The question is, what is the easiest. Godot has a lot of built in stuff for 2d games that renpy and twine do not, and I'm pretty sure that most of that stuff is easier in godot.
And I explicitly addressed your claim regarding Twine and Ren'Py limitations, voluntarily not talking about the facility of use, that is purely relative.
I have used them all by the way. Just because you can do something with an engine doesn't mean it's the best choice.
Could it be the reason why I ended my post by saying that all this doesn't mean that they are the most suitable engine for such games ?
Now my question for you, have you tried godot? if somebody knows of an easier engine that does 2d better then please let me know.
I tried Godot, and for someone without software development knowledge, it's far more confusing than Ren'Py.
You're on a thread made by someone who find Twine hard to use. I'm far to be an "on topic" freak, but you're really going far from what the title is asking, expecting someone without an once of previous knowledge to find it easy to link abstract events to abstract elements through a professional abstract interface. Totally forgetting that "programming" isn't just a question of writing code lines, but also, among other needs, ordering a project, and being able to link in your mind its different components in order to have a global vision.
It happen that Ren'Py intuitiveness, coupled to its flexibility, is perfect for this. It suffice to see, by example, the number of games using a shown screen followed by an endless loop, in place of a called screen that would naturally wait for the player, to understand how far Ren'Py simplicity of use goes. You can have a code that is technically broken, yet perfectly functional, something impossible with Godot. And it's precisely what people "without prior programming knowledge" are searching ; a game engine that permit them to make their game works, even if it's an assembly of tin cans.
Seriously, basic stuff like horizontal or vertical shoot'em'up is barely more than drag and drop in godot.
And linking abstract events to abstract elements, something that will not be intuitive for someone without prior knowledge. This while, as the code I linked show, with Ren'Py it's nothing more that a bunch of
for loop and a bunch of
if structures ; as I said, it would need more with Twine.
Technically, one isn't more simple, or more complicated, than the other. But logically, doing it with Ren'Py would be easier, because way more intuitive for a pure novice. What is needed isn't knowledge, but ideas.
Ideas that rarely appear, because not only people using the engine limit themselves, but people talking about it promote none existing limits. It was always possible to have a free roaming game mechanism in Ren'Py, and it have always been extremely easy to do it. Yet it only effectively appeared in adult games around 2019, when the first creators to think out of the box started to do it, showing others that it's possible.
Now, yes, once you've done your first project with Ren'Py, you would probably find it easier to do it with Godot. Exactly like people find that Unity offer them more freedom than Ren'Py... once they already learned the basis of development, and therefore know what to expect and what they need to do.
But it's that "once you" that matter here, because it's the missing part.
Now I'm not saying renpy or twine are bad, they are both good at what they do from what I've seen, but if you go beyond that scope you're not doing yourself any favors using those.
A scope that, for Ren'Py, isn't the one you believe, nor the one promoted.
Despite its origin, Ren'Py isn't a Visual Novel engine, but a "flat game" engine ; not in a 2D Vs 3D way, but by the lack of relief of its result. You can do any 80's arcade game with it, reaching the same level of quality than those games, and you can do it easily.
It would look out dated, because games have evolved a lot since then, hence the "flat" part. But the instant you accept that you'll do something for another age, it's really easy to do it.
