Game Engine

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

Okay, I have no knowledge of game engines and coding.  But I was just curious... how difficult would it be to BUILD a 2-d  engine and start from scratch?  that way we could have options that deal with problems people are having with temporal flux (such as the 8 characters, 6 letters in names, etc.).  would it be possible to import the tilesets, etc. into this game engine?

just wishful thinking...

[FaustWolf]

Music to my ears, Boo! I envy your programming experience -- it's so difficult to sit down and learn a programming language when you take a bunch of social science classes. I'll have to wait till after I graduate, probably.

Yes, the question of which is superior -- hacking or fangaming from scratch -- has always been on my mind. On the one hand, hacking allows you to work with ready-made game resources and event code, but they are so restrictive in creativity. The Prophet's Guile team did an exceptional job, especially with the Melchior-accompanies-Magus event. I don't think anything like that even existed in the game in the first place, so Chrono'99 is awesome for getting that to work out.

The best 2D game design program I know of is MultiMedia Fusion 2. But it costs some serious bucks, and secondly, one still needs to know a programming language (typically C++, but it's being made compatible with Python I hear) to take full advantage of it.

Boo, there's a user named MDenham at the Compendium who mentioned something about coding a real kickass 2D game design thingie -- reminded me of MMF2, and it sounded great. You can read his post on that here:
http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,4770.msg85871.html#msg85871

For my part, I shall bide my time and focus on liberating resources from 2D and 3D games in hopes that the Messiah(s) will bring unto us Powerful Game Engines.

[placidchap]

Something I have been working on myself Boo...

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

i mean, i have zero experience.  i know the adobe suite (illustrator, indesign, photoshop, and some dreamweaver), but i know nothing about coding.  it isn't a task i'm ready to undertake yet (a 21-hour college student also working full-time), but it's something i'm thinking about investing in down the road. 

is there anyone else thinking along these lines?

as in maybe this summer put together a group of coders willing to learn HOW to code and begin to build a new game engine for use with a chrono game...

[justin3009]

Creating from scratch is always going to be better by far most of the time.  Hacking a game is alot more stressful from personal experience and requires more knowledge.

[Dark Serge]

Why create a engine yourself? RPG Maker is perfectly suited for this stuff... And it can probably do better then anything we could come up with.

[FaustWolf]

What's RPGMaker capable of nowadays? Chrono Crisis uses RPGMaker XP, doesn't it? But they still need a Ruby coder for the project, which tells me it's a similar situation to MultiMedia Fusion.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

if rpgmaker is workable, then why isn't the community using it more?

[Dark Serge]

What's RPGMaker capable of nowadays? Chrono Crisis uses RPGMaker XP, doesn't it? But they still need a Ruby coder for the project, which tells me it's a similar situation to MultiMedia Fusion.

The more advanced things requires scripts. Like custom battle systems, custom menu's, etc. However, there's alot of other good stuff, and scripts are easy found on RPG Maker forums.

It's still easier then writing a whole engine.

As to why the community isn't using it; dunno. It has great features, I'm guessing people lack the appropriate graphics. Chrono Crisis has some awesome spriters, and the RTP (default resources) don't fit Chrono very well.

With a couple of good spriters/tile designers, and possible a Ruby scripter, an awesome game can be made.

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

interesting...

perhaps it is in my best interest to learn spriting and perhaps even Ruby coding...

first i have to learn WHAT Ruby coding even is...

[placidchap]

I'm in the process of re-building Trigger with GameMaker, from scratch.  With no previous programming experience.  It can be done Boo.  It may not be professional quality code, but it is coming along...slowly as I am working full time with university too (and a lovely wife!)

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

dear placidchap,

i hear ya homie.  i'm here in tennessee trying to finish school and i'm about to get married!  woot!

how are you going about it?  do you need help?

[placidchap]

I like the cut of your jib, Boo.  I'm in London, Ontario.  From North Carolina though, so practically neighbours.


I'm taking it one step at a time.  It is  basically a learn as you go.  I started back in September with some generic gamemaker tutorial, to learn how it worked.  Then I got the idea of trying to recreate Trigger on it, with the main theme of "Delimited".  Meaning, have as many characters as you want, have more than 3 in battle, more techs, more items, etc.   I started by riping some graphics from CT, so I can test as I go. I'm not one of those code all day and see if it works type.  I  like to try a few things, do a test run and see whats up.  I had a skeleton of a battle system (just attack and be attacked, with the timer) but then went on to other things as I realized that the battle system should come much later, after I have the groundwork down.  Right now I am trying to get the menu system organized, with character exchange(done), inventory, tech view(done) etc.

I don't need help yet, or rather I am not looking for help right about now.  It is my pet project I work on when I have spare time....it and I are not ready for any outside influences...but thanks for the offer (if you were offering)   Though I do know that the two trouble spots I will  have and currently have are:

A dynamic inventory system (sorting, moving around items/weapons).  I have it static, no problem, but I'd prefer dynamic.

And the battle system will be a challenge, but that is farther down the road...

[MDenham]

As to why the community isn't using it; dunno. It has great features, I'm guessing people lack the appropriate graphics. Chrono Crisis has some awesome spriters, and the RTP (default resources) don't fit Chrono very well.

As far as why I, personally, don't use it for much beyond just dinking around for fun (~15 2-4% finished games and counting! ) it's because I find its general design too limiting without learning yet another programming language (and thereby making it so that I'd be better off writing the engine myself, generally, considering the scope of changes required for most of my ideas).

This is why I'm trying to produce something similar to, but more powerful than, the RPG Maker series.

[placidchap]

I consider Game Maker a bit superior than RPG Maker...as it has more flexibility...but it is harder to make an RPG in it...