The game engine is a core software component of computer and video games and other interactive graphics applications processed in real time. It provides the basic set of demanded technologies, simplifies development, and often gives the desired opportunity to run the game on multiple platforms, e.g. game consoles and desktop operating systems, such as GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
The term ‘game engine’ refers to a whole range of applications, including the rendering engine for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, network code, streaming, memory management, threading, and a scene interface. Strictly speaking, all the code written by programmers in the development of the game represents the components of the engine; gameplay is defined by functions implemented in these components.