Topic: Any good engines?

[KaZudra]

Looking for something efficient without a steep learning curve.

Concepts on the table suggest a Castlevania-like game;
Stage based, but metroidvania like; essentially like HoD or more accurately System Shock. This will make stage development much easier since mass backtracking will be cut out and essential upgrades can be directly implemented into the next stage to challenge the player.
Castlevania like gameplay with Megaman X elements, Whiping with wall climbing, but no level up system and boss fights can have a form of intensity.
I want to draw inspiration mainly from Super Castlevania and Bloodlines, where the innovations in stages were really unique and makes each stage memorable, and as well as some cool spectacles.

Now I'll be using the hell out of my One-Drive for this project; so no real bad luck incidients that wipe all assets away (again).

[ProjectDread]

Two powerful tools I would suggest looking into are both Clickteam Fusion 2.5 and Game Maker: Studio. These software development tools are both relatively easy to use to use and immensely powerful when in the right hands. Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is what I'm most familiar with, and it's certainly more than capable for building a Castlevania-inspired project. The software is also entirely GUI based so no real programming knowledge is needed to start building something right off the bat. GM:S is, from my perspective, more powerful than CF2.5 but you'll have to rely heavily on scripts as the GUI / Drag-and-drop interface functions are lacking. So essentially, if you're more of a visual person I'd recommend checking out CF2.5. If you enjoy programming and are fine with a higher learning curve, GM8 is probably the way to go.

Other tools worth checking out would be Stencyl and Construct. I don't have a lot of experience with these though, unfortunately.

[theplottwist]

Two powerful tools I would suggest looking into are both Clickteam Fusion 2.5 and Game Maker: Studio. These software development tools are both relatively easy to use to use and immensely powerful when in the right hands. Clickteam Fusion 2.5 is what I'm most familiar with, and it's certainly more than capable for building a Castlevania-inspired project. The software is also entirely GUI based so no real programming knowledge is needed to start building something right off the bat. GM:S is, from my perspective, more powerful than CF2.5 but you'll have to rely heavily on scripts as the GUI / Drag-and-drop interface functions are lacking. So essentially, if you're more of a visual person I'd recommend checking out CF2.5. If you enjoy programming and are fine with a higher learning curve, GM8 is probably the way to go.

Other tools worth checking out would be Stencyl and Construct. I don't have a lot of experience with these though, unfortunately.

Hey, ProjectDread, how long do you say it takes for someone who has mid-experience with MMF to learn Fusion?

[darkmanx_429]

Hey, ProjectDread, how long do you say it takes for someone who has mid-experience with MMF to learn Fusion?

If they have a good grasp of MMF2 virtually immediately. Here is a good video. Basically with Fusion you have everything from MMF2 and then some.

Also I would suggest looking at Unreal Engine 4. This can open up alot of possibilities to do effects that just wouldn't be possible to do using a 2D engine even though it may be easier. Remember Bloodstained, is using Unreal Engine 4.

[theplottwist]

If they have a good grasp of MMF2 virtually immediately. Here is a good video. Basically with Fusion you have everything from MMF2 and then some.

Also I would suggest looking at Unreal Engine 4. This can open up alot of possibilities to do effects that just wouldn't be possible to do using a 2D engine even though it may be easier. Remember Bloodstained, is using Unreal Engine 4.

I have virtually no potential for programming, man. I need something really visual to help me. And even in MMF I took epic beatings from the program because I couldn't fully grasp the logic behind it .

But I'll give Fusion a shot. Unreal is out of question xD

[ProjectDread]

Hey, ProjectDread, how long do you say it takes for someone who has mid-experience with MMF to learn Fusion?

I see jumping from MMF to CF2.5 as purely an upgrade, so I don't think you'll have any difficulty figuring things out. It's funny you should mention it though, because I actually started off using The Games Factory . It didn't take long for me to realize that TGF simply had far too many limitations for the games I wanted to build, and so after doing a lot of research online I finally made that big first step and moved immediately to MMF2. It took a little bit of getting used to, but all Clickteam products have a similar interface so if you've used one it's safe to say you can easily get the hang of all the others.

Anyways, take a look at CF2.5 if you get the chance. There are plenty of tutorials and resources online that can help you get an idea on some of the tricks and quirks of using the program. As a word of advise, I'd highly encourage you to become familiar with Clickteam's "fastloops" as they are arguably one of the most powerful and useful features provided on the software. It might come as a surprise to everyone but Dominus Engine is actually the first engine I've ever really made that takes advantage of fastloops, arrays, and numerous other features I intentionally avoided in my older projects. Let me know if you have any questions regarding CF2.5. I'm certainly by no means the best at using it but I've had a decent amount of experience with programming platform engines and can give you some thoughts on how I usually tackle certain problems that many people end up running into.

[theplottwist]

That's preciselly how it was with me. I started on The Games Factory, doing some small time projects and learning. Then, many years later, I jumped to MMF2. I noticed the great improvement over TGF, but then I hit the snag: I don't understand how to do fastloops and custom collisions.

BUT this next year I'll start Fusion. I have to learn this, because the lack of a programmer for my projects is screwing me over royally.

Thanks for the heads-up dude!

[piscesdreams]

The great thing about Fusion is the community is very helpful should you have questions. I've never used GM Studio so I can't compare communities there, but Fusion has a fantastic one.

Fusion 2.5 is simply an upgrade over MMF2 so it is a smooth transition. There are many new features and refinements, most recently is better RAM handling. That said, Fusion DOES run on a 32 bit architecture and you have some limitations that come with that. However, for a game like Castlevania this poses no problem as long as you're not going HD with large sprites, but modular animation would work just fine, especially with the new Spriter plugin. I imagine you would be operating a 256x224 resolution or somewhere around that, and Fusion can handle this well even without hardware acceleration.

Lastly, there are several Fusion users here too so I feel confident you would be able to find answers to your questions wherever you ask them. I highly recommend it and usually Clickteam does some pretty great sales on Steam. I saw Fusion for $20 over the summer. I have the developer version but you most likely wouldn't need this, as it's mostly an extended license and has a few extras not in the standard version.

[darkmanx_429]

Be sure to register on the Clickteam Forums too. I learned alot by posting questions and the forum is really good about responding back.

As for Unreal 4. I was mainly talking about using the Blueprint system there. It's a visual GUI. You don't have to program a lick of code if you don't want too.

[AuraTeam]

hmm.. so am i the only one who uses GameMaker:Studio here  kinda funny xD
GM:S is better i gather , its much easier than i expect when i start using it you have both the option Drag and drop and programming scripts it gives its own language to program which is pretty good and easy, it will help you to know how language works . many great games were developed with it and the reason why its famous and have a lot of tutorials and example, may be i consider it better just because i used it from the beginning, may be i should also move to Clickteam Fusion 2.5

[ProjectDread]

Game Maker: Studio and Clickteam Fusion 2.5 each have their pros and cons. CF2.5 works for me, and I've been using Clickteam products for quite some time so I'm familiar with the development environment. If you enjoy using GM:S and it works well for you, there is no real good reason to make the switch.

[KaZudra]

I'll hold off for Fusion until next sale, now I'm going for a crash course on Gamemaker, If I could get a tech demo of sorts for a castlevania engine I can learn it much easier, but rest assured something new is being in the works, I have a few drafts and they aren't remakes (sorry, my ambitious Cv2 remake has to wait until I get the tech down).
I'm currently working on an Original title burrowing elements from La-Mulana for a deeper metroidvania experience.

[piscesdreams]

There was just a good sale on Fusion a couple weeks ago, it was $15 on Steam and their website.  They usually do sales around Christmas and the Steam Summer Sale.

[BLOOD MONKEY]

I use Unity with C#. It works really nice, and it's free, but the learning curve is a little steep.

[KaZudra]

The Idea is to make a Classic/metroidvania hybrid, using something like CV2 as a blueprint, all Main Areas like mansions are Non-linear as all intermission stages will be Linear.
I also want to incorperate upgrades but in more simplistic fashion, basically, Stage 1, Mansion (get upgrade), Stage 2 (incorperates upgrade in design).
Aesthetic choice will be a mix between the 16-bit era and 32-bit era, hopefully I can incorporate plenty of cool SNES/Genesis gimmicks and some Neo Geo.
Upgrades will center around fortifying your abilities, Knives will be able to be platforms, Axes can be thrown into the ceiling to be a ring for whip swinging.

Of course this all sounds good on paper, but the real work into polish has to be done, I just need an engine that the learning curve isn't too steep yet capabilities don't suck, because I work and want to make progress at reasonable pace.