$12256 / $11500
Hey ! I'm working on an artsy sort of game. Story driven with no combat system neccessary.
I'm trying to figure out what program will do what I need it to do with as little bloat as possible. I've tried a few, but I've yet to start actually programming my game (instead I've been practicing with small things like space shooters n the like).
I've tried :
RPGMaker - (Would work, I THINK, but has a lot of features I don't need for this, and I'd have to install a whole bunch of scripts to get it looking the way I want it to)
Stencyl - easy coding but it almost feels like cheating, I don't know if it's able to do what I need it to do, either.
Gamemaker - Wasn't crazy about it. The language seemed strange and I ended up with a bunch of bugs due to version differences and operating with the free version.
I need to be able to do the following :
- Small Menu system w/ 5 slot inventory displayed on screen.
- Huge dialogue trees and choice systems dependant on karma variable
- Karma variable that updates the player's sprite
- 2D Graphics
- displayed busts akin to Fire Emblem / RPGMaker (w/ scripts) during dialogue with varying emotions.
- Movable and pushable objets that can lock into place and are also interactable (dialogue)
I really like the Scene creator in Stencyl and the event system is very nice, But I don't want to start working on the game and hit a roadblock in Stencyl because it's simply unable to do what I need it to do. :/
Any suggestions?
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If I were you, I would start looking for an Open-Source game engine. If it is open source, and you hit a road-block due to some unsupported feature, you can try to hack it in yourself. It may also help for you to locate several commercial engines but take note of their features carefully to assure they don't conflict with your implementation ideas.
There is a popular open source game engine written in C++ called FLARE here. It does require a greater degree of competence to use than i.e. GameMaker, but I thought I would mention it anyways. Ofcourse, there is also the Orange Engine.
Also, I am working on a game engine in Java right now. It isn't nearly as mature as RpgMaker or FLARE. Since it is still in very early development the code is very 'dynamic' - by that I mean there are usually code refactors that _might_ break overlaying implementation.
You can find FLARE here:
http://flarerpg.org/
You can find Orange Engine here:
http://opengameart.org/forums/orange-engine
You can find JevaEngine here:
https://github.com/JeremyWildsmith/JevaEngineSrc
Both Flare & JevaEngine have steep learning curves, and I would personally recommend FLARE over JevaEngine atm. Flare also has a community to help you out.
I'll look into those thanks !
I feel like my head is bursting with ideas but I need to learn programming first, there's really no getting around that.
I guess I'll distract myself / clear my head during practice with spriting. c:
Thanks for the suggestions !
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We all have ideas. Ideas are easy.
That said, why wouldn't RPG Maker work for you? Stencyl is also pretty nice, but I would honestly prefer to use RPG Maker if my goal is to make a desktop game. Both are extensible and easy to work with, but Stencyl is focusing more on HTML5 and Flash, while RPG Maker focuses on desktop applications.
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I'd like to mention that Unity has improved it's 2D features immensely in their last release. It's also quite simple to work with and in principle similar to Stencyl. You can use the event system in a very similar manner to stencyl but you'll need to read up a little on it.
Stencyl is a good place to begin if you're new to programming. You will likely realize that it can't do everything you want, in your case I think that you may hit some sngs when it comes to dynamically update sprites and create particle effect but I'm not entirely sure what you need to do :)
As you mention you have lots of ideas, try implementing one simple game in stencyl and one in unity or some other engine and see what you like most.
For me as a programmer it was hard to get used to the ECS-style of unity and other game engines and I think I maybe should have tried stencyl just to get used to behaviours and actors but coming from another background that may seem more logical to you :)