So let's start by addressing the elephant in the room... Yes, we are switching back to Unity. We have some extremely good reasons for this!
Firstly, learning a new engine has proven to be quite the undertaking and doing that around university and a baby has proven to be nearly impossible. Add to this the fact that because of my irl commitments I am away from my main PC most of the time and am only able to work on a Macbook Pro, a system which doesn't run Unreal Engine and you begin to see the problem with using it. With our experience in Unity and these issues in mind, it became increasingly clear that in order to get this game done we would have to go back, so after much deliberation that's the decision we decided to make.
Some questions you may have:
Why didn't you switch to Godot? This was a valid option however it has one of the same problems that Unreal Engine had, that being the learning process. Speaking from my experience tinkering with Godot, I don't get along with the engine and don't feel confident that I'd be able to make a good game with it. To be clear this doesn't mean Godot is a bad engine, I actually think it's brilliant. It just means learning it hasn't felt natural to me.
Is development restarting or are you using the old Unity project? We're using the old Unity project but are rewriting a bunch of stuff based on what we've learnt from our time with Unreal Engine.
Does this mean the game is going to be 2.5d again? No. During our time with UE5 we've developed an artstyle which we think is going to be great, so we're going to stick with that. We think this is for the best.
Was learning Unreal Engine a waste? No. Speaking for myself, I plan on using Unreal Engine in the future when it's feasible for for me to do so. But more related to GORE, we've learnt a lot from Unreal Engine and want to apply some of that knowledge to Unity.
Why don't you just get a laptop that can run Unreal Engine 5 instead of working on a Macbook? I have no money lol
So yeah that's that. We jumped the gun on making that initial change and for that we apologise.
2023 has been a rollercoaster of a year in which we have learnt a tonne! From exploring new engines, techniques for creating art to personal achievements and life changing events, to say it's been chaotic is an understatement. However the lessons we have learned have been taken aboard and will only serve to make the final product better than it's ever been!
We hope you'll stick with us as we cannot wait to show you more! Apologies for not having much to show for a while but with how chaotic things have been we hope you understand.
We will have more to show soon.
Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. And a Happy New Year!
