Third party RPG-making software suggestion

[PorkyThePaladin]

There are a lot of third party programs and frameworks now for making RPGs. Gamemaker, RPGMaker, Construct 2, Unity, UE, Ork for Unity, etc. Which one would be the best for the following situation?

- making 2D isometric or overhead RPG
- prefer a decent library of art assets so that an RPG could be made without much skill at sprite creation
- prefer support for branching dialogue with flag/skill/alignment checks
- prefer support for scripting to allow extra behavior beyond what the software supports out of the box

So basically, something that would allow the dev(s) to focus on gameplay mechanics, writing, and content creation rather than coding and art creation, but still be flexible enough (via scripting) to allow extra stuff. Thanks for any replies.

 

[Bester]

None.

You want game mechanics, but you don't want to code them? How's that going to work out?
You want 2d assets to come with the engine for your game? Don't expect that.

 

[Wayward Son]

making 2D isometric or overhead RPG

RPGMaker's default is top-down 2D

prefer a decent library of art assets so that an RPG could be made without much skill at sprite creation

RPGMaker comes with art assets (their quality is mostly bad, some are arguable)

prefer support for branching dialogue with flag/skill/alignment checks

It'll take a bit of figuring out, but you can set branching dialogues with changing and calling variables. As far as skill checks, you could make it a ability of some sort that you get on level or through other sources.

prefer support for scripting to allow extra behavior beyond what the software supports out of the box

RPGMaker supports RubyScropt iirc.
However, you also mentioned flexibility of systems. RPGMaker is not so flexible. You cannot change it from its class based XP based system with abilities. It's pretty much an early-ish JRPG creator. You CAN make clever use of these things to simulate certain things, but it would probably be better for the flexibility to just learn to code and get some art assets from here.
I'd be willing to help you figure some of the stuff out, like player character creation (it is made for using premade characters.) and the dialogue system it uses.

In conclusion, it lacks the flexibility that you (and I, when I tried it) want, but can be fenangled to work for some, if not a sizable chunk of what you want.


Another one I have some decent experience in using is DungeonCraft. It allows for creation of a Gold-Box like, but once again, lacks flexibility in game systems as you are forced to use a DnD-esque ruleset. For the dialogue, you may be able to manage it, but I wouldn't know, as I was just trying to make a simple dungeon crawler. You can find simple, easy to follow tutorials for most of the things on the website for it, so there's that. It may be worth giving it a shot as I didn't try to play too much with the systems, so there may be some things as far as customizability that I'm forgetting. It also comes with decent art. Definitely worth a look, if you're adamant about using a pre-made engine.

 

[slowdive]

Maybe IceBlink 2 would work as an option:
https://neverwintervault.org/project/iceblink/other/tool/iceblink-2-engine-and-toolset

Here is an excellent example of what can be done with the IB toolset:
https://neverwintervault.org/project/iceblink/module/elderin-stone

 

[Keldryn]

So basically, something that would allow the dev(s) to focus on gameplay mechanics, writing, and content creation rather than coding and art creation, but still be flexible enough (via scripting) to allow extra stuff. Thanks for any replies.

ORK Framework for Unity is your best bet.

It seriously covers just about anything you can think of in an RPG. You may want/need to use some other 3rd party assets in place of some aspects of ORK's built-in functionality, but it certainly has all you need to start prototyping. For example, if your game is dialogue heavy, you'd probably want to use Dialogue System for Unity (which integrates with ORK very nicely).

ORK can handle class & level advancement, skill points, advancement by using, or any combination of those paradigms. The mechanics are largely up to you. You define your own stats and create your own formulas.

It features turn-based, phased, active time, and real-time battle systems. Also a grid-based battle system that works with all four combat modes.

ORK has a fairly robust node-based visual scripting engine and most of its features are exposed through its public API for use in your own scripts.

There is a lot of 2D iso/overhead art on the Unity Asset Store, but the bulk of it is very stylized and there is a lot of SNES/PlayStation JRPG style tilesets.

If you're going for a more realistic visual style, you're probably better off doing the game in 3D but with an orthographic camera at a fixed angle. There are a lot of very high quality (and affordable) modular environment packages, some of them designed for a top-down view.

Best thing to do is download the latest version of Unity (5.5), and then grab the free trial version from www.orkframework.com. Then work through the 50-part "build a game" tutorial series to gain an understanding of the framework. The tutorials produce a JRPG style game, but don't let that dissuade you from trying it.