game-development

Choose based on project needs: Godot for 2D or open-source indie work, Unity for cross-platform and DOTS performance, Unreal for AAA 3D visuals with Nanite and Lumen. For web games, use Phaser for full 2D features or Three.js and Babylon.js for 3D.

Start with a State Machine for 3-5 discrete states like player movement. Add Object Pooling for frequently spawned entities, Observer patterns for cross-system events, and ECS only when handling thousands of similar entities where performance demands it.

Target 60 FPS (16.67ms budget) for most PC and web games, allocating roughly 5ms to rendering and 4ms to logic. VR requires a consistent 90 FPS minimum since a single dropped frame causes visible judder and motion sickness.

Use a dedicated authoritative server for competitive games and host-based architecture for casual co-op. Apply client prediction, interpolation for remote players, and lag compensation for hit detection, and never trust client-reported state.

Use WebGPU with a WebGL fallback for new projects, since support now covers roughly 73% of global browsers including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Detect support via navigator.gpu and fall back to WebGL for legacy compatibility.