Choosing a game engine is one of the first steps in designing a game, but it can also be one of the trickiest.

Do you choose an engine you already know and build a game around it? Or do you start with a type of game you enjoy, and choose a game engine as a secondary consideration?

Chicken and egg

Essentially, do you let the game dictate the engine, or the engine dictate the game?

PocketGamer.biz has been staying at a non-profit accelerator called Stugan in Sweden, where 23 developers have been working on games under the tutelage of mentors from Mojang, DICE and King.

Out of 15 teams, only one is using Unreal Engine 4, and one has made their own engine – the rest all use Unity.

It’s quite the skew, so we thought we’d catch up with the teams to ask how they went about choosing their engines in the first place.