 2000E if you want the C++ SDK.
For 2D
Construct game engine is one of those gems that you fall upon randomly. Not kidding. It’s a game engine for 2D games development and possible one of the easiest since it require little or no programming at all, since it is based on a visual, event driven system instead of pure programming, similar to that of the old Multimedia Fusion software. Development is done inside Construct’s editor and the engine is expandable through it’s plugin architecture. I really recommend you take a look at this game engine since most importantly its free and open-source.
Gamemaker has been used to create many games. It’s a 2D game engine with many features in a well integrated editor. It has a visual event driven system but also support direct easy programming. The big plus of gamemaker is the great support, tutorials and real many plugins and addons that are out there to extend the engines capabilities.
Gamemaker 8 costs only 25$, but there is also a limited free edition.
Game Editor is another event driver game engine that is also open source. It has a nice and easy interface while there is the ability for multiplatform development, including Smartphones, Linux, iDevices and Mac. The documentation is good and there are also some tutorials to get you started.
AGS is a game engine to create classic 2D point & click adventures. It has been used to create a LOT adventure games with my personal favorite to be 7 Days a Skeptic. The whole development takes place in the AGS editor where you create the scene, walkable & clickable areas as well as UI and events. To create a simple adventure, no programming is requires although programming is supported for more advanced games. Don’t expect anything great in quality but hey…this is a targeted to classic old style adventure games.
AGS is free.
Similar to AGS, Visionaire Adventure Studio is an engine to create point & click adventures. Compared to AGS though, Visionaire Studio is a bit cleaner and has a bit more features like PNG support (AGS doesn’t) but certainly much better graphical quality. It’s similar to AGS as in the visual event system and defining walkable an clickable areas.
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