Have you considered not using an engine at all, in favor of libraries? There are many amazing libraries I've used for game development - all in C/C++ - that you can piece together:

General: stb https://github.com/nothings/stb

2D Phys: box2d https://box2d.org/

UI / Editor: imgui https://github.com/ocornut/imgui

Platform: SDL https://www.libsdl.org/

Engine: Quake https://github.com/id-Software/Quake

Ok, Quake is more of an engine than a library - but it is well documented & widely used. Even many current day AAA engines are still originally based on the Q1 engine (though, of course, heavily modified over the years to stay modern).

I don't mean to bring down anyone but I feel like game engine announcements are a dime a dozen these days. As someone who has worked in the industry I'd favor putting together my own simple engine based on libraries for smaller scoped projects. Most open-source engines, I presume, are not really going to be battle tested, well-supported, well-funded etc. There are some exceptions of course (like Godot). If your goal is too complex; why not just use UE5 or Unity? Epic has been in the industry for a long time, Tim Sweeney is a really smart guy, and the engine has been widely used in AAA and indie games.

user:	bellgrove
created:	February 3, 2022
karma:	103