I guess I should mention... I did write a maze game for a final project in a different class with it. This semester, I was one of the few that actually wanted to work hard on my engine. I just find it really fun because there's so many problems you have to think about when developing an engine, and even more solutions. It's very rewarding for the brain.

This semester, I used an app to keep track of how much time I put into every class.

- game engine: 106 hrs

- AI: 10 hrs

- physics: 10 hrs

- ogre: 12 hrs

As you can tell, my game engine was the thing I worked nearly every day on, mostly late at night. If I took an assumption about my class average on hours put into their game engines, I'd say a safe guess is around 15 hours if we don't include my time and the 2 others who also put an insane amount of time into their engines (it was pretty much a competition between 3 friends to outdo each other).

Back to making my maze game... We had the entire semester to work on either a solar system or a maze game. I pumped out the maze game in 3 hours with my engine on the day it was due. The thing is, I was confident with my engine. I put so much work into it, and I understand how it worked under the hood, that I knew I could produce something very fast and easily with it.

The game itself was simple. Have a first-person camera walk around the maze, pick up a key, and then go to the maze exit and open the door. Even though I did it in 3 hours, I also included the ability to pick up a gun, attach it to the camera like an FPS; added a skybox; added a simple sin wave twirl for objects sitting on the ground; and a few other small details here and there.

Anyways, sorry I went on for a little bit there. I'm just really happy with how much my engine is progressing, but it still needs a lot of work and polish. I'm way more open minded now after this discussion. I feel confident about not needing inhetitance now, especially since I feel like in a couple months I might port everything to Rust.

I also realize that it was very risky leaving that project until the last minute. If I ran into an issue, it could have severely messed up my mark. Making a game at the same time as an engine does indeed help with the engine development, I see the benefits of doing so. When I get a chance to continue working on it, I will probably continue developing the maze game along side it.

Anyways, thanks for those links, I'll be checking them out tonight!