Hello folks! How's everyone doing? This is a long post. There's a TL;DR at the bottom. :)
My name is Sands and I am a writer. I have stories that I'd like to convey via games. I'd like to push out my first few published works myself, almost entirely me (art, programming, writing; will outsource audio), simply to get something under my belt and perhaps improve my skills for writing specifically for games. After which I'll probably focus almost solely on writing stuff that may or may not be chewed up into someone else's productions.
Now, I can draw, and I can code, but the extent to which I can do these things are far from the levels required for me to award myself with the mantle of "pimp supreme master creator of everything awesome." It would be nothing short of an outrageous lie to call myself either an artist or a programmer. Yet, I can operate to a certain degree within existing frameworks. It is with this in mind that I am looking for the ideal engine to create my initial works.
The game I'm trying to go for is not exceedingly dissimilar from every 2D top-down perspective RPG you've ever played. Of course what I have in mind is different, but it will be within that continuum, not some cutting-edge AAA title. What I have in my mind are the games I wanted to play on the SNES when I was 5. I'm looking for a game engine that will help me achieve this goal.
Now, again, I know code. That is, I can read it, understand what it does, and learn how to manipulate it to do something closer to what I want. But I cannot lay golden eggs of programming genius because I am not a programmer. This is why I don't just do everything from scratch in Visual Studio or something similar. I'm looking for something with an existing framework that I can adapt to my wants and needs.
I've looked at dozens of engines that each claim to be the end-all solution for newcomers to the development arena wanting to create an RPG. I find pros and cons with each one. In truth I can probably settle for any of a handful of these and work within the confines they have, but I wanted to gather some thoughts and insight from people who have more experience than I do in this field.
The following list is as follows: Name of engine; something I really, really like; something I really, really don't like.
RPG Maker Family - So many things on both pros and cons list that I don't even know where to start. This one was the first one I came across that wasn't "Let's Make a Pokemon/Zelda ripoff!" so it has that going for it at any rate.
EasyRPG - Compatible with a couple of engines in the RPG Maker family and usage is relatable; more confining than RPG Maker.
RPG Creator - More customizable, but lacks a lot of features I'd really like to be able to use.
Engine 001 - Can be used to create more than one mode of play (e.g., move man, kill thing or jump on thing and do other thing) but also requires more work out of the box.
RPGBoss - Similar to RPG Maker, which is mostly good just because I already know how to use it; to call it boned may imply that it is working in a less-than-optimal manner, and I don't want to imply that it is working for me.
Eclipse Origins - Has all kinds of good stuff that the others don't; also has stuff I don't need/want, probably because it's meant for online play. Wondering how much of that gunk can be scooped out or if they'd even let me repurpose their engine to suit my needs.
It may be easier to go over what I want and need.
RPG Maker VX Ace lets me use OGVs. I don't necessarily like the format but I do like that I can render a city in 3D and do something like a parallax scene of the place the first time my totally bitchin' sorceress visits the place, or dramatic events like hey, meteors are falling and we're all going to die. Videos can be implemented in other engines, but through some sorcery, whereas in this one I can just "do it" and it's done. Same with audios.
What it doesn't have is optimal resolution. With a ruby script some cool dude wrote up, it can go up to 640x480. Which is, yea, better than the snes' 256x224 but I'm wanting 1024x768, or at the very least 800x600.
I'm also looking for a side-view battle system, like that found in snes Final Fantasy, Star Ocean without the bells and whistles, not the style provided in Ace where my totally bitchin' sorceress is invisible and I have a static enemy who's all "sup, 23 damage" because it has that *Sands rolls D20 and 2D6* feel to it and that's not the feel I'm trying to cop here.
There's also not a whole lot in the way of framework in Ace. If you've played Star Ocean or any of a million other games, you can level up, sure, but you can also invest in specific skills to level up different aspects, creating something of a unique character. My bitchin' sorceress might not be all that much in ice magic, but she's got fire dialed in, toastin' those marshmallows, whereas yours, same character, might not be able to light a match but can do some pretty cool stuff with lightning. Yes, I can write up a system in ruby and implement it in a sloppy hack but, you know, I'd rather not.
I also want to enable players to map buttons. For that matter, I want to be able to map buttons. I want to press M and see a map that shows me where I am, cities I've been to, and whatever else I want to show players. I want to hold down shift and run. I want to hit F5 to quicksave and F9 to quickload. Ace doesn't allow for that.
Worth noting: I've also explored Flash-based options. A lot of people out there with good games. I'm especially fond of:
garin's Monsters' Den series, Chronicles in particular, and I am eagerly awaiting an update on his progress on Godfall. Since I'm talking about it, he's thinking about putting together a Kickstarter. If and when that happens, you should definitely contribute.
Kupo's Epic Battle Fantasy series. Super good stuff. It's cutesy and serious and fun and engaging and overall a great Flash RPG. If I didn't feel like the series was "done" I'd be begging for another installment. My spine still gets shivers when I hear that music...
But as much as I like playing Flash games, Flash itself is a platform and not an engine. It'd be the same as writing a game from scratch in C++ on Visual Studio, apart from I'd be able to upload it on Newgrounds. As cool as that would be, this goes back to me being a non-programmer. It's not a talent I have, it's not a skill I need in the long run since I'm only doing 2-3 independent games, tops, then I'll just write.
There are "engines" of sorts for Flash, and I have checked them out, but nothing comes even remotely close to what I'm looking for. Which is sad because a lot of my wants and needs that are overlooked in these engines I've looked at could be easily remedied in Flash.
So. With all that said, here's what it boils down to:
TL;DR: What RPG engine(s) have you used and enjoyed enough that you would recommend it to others?
