Hi, whats a good game engine for a first time game maker? Iv always wanted to make a game but really don’t know where to start. Game maker and Stencyl feel a bit weird and off. I have a lot of experience and feel very confident using Java but iv only used it to record data, for mathematical programs, or for school ect. What is a engine I could consider using and that you guys would recommend?
Thanks,
Lurker
[quote=“Lurker, post:1, topic:1220”]Hi, whats a good game engine for a first time game maker? Iv always wanted to make a game but really don’t know where to start. Game maker and Stencyl feel a bit weird and off. I have a lot of experience and feel very confident using Java but iv only used it to record data, for mathematical programs, or for school ect. What is a engine I could consider using and that you guys would recommend?
Thanks,
Lurker[/quote]
I think the first thing that you need to ask yourself is what type of game do you want to try and make? For instance, if you wanted to make a text-based game, there’s plenty of engines already available out there that would be better suited for that, like Twine. If you wanted to make a graphical game, you have things like RPGMaker or stuff built for standard languages like Java or C. If you wanted to make a browser game, there’s things like CanvasJS, Flash, etc… And so on.
If this is your first time, I’d recommend messing around with a text-based game, since those tend to be the easier games to deal with. It’ll help you understand some of the broader points of game design, get your feet wet a little with some of the challenges in making a game, and maybe help you figure out what type of game you’d ultimately like to make (and how realistic that goal is). As to which technology to use, depends on how complicated you want it to be. I messed around with most of the industry standard text-based engines, but ultimately playing with them yourself will give you the best idea of how they feel to you.
Definitely decide what kind of game you want to write first, as Kilif has suggested. Going for text-based allows you to avoid having to avoid the challenge of finding a pile of images for different stages of weight gain (an assumption I know, but you are here). Twine is easy to start with (especially for Choose Your Own Adventure style games), easy for players to use, and there’s no doubt it can also be used to make very complex games.
The other piece of advice would be to start with a small well-bounded game.
You could of course build the whole thing in Java, but that is a lot of work (trust me, I’m doing it). If you want to stick with the language you could try Daydreamer which is a sort-of RAGS clone in Java.
If object-oriented programming is your thing, then you could also consider the classic Interactive Fiction interpreters like Inform or TADS, but they have the disadvantage of mainly working with text based commands, rather than clickable text (though it can be done).
Another alternative would be Quest. I haven’t tried that one myself, but there are people here using it.
As for first games, you always want to start off small, and work on improving small but essential pieces of code. After that, you’re able to move on to bigger and bigger projects until you reach your final goal.