When comparing Esenthel vs Goo Create, the Slant community recommends Esenthel for most people. In the question“What are the best 3D game engines?” Esenthel is ranked 19th while Goo Create is ranked 54th. The most important reason people chose Esenthel is:
Esenthel has a built-in code editor which drastically simplifies the programming process. Programming with Esenthel is based on C++, however, when using the code editor there's no need to make separate .cpp or .h files. Code can be written once and the editor will be separating definitions and declarations automatically in the background allowing for quicker development.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Quicker development by using the integrated code editor
Esenthel has a built-in code editor which drastically simplifies the programming process.
Programming with Esenthel is based on C++, however, when using the code editor there's no need to make separate .cpp or .h files. Code can be written once and the editor will be separating definitions and declarations automatically in the background allowing for quicker development.
Pro Can be easily extended
Built in pure C++ so it is easy to use and extend however needed.
Pro Available on Steam
Pro Can be used for collaborative development
Esenthel comes with tools allowing for multiple developers to work on one project at the same time in collaborative mode. Every change made is instantly visible by other team members.
Pro Engine issues are resolved quickly
The author is very device minded and able to handle any problem quickly and effectively and he has a good track record of listening to requests.
Pro Access to full source code
Having easy access to the full source makes it possible for any skilled developer to add features that a project requires.
Pro Attractive licensing
Free to try, with license as cheap as 9.50$/month (with yearly subscription), 11.40$/month (monthly subscription) or full source code license 228$/year.
Pro Incredibly stable
The engine is rock solid and stable which, considering its extensive feature set, is a huge plus for game developers
Pro Helpful and responsive forum
Pro Good support for Android and iOS
Android and iOS support is pretty stable and easy to develop on. It's possible to, for example, develop the entire game on Windows or Mac and then easily compile for Android and iOS.
Pro Can import a wide variety of formats
- 3D - FBX, DAE, OBJ, 3DS, B3D, MS3D, BVH, ASE, PSK/PSA
- 2D - BMP, PNG, JPG, TGA, DDS, TIF, WEBP, PSD, ICO
- Videos - VP9, Theora
- Sounds - OGG, WAV, MP3 (once decoding patents expire)
Pro Constant development and progress
New features or update to features are provided monthly.
Pro Supports in-app purchases
IAP support for both mobile and desktop devices.
Pro Supports multiple compression libraries
LZMA, LZHAM, LZ4, ZLIB, Snappy, RLE
Pro Oculus Rift native support
Oculus Rift API integrated into the engine platform.
Pro Supports modern graphics and sound APIs
- Graphics - DirectX 9/10/11, OpenGL, OpenGL ES, WebGL
- Sound - DirectSound, OpenAL, OpenSL
Pro Rock solid
Pro Really small project/game download sizes
Since GooCreate is native to the Web and uses WebGL directly, finished projects usually have a much smaller (sometimes orders of magnitude) download sizes compared to tools like Unity.
Pro Visual State Machine Editor
The visual state machine editor in GooCreate enables the addition of advanced interactivity without having to directly code it in JavaScript. Artists can add movement to objects, react to clicks and other events or even trigger changes in other state machines via events.
Pro Scripting via the JavaScript programming language
Pro Integrated physics engine (Cannon.js)
GooCreate is tightly integrated with the Cannon.js physics engine making it super simple to add advanced physics simulations to any project. Cannon.js is available at http://www.cannonjs.org/.
Pro Web based scene editor, no installation or plugin needed
Pro Particle systems
Pro Open game engine and physics engine
The Goo.js engine is fully open source and available at https://github.com/GooTechnologies/goojs
Pro FBX model importer supporting embedded textures and skin based animation
Pro Real-time WYSIWYG Hierarchical scene graph editor
Pro Advanced Code/Text Editor with auto completion for Engine APIs
Pro Custom publishing template CSS and JavaScript
Usually when publishing you are forced to use a template provided by the service (with a logo, social buttons, etc) or you have to download the project to customize it. In GooCreate you can pick from a few different configurable templates and then, if that is not enough, you can add custom CSS and JavaScript that gets added to the page header (i.e. JS and CSS will be run/applied before the scene even starts to load) letting you style the loading screen and any other aspects of the page without having to download anything and still being able to make use of the hosting service GooCreate provides.
Pro Good material editor
Material editor supports diffuse color, normal maps, specularity, emissiveness, opacity, reflectivity and refractivity.
Pro Timeline editor to animate entities
Pro Projects can be distributed via a web link or packaged for Android and iOS
Pro Good variety of post effects
Post effects including bloom, motion blur, anti aliasing, levels, contrast, vignette and edge detection.
Cons
Con One-man developer
Although the complete engine is maintained by a single, highly-skilled individual, he can be limited to what he is able to see or perceive, and sometimes he doesn't recognize broken or incomplete features until he sees it firsthand and sometimes doesn't recognize valid reports from his users. But when he does recognize the gap in the engine's feature-set, he is quick to make adjustments and updates.
Con Lack of in-depth tutorials
There are plenty of beginner coding tutorials which serve as a basic introduction for a new user to get up to speed, but once having passed that stage there is a real lack of free more advanced tutorials/examples/code snippets demonstrating the finer details of the vast and varied API functions.
Con Slow roadmap implementation
Bugs are fixed promptly, but the developer maintains a growing 'roadmap' of features with no indication to users of time frame and priority of feature implementation.
Con Lack of editing tools
Con Web support practically non-existing
Web support exists only on paper. The way it works is that Emscripten is used to convert an entire project to unreadable Javascript. That practically only works for very simple demos, no real-world projects.
Con Expensive
Con Going out of business
Goo create is facing bankruptcy.