2d Engine Recommendation

[Tom]

Hey there everybody, I'm planning on developing a 2d game and I need an engine for it because I don't have the skill or inclination to craft my own from scratch. Here's a little about my skill level and what I'm looking for in an engine:

I understand coding and I have some experience with it - give me some reasonably well commented code and I can figure out how it works and why - but I am in no means a "programmer." That said, I have no problem learning and using a scripting language. Having to delve into coding more deeply isn't something that sends shivers up and down and up my spine again but I would rather spend that time on gameplay tweaks, level design, story design, etc etc.

I'm looking for something that will give me a visual editor for level building, entity management, asset management and so forth. I don't need something that will hold my hand at every step of the way but I do want a reasonably streamlined environment. I don't have a whole lot of free time so I'm looking for something that's simple enough for me to have a reasonable concept to prototype turnaround time.

I've used Torque Game Builder and I found it to be a pretty good option but before I dropped the cash for the license I wanted to see if there were any suggestions for other options that I may have missed.

[steelcobra]

Hey there everybody, I'm planning on developing a 2d game and I need an engine for it because I don't have the skill or inclination to craft my own from scratch. Here's a little about my skill level and what I'm looking for in an engine:

I understand coding and I have some experience with it - give me some reasonably well commented code and I can figure out how it works and why - but I am in no means a "programmer." That said, I have no problem learning and using a scripting language. Having to delve into coding more deeply isn't something that sends shivers up and down and up my spine again but I would rather spend that time on gameplay tweaks, level design, story design, etc etc.

I'm looking for something that will give me a visual editor for level building, entity management, asset management and so forth. I don't need something that will hold my hand at every step of the way but I do want a reasonably streamlined environment. I don't have a whole lot of free time so I'm looking for something that's simple enough for me to have a reasonable concept to prototype turnaround time.

I've used Torque Game Builder and I found it to be a pretty good option but before I dropped the cash for the license I wanted to see if there were any suggestions for other options that I may have missed.

Flash? XNA?

[Tom]

Flash? XNA?

I'm not 100% up to speed on Flash, but I want something that's distributable and self-contained and I was under the impression that Flash games require the user to have Flash Player installed.

Does XNA have an IDE and any graphical editors or no? I don't want to reinvent the wheel which is why I'm looking for an engine rather then a more general platform.

Thanks for the quick feedback :)

[Brokenscope]

XNA isn't an engine, it is a rather full featured development kit, but you would have to do some building from the ground up, which you don't want to do.

I would suggest looking at some open source engines, I personally can't recommend any by name. The big issue you will see it that most of them don't use scripting, you just toss in more code.

[KN]

If you want a simple, yet very deep platformer engine, I think Knytt Stories (http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories) will do.

If you want to make an RPG or something, I dunno. There's too many engines for that out there.

[Brokenscope]

Actually just out of curiosity, can anyone suggest a good top down or 3/4 engine?

[kurisu7885]

Actually just out of curiosity, can anyone suggest a good top down or 3/4 engine?
Only top downs I can think of is RM2K and RM2K3.

[Tom]

If you want a simple, yet very deep platformer engine, I think Knytt Stories (http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=02Knytt_Stories) will do.

If you want to make an RPG or something, I dunno. There's too many engines for that out there.

That's a pretty cool little game. I'm not going for a straight platformer, though, so it might end up being a little limited.

It seems as though there are plenty of 3d engines out there that almost do what I want but with additional complexity that I won't need and then a bunch of 2d engines that are too simple or specialized. I'm beginning to think that Torque Game Builder is going to be the best way to go.

RPG Maker is good for top-down RPGs and you can do a 3/4 style with it. Wintermute is an adventure game engine that might also do 3/4 style effectively, I imagine. http://dead-code.org/home/

[JustChris]

You say that you have some experience with programming but don't say in what languages, or what basic programming concepts do you know. Do you know any C++? If you want to dive into the programming end, then SDL is a good framework to go with. It's simple to process images and interaction with the user, and it's what many C++ beginners start to use after moving on from text-only games.

[ezacharyk]

If you are looking for some quick and dirty game development, you should try Game Maker. It is a visual game development suite that lets you script in custom actions into the level you build. There is a free version as well as a paid for version. I believe that you need the pay for version to make executables.

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/

[RELgames]

If you are looking for some quick and dirty game development, you should try Game Maker. It is a visual game development suite that lets you script in custom actions into the level you build. There is a free version as well as a paid for version. I believe that you need the pay for version to make executables.

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/


I ditto the Game Maker suggestion. I just started messing with it myself. It seems very user friendly from what I have used so far. I only have a basic knowledge of programming, so Game Maker is very helpful in that respect. I have never used Torgue, so I can't compare the two in detail, but my guess would be Game Maker is probably a bit watered down by comparison. On the plus side I think the pay version of Game Maker is only $25.