Do you mind sharing a link or game name? Despite all the advice out there picking up a game engine, I too am pursuing a goal of making a game from scratch using simple parts of C++ and SFML for now, but was also looking at SDL and Sokol. What was your experience? Are you a solo dev? Was it worth it?
Not the parent, but I also use sokol as the base for my engine. I've shipped 3 3d web games with it, and honestly it was the best technical decision I ever made! There's just so much to be said for owning all your dependencies (as far as possible, sokol is still a dependency but it's way more manageable than a 3rd party game engine)
Do you mind to share your games details? No judging, I promise :)
I just need examples from people like me and not AAA studios for motivation sake. I literally was called an idiot for not choosing Unity or Unreal, and was turned down for collaboration with non-tech people just for that. Game dev landscape is crazy these days.
It totally depends on the type of game you want to make, whether using an existing engine or rolling your own is the best option. This is one of the games I've made with my engine: https://poki.com/en/g/super-tunnel-rush
My one tip is only make enough of the engine to support the game you're writing, and write the game at the same time as the engine (don't think you need to finish the engine before you can start writing the game, that route doesn't work out well :)