[ccvannorman]

Game dev here, building a game using the "engine-only" version of PlayCanvas (a 3d engine). Asset loading, rendering, physics, object management, update loops, raycasting is all handled by the engine (js). My code is everything else, including a low-tech drag and drop scene editor.

I've got to say it's the deepest I've ever been in the abstraction stack for building a game. I have to hand build everything. I definitely wouldn't want to write engine code itself unless I was building an engine; building a good engine takes heaps of engineering and time which I don't have.

I will say though, I absolutely love the level of fine control I have over every aspect of my game (when compared say to a Unity game or even a PlayCanvas game built by their editor).