I've managed to get a small modicum of free time opened up so I'm exploring a cross-platform framework for creating games and simulations called Godot. It is a complete IDE for creating games and simulations for Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, and Android. The Godot scripting language is Pythonish and fairly easy to learn. Godot provides all of the tools to create 2D and 3D games with as much complexity as one would like. To aid my learning, I'm using a Udemy course named Discovering Godot. This course teaches Godot using the built-in GDScript, but Godot also supports C# development and that is discussed later in the course. My learning goal is to master Godot so that I can create simulations for my own projects and potentially clients as well.
Godot is Open Source and appears to be very well thought out and implemented. The integrated development environment (IDE) will be familiar to anyone who has worked with one of the other game creation IDEs (Unity, Unreal, etc.). The project team seems to have struck a nice balance between power and flexibilty which should ease the learning curve for those new to game / simulation development. The ability to generate standalone applications for all of the major platforms makes it easy to create mobile apps or desktop apps which for me is huge selling point.
In any case, I'll post more when I finish the course and build a couple of simulations...