Downgrading from engine to toolkit

While I was discussing the release or not of Bold Pixel Engine, I came to the conclusion that it was not an engine, but a framework. What’s really the difference I wonder… I don’t know, but I did conclude that. Without googling for some reasoning and from the experience I have with game engines (not a lot but enough for what I’m about to write) I’d say that an engine runs while your game logic is processed.

On the other hand, a framework is a pre-build codebase that you use to raise your productivity. It does most of the work and takes control of the most obnoxious tasks. Our engine does that but it does not run while processing logic.

So it was kinda easy to conclude it is a framework, but not an engine.

Then I found out that a framework will take control of the dreadful tasks by creating automation for it. That would be an issue I read and I read that a toolkit is a much simpler approach, with a much lower maintenance overhead that assumes the programmer is in control of getting it done, while the toolkit only provides functionality.

“Damn!” I thought while I was reading… our engine is a toolkit.

And what’s the purpose of this post? None! While semantics are being discussed, our engine is currently being used to create games. And we will call it engine because regardless of what we call it, it will do what it was designed to do and because we really love the notion of engine regardless of the actual name being right or wrong.

So, engine, framework or toolkit: Bold Pixel Engine is alive and well and it will be released freely as soon as it has some games out just to be sure that it is stable enough for game development.