Best engine for my game concept?

[icollectsouls]

(Hey y'all, let me start this off by saying sorry for asking what's probably just-a-little-too-common of a question. Also sorry for what's inevitably going to be a fairly long post.)

I've been interested in making a game for a while now. As someone lacking in both artistic talent and development experience, but enough confidence in my writing ability, I figured a text-based game would be the way to go. If I decide to open a patreon/substar and get decent-enough funding, I might commission artwork for the game but that's a big "maybe."
I've juggled around a few potential options for game engines, but I haven't really put in any effort into learning anything, mostly because I want to be sure that the engine I'm using is the one I "should" be using.

The game's basic premise is that you're a (male) spellcaster/alchemist of some kind, and you help women overcome various personal issues by giving them various items that transform them into monster girls. Each item corresponds to a different kind of monster girl, such as one for mammal-based beast types, or one for reptiles including lamia. (I have about eight items planned and conceptualized at the moment.)
The main focus would be on seeing how different girls change from the same item - for example, a fighter from the local arena looking to become stronger and a shy librarian looking to become more confident would have vastly different transformations from the same reptile item. One catch is that I want each item to be single-use only, so it'd encourage multiple playthroughs to see all the scenes. (A quick-and-easy way to skip the intro would be a necessity here, as well as a good way to speed through text you've already seen.)
To summarize, an example of the basic gameflow would be: skippable intro > choice of scene 1A, 1B, 1C, etc. > scene 1B > choice of scene 2A, 2C, etc. (2B not viewable because item B used in first scene), continue on until the end of content for the version.

So, with all that out of the way... what would be the easiest way for me to go about this? I own RPGM XP and VX Ace on steam, have a yarr-harr'd copy of RPGMZ, Twine installed on my computer, and Ren'Py isn't installed but it's a free download anyway.
My thoughts so far on the different options:

• The various forms of RPGM:
  • The one I'm most familiar with, to some degree. I know where things are in the UI, and I understand how to mess around in the database, but nothing really beyond that.
  • Has an inventory system already built into the engine(s), which could be nice on both the development side and the player side for tracking which items you've used in a playthrough.
  • In my opinion, the best option for overall "presentation." Well-suited for interactive environments, music, etc., and it's all stuff that's in the engine already without the need for extra programming, even if it can be enhanced by scripts/plugins/whatever.
  • Text-based scenes aren't impossible in RPGM, but it is more suited for actual visuals like CG accompanying the action.
  • Would probably require me to figure out ways to implement sprites for the different transformations. Wouldn't make sense for the story to say a woman's been transformed into some form of monster girl, only for the sprite to not reflect that whatsoever. (The main drawback I can see to RPGM so far, owing to my lack of art ability.)
  • Another drawback is that my concept has a lot of variables and such that might be difficult to keep track of in RPGM.
• Twine:
  • I've messed around in it a little? I understand there's multiple "formats" for twine but much like my question of "what game engine," not knowing which twine format would be best-suited means I haven't dedicated any time into learning the ins-and-outs of any of them.
  • Has a nice-enough interface for story planning, it looks like, though I'm not sure how relevant it'd be for my game.
  • Regardless of the format though, probably the engine most suited to a text-only game.
  • Can be lacking in the "presentation" that I like from RPGM and Ren'Py. (I've never played a twine game with music, for example.)
  • Might require extra programming/plugins/scripts for what I have planned?
• Ren'Py:
  • I have absolutely no experience with it whatsoever, unfortunately. Potentially also the hardest one to learn(?)
  • Another good option for "presentation," even for a text-based game. Being able to have different backgrounds, music, etc. could go a long way.
  • Again, much like RPGM, even if it's better-suited to actual visuals, a text-based game can still work really well in the engine. (Monster Girl Dreams was pretty enjoyable even before all the art assets got added, just to use an actual example.)
  • Lack of experience means I'm not sure how easy it'd be to implement stuff in-engine or what would better be handled by something external (again, like scripts/plugins/etc.)

Additionally, if anyone knows of some other kind of engine out there that might be good, feel free to suggest it! I haven't really been considering anything like Unity, but if you happen to know there's some crazy framework for a good text-based game in Unity or whatever I'm all ears.

Finally, to answer this before anyone asks "why don't you just try making your own art assets with something like Daz3D/Honey Select (2)/Koikatsu?"
Considering how monster girl-centric this game is supposed to be, and how particular I can be when it comes to the appearances of monster girls, I don't have a lot of confidence that any of those would work for the game. I'm already not a fan of Daz3D visuals (very uncanny valley imo), and HS(2)/Koikatsu would require external mods and such that I probably wouldn't be too fond of. (Also the males look like dipshits in all of them.)

 

[Jofur]

There are a few text-based frameworks for Unity, I think most up to date ones are paid however, but if you aren't interested in learning general game development as a whole(and some C# scripting), I wouldn't bother. In my experience Unity frameworks are rarely a "fits all" solution and needs to be adapted/extended upon in some way.

Playing any RPGM game that isn't a basic RPG is a total nightmare, so I would avoid that. Renpy could work, but it does require learning their scripting language, and possibly some Python. So if you are gonna do that you might as well learn how to use Twine instead. It was made for text games after all. From what you are describing the game sounds pretty simplistic from a mechanics standpoint. So I don't expect you need to dig into a lot of HTML/CSS stuff.

 

[Alcahest]

• Twine:
  • I've messed around in it a little? I understand there's multiple "formats" for twine but much like my question of "what game engine," not knowing which twine format would be best-suited means I haven't dedicated any time into learning the ins-and-outs of any of them.
  • Has a nice-enough interface for story planning, it looks like, though I'm not sure how relevant it'd be for my game.
  • Regardless of the format though, probably the engine most suited to a text-only game.
  • Can be lacking in the "presentation" that I like from RPGM and Ren'Py. (I've never played a twine game with music, for example.)
  • Might require extra programming/plugins/scripts for what I have planned?

Use the SugarCube story format. It's what most Twine games here use. It has macros for playing audio, just that people rarely use them it seems (I do in my game).

You must be registered to see the links

 

[icollectsouls]

Thanks for the replies, and apologies for not being able to get back to this thread until now, a combination of a recent promotion at work and a sudden need to move hasn't made for the greatest situations for "learning how to make a game."
Twine/SugarCube sounds good to me, so my next question would have to be... what would be the best way to implement an "inventory" system of sorts? As far as gameplay goes I still don't want to do anything too complex, but I still really want to emphasize the "items are single-use per playthrough" idea to encourage multiple playthroughs. (So using the reptile transformation item on one girl means it can't be used again for another.)
I already have some basic story outline drawn up in Twine's interface but I want to really make sure I can incorporate the basic gameplay hook before I go further into actually writing out scenes.

 

[PTSdev]

Sugarcube is great, it offers lots of customizability and is designed for text based narrative experiences. You can create simple CYOA type games quite easily, but you can also bend it until you hardly recognize it anymore.

As for the inventory system: If you want something complex, you can start by taking a look at HiEv's fantastic inventory framework here:

You must be registered to see the links

For a simple item storage system, this is way too complicated, though. You can simply create objects / arrays to store that information.

As always, I highly recommend using tweego in combination with an editing software like VSCode. The Twine software is neat for visualizing smaller projects, but it gets incredibly cumbersome if you actually want to code something in there.