Thoughts on Game Engines

[Zanurah]

Hello! I've been plotting to make a game for quite awhile now. I've mostly been focused on world building, lore, characters, etc. The fun stuff!

The setting is dark fantasy. I've considered Ren'Py as far as a visual novel is concerned, though part of me has always wanted to create something that takes the best elements of the original Corruption of Champions, as far as design and layout is concerned. I really liked how minimalistic yet grounded the UI was and I'm curious what would be the best game engine out there that could faithfully replicate it, at least for the most part? Also, the less coding involved, the better.

As for a refresher, since the game is pretty ancient by today's standards...



Again, if I can get my game to look even remotely like that, I'll have no complaints.

 

[Mispeled]

If you're looking for a game similar to Corruption of Champions, then probably Twine. It's HTML/CSS/Javascript and web based, which works well for a text adventure kind of game. If you plan on using shaders, screen effects, transition effects, and all that jazz then go for Ren'py instead. Twine "can" do it but it's not really good at that. If you just want very simple stuff like a screen shake, you can simulate it with CSS/Javascript.

You can also use Ren'py but you'd have to do a lot of reskin and use HistoryEntry to show previous dialogues. It's python only and not made for web. It's a solid choice for text adventure still. It supports OpenGL shaders (With limitations) so it's great if you want special screen or transition effects.

Unity3D or Godot can work too but unless you want to have deeper mechanics than CoC it would be overkill.

You can also rawdog it by not using an engine and writting it in whichever language you prefer, but that would require extensive knowledge like serialization or graphic interfaces.

 

[Droid Productions]

Hello! I've been plotting to make a game for quite awhile now. I've mostly been focused on world building, lore, characters, etc. The fun stuff!

The setting is dark fantasy. I've considered Ren'Py as far as a visual novel is concerned, though part of me has always wanted to create something that takes the best elements of the original Corruption of Champions, as far as design and layout is concerned. I really liked how minimalistic yet grounded the UI was and I'm curious what would be the best game engine out there that could faithfully replicate it, at least for the most part? Also, the less coding involved, the better.

As for a refresher, since the game is pretty ancient by today's standards...

View attachment 4958729

Again, if I can get my game to look even remotely like that, I'll have no complaints.

Sounds like your best bet is Renpy NVL (novel) mode:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Zanurah]

If you're looking for a game similar to Corruption of Champions, then probably Twine. It's HTML/CSS/Javascript and web based, which works well for a text adventure kind of game. If you plan on using shaders, screen effects, transition effects, and all that jazz then go for Ren'py instead. Twine "can" do it but it's not really good at that. If you just want very simple stuff like a screen shake, you can simulate it with CSS/Javascript.

You can also use Ren'py but you'd have to do a lot of reskin and use HistoryEntry to show previous dialogues. It's python only and not made for web. It's a solid choice for text adventure still. It supports OpenGL shaders (With limitations) so it's great if you want special screen or transition effects.

Unity3D or Godot can work too but unless you want to have deeper mechanics than CoC it would be overkill.

You can also rawdog it by not using an engine and writting it in whichever language you prefer, but that would require extensive knowledge like serialization or graphic interfaces.

In regards to both Twine and Ren'Py, do they come with preset sample builds? Not that I'm against building my game from the ground up, I still wouldn't mind having some kind of foundation to work with and learn from/refine into what I need.

Sounds like your best bet is Renpy NVL (novel) mode:

You must be registered to see the links

View attachment 4961246

Hmm, fair enough. How hard would it be to implement stats and whatnot into it as well?

 

[Droid Productions]

Hmm, fair enough. How hard would it be to implement stats and whatnot into it as well?

Pretty easy, they're just UI elements.

Would look something like this:

screen stats_display():
    frame:
        style_group "top_ui"
        xalign 0.5  # Center horizontally
        yalign 0.0  # Align to the top

        hbox:
            spacing 30  # Space between stats
            text "Lust: [lust]"
            text "Love: [love]"
            text "Cash: $[cash]"
            text "Stress: [stress]"
            text "Study: [study]"

(this is a horizontal box, of course, but the same logic applies to a vertical box)

Any renpy project can be quickly and easily taken apart and studied using this tool
https://f95zone.to/threads/unren-ba...compiler-console-developer-menu-enabler.3083/

So just find a (renpy) project that does what you like and crack it open to examine it.

 

[Mispeled]

In regards to both Twine and Ren'Py, do they come with preset sample builds? Not that I'm against building my game from the ground up, I still wouldn't mind having some kind of foundation to work with and learn from/refine into what I need.

I haven't personally used Twine so I wouldn't be able to tell you much about it aside from what I read about it when I was selecting the engine for my game.

Ren'Py comes with a tutorial project that covers most of the basics and has extensive enough documentation.