Tool Dryad Engine - a modern way to build UI-heavy games

[Dryad Quest Dev]

Hey everyone, I'm the developer of

You must be registered to see the links

(game's thread) and I’m excited to share my own game engine for making UI-heavy games, anything from Twine-style text-based games, to VNs, to complex RPGs.

There are two main philosophies it follows:

• Easy to use: You don’t need to install anything or write a single line of code. Just use the Editor’s forms to create your own game or modify existing ones. The engine already handles all the basics you’d expect from an RPG: characters and party, items and inventories, VN-style scenes and branching events, quests, gallery, skill trees, crafting, and more.
• Built to be extended: If you do want to go deeper, it’s designed so you can plug in your own custom UI and systems with a bit of Javascript, without fighting the engine or rewriting everything from scratch.

The state of the engine right now
Right now the engine is fully functional, but still in the early stages of development. That means you can already build and play games with it – but things are still evolving, and breaking changes may happen as I refine the core systems.

To showcase some of what it can already do, the engine ships with a built-in Tutorial game – which also includes spicy animated scenes if you turn on the “lewd” mod.

How to access Dryad Engine

1. Download the engine here(windows or linux version):
   You must be registered to see the links
2. Extract the zip file and run 'dryad-engine' executable. It already includes the Tutorial game.
   [Optional]Lewd Mod :
3. To access spicy animated scenes with Riko, download the lewd mod here:
   You must be registered to see the links
4. Do NOT extract the .zip. Instead put it inside [path/to/engine]/assets/install. Then in the engine main menu press the 'Install' button in the top left corner and choose the mod to install. When starting a new game, make sure to check in the lewd mod before pressing the play button.

What it is not
This new engine is not the one DQ is currently running on. It’s heavily inspired by DQ and everything I’ve learned while developing it, but this is a completely separate project, written from scratch using modern web tech (specifically Vue 3).

 

[Cyrilion]

The tutorial was pretty fun, i did run into the issue that i use a dark theme on my computer and that much of the UI and text areas for editing or changes in game settings will change text to white while keeping the gray background which made things extremely unreadable, posted about it on your discord too in the development area with screenshots.

I have to say it looks absolutely ridiculously easy to work in, i've wanted to try my hand at game development for quite some time now, but was never sure which engine/coding language to try out, was considering making something in twine just to gauge interest in the setting and game concept, but Dryad Engine looks like an even better option on the face.

Looking at the license on Github(couldn't find it in the engine documentation) it says you are permitted to: "Sell and distribute Game Content created with the Engine, and retain all profits from such sales. "

but are NOT permitted to:
1. "Sell the Engine or any Modifications to the Engine."
2. "Commercially distribute the Engine or Modifications, whether as standalone products or bundled with other commercial offerings."

If i did make a game with custom plugins and/or modifications to the engine am i legally barred from selling them bundled together with the game?
Do i just need to have the plugins/modifications publicly available?
If my game requires those modifications to be playable in the engine and i can't just sell a folder to be dragged and dropped it's gonna be a PITA having to do the most basic tech support for the tech illiterate, so i'm just checking to see if i'm misunderstanding the wording or if this is a planned to be solved in future kind of issue, or even an unfortunate drawback of the liscensing to protect your intellectual property, which is to be clear totally fair.

Anyways, as exciting as this is, i have many other projects that have priority before i can even think about sticking my head farther in this than running through your tutorial game.
Looking forward to the engine updates going forward from one of my favourite game developers, cheers, thanks for the early present, and have happy holidays eh?