What GameEngine for my first project

[Stened91]

Hi. Me and my cusin want to try to make a game. Nothing big, just to poke around and see what we can do. We want to work together but from two different computers. We are learning programming in school. We are new to this so we need some help finding a "noob" friendly engine. We have been looking into Unity, only thing there is that it seems like we need alot of other programms to make a game work in unity and we cant make the game collaborative (working on the same world realtime). We have looked at HeroEngine. Seems like it has kinda poor graphics, but easy to use and we can make the game collaborative. We are not sure of all of this. Thats why we come here.

Have someone that have used these please help us? Maby some Pro/Cons for the engines. And you are free to suggest other engines.
But we want to make a RPG game. The gameengine needs to provide "ok" graphics. Easy to use. Easy to work with other people at the same time.


Thanks guys!

[ldev]

Unity? HeroEngine? And complain about graphics?

Okay, get real now - pick up a simple 2D Python or JavaScript game engine and thank me later.

[barackopala]

Go with rpg maker then <-<

[Fencers]

Probably working outside your league by jumping into either Unity or HeroEngine if you are asking here. Set you sights way, way low for a first time project.

There are some easy/user friendly Python based engines. Like PythonGame.

Stencyl is also really good for making simple games that can work cross platform. And is very low in required know-how, thus one can get a game "working" relatively quickly. Rather than having like a bunch of files that have no function between them who-knows-where-the-eff.

http://www.stencyl.com/

There is also something like Torque. Which has easy C++ like scripting and so forth. It's a full on engine solution that is pretty cheap and should be understandable with minor programming experience.

http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d

[Azrile]

Hi. Me and my cusin want to try to make a game. Nothing big, just to poke around and see what we can do. We want to work together but from two different computers. We are learning programming in school. We are new to this so we need some help finding a "noob" friendly engine. We have been looking into Unity, only thing there is that it seems like we need alot of other programms to make a game work in unity and we cant make the game collaborative (working on the same world realtime). We have looked at HeroEngine. Seems like it has kinda poor graphics, but easy to use and we can make the game collaborative. We are not sure of all of this. Thats why we come here.

Have someone that have used these please help us? Maby some Pro/Cons for the engines. And you are free to suggest other engines.
But we want to make a RPG game. The gameengine needs to provide "ok" graphics. Easy to use. Easy to work with other people at the same time.


Thanks guys!

Unity is by far the easiest to make any type of decent game. I am not sure what you mean by ´other programs´ but there isn´t really anything you need unless you want to make it a multiplayer game, which you should never do as your first project.

If you really want to learn to make games, use Unity to re-create another game as your first project. Asteroids, Pac-man, Angry birds..

[Deleted]

For 2d/2.5d games, if you good with those, Corona SDK is pretty solid and very easy to start up and running, it does games like PopRaiders, and loads of others you can go look at their showcase.

Unity might be too hard to start off, plus if you want lessons for Corona they got nice folks on the forum who can teach you as well.

[Deleted]

GameMaker Studio is pretty good for 2d if you want to reconsider where you're starting.

[Stened91]

Well how is this engines when working together with other people? Becouse this is a 2 man project. And we are going to use ALOT of time on it. Like we might not release anything or be done with one project, we just want to test/poke/learn

[Tommy T]

You're seriously underestimating how technical game making is.

Let me put it this way. In C++, it takes a few lines for the computer to output "Hello World". Imagine how much code you're going to need for a playable game. You need to start right at the bottom. No point jumping into the deep end, because you'll just lose all motivation.

[Stened91]

Where whould you start then?

[Tommy T]

Where whould you start then?

Don't even think about games until you can build some basic programs.

[bbr]

RPGMaker VX Ace - got all you need, and you can probably get a copy off someone who bought a ton from HB for 1$ a piece.

it's easy as heck to make a simple rpg.

[zealo]

Where whould you start then?

Start with basic console applications and work your way up from there. Try to do a text based game once you have the rough basics down and move to simple 2d from there.

[Blueobelisk]

Oh oh. Ask me. I'm pro at Unity.

That said, lol if you don't know the coding the scripts are gonna be impossible for you. Unless you spend like months looking through the documentation to learn the API's you're not getting far.

Graphics are...any engine is gonna have sample graphics.

And lol. You want to work together in real time? That seems unrealistic. I don't know what game engine would do that.

[Pejo]

I'm thinking he just means need a source repo, or tools that one built on....god, I hope so. P.S. Use Git...though I prefer TFS myself.

Some great examples above with RPGMaker, GameMaker, different Python engines, etc. As you've been able to tell, stay away from Unity, Hero, Unreal, etc until you have more experience under your belt.

[Deleted]

Try Clickteam Fusion 2.5 www .clickteam.com/

[bbr]

I'm thinking he just means need a source repo, or tools that one built on....god, I hope so. P.S. Use Git...though I prefer TFS myself.

Some great examples above with RPGMaker, GameMaker, different Python engines, etc. As you've been able to tell, stay away from Unity, Hero, Unreal, etc until you have more experience under your belt.

Git is perfect tbh, you can combine it with smartgit.
And those can connect to bitbucket and github. both free. (all are free actually)


You can import work in rpgmaker - though it's a bit of a hassle.
realtime, not an option, even with git i suspect.

[thurizas]

Well how is this engines when working together with other people? Becouse this is a 2 man project. And we are going to use ALOT of time on it. Like we might not release anything or be done with one project, we just want to test/poke/learn

you seem to be missing some basic information on code development.

ok, so you and your cousin want to work collaboratively on a project. So this means you will need:

(1) two copies of the development environment, one for him and one for you.
(2) two copies of the engine and engine SDK, again one for him and one for you. Given that each of you need a copy of the engine, the cost of the engine might be a major driving point. You may want to look at this list. Stick to the open-source or freeware lists (although I would recommend the open-source ones). Things you should keep in mind when looking at this list is (a) the language used (b) the targeted platform and (c) 2D vs 3D.
(3) some method of sharing the code and keep track of what is going on. For this I would recommend something like setting up a sourceforce site.

- - - Updated - - -

Where whould you start then?

I would look at the following links (books):

web-sites:
getting started in game programming

game programming for teens This one is written by a 13-year old and goes through the development of a simple game.


book:
Game Programming for Teens
Beginning Game Programming

[Blueobelisk]

Git is perfect tbh, you can combine it with smartgit.
And those can connect to bitbucket and github. both free. (all are free actually)

Lol, GIT is free if you want to make the project open source. I pay $7 a month for 5 private repositories. Unlimited collaborators.

I might switch over to bitbucket that has a limited number of collaborators and unlimited number of free repositories. Dunno prices.