What is an “engine” in video games

Question

I hear it everywherere “this game is gonna use that engine” … Google doesn’t seem to give me a good explanation, so here I am…

In: 1094

Answer 1

Late to this party, but consider poker, or whatever game the cool kids play these days. The rules and instructions for playing poker are the “game”, but the dealer is the “game engine”; the rules, for instance, say “give 5 cards to each player”, but the dealer is the one that actually knows how and does it.

Similarly, the game decides what it wants to draw on the screen, what sound it wants to play and when, how it wants to interpret inputs, but it’s the game *engine* that actually draws the thing, plays the sound, or reports “the player just pressed Q”.