What's the best?

[Deleted member 2717185]

Hello, I have been on this site testing several engines and assisting several developers in asset generation for their games and other stuff. I was looking to make an educational game that's not 1+1=2 but rather how to make improvised camo and military tactics for self-defense and everything to give people a source to defend themselves if let's say a global Ukraine started. I am torn between 3 engines. RPGM, RenPy, and UnrealEngine do not like unity it's clunky IMO. What is better? What is more stable, more flexible, and less effort when comprised of hundreds or thousands of images. I know nothing engine-wise besides how to make game-ready assets.

Any advice or input on this would be amazing, thank you!

 

[zilkin]

Depends what your gameplay is like, if you just want to make a slide show with pictures, text and some menu options then renpy is the easiest to use for that.

 

[Tompte]

It depends on what you need them to do. They're all stable, flexible and effortless depending on what you're doing.

Some people want an engine that removes most of the work. Some, like myself, don't want their hand held and also want the capability to do things outside the scope of the engine. Some prefer to not use an engine at all. Which one is you?

It's a nonsensical question because it depends on the user and their intent, and there is no right answer. How would we know which is best for you?

That said, a lot of people on this forum will answer Ren'py + Daz, because that's what almost everyone here uses and are familiar with. Doesn't mean they're correct.

 

[Deleted member 2717185]

I was thinking of something of an interactive nature not just pictures but not all interaction so I suppose I need a healthy mix of everything. Also with no cap on quality min 4k support as well as the ability to process or display 3D without quality loss.

 

[UnagiGames]

I would recommend looking into Unity if you're able to write code, or else I would use RenPy. RenPy is very easy to learn, but also quick to prototype with.

 

[Deleted member 2717185]

I will download more renpy and unity games and stress their functionalities, thank you for the advice!

 

[OsamiWorks]

Im surprised, working in unreal feels really clunky compared to unity, but there are a number of advantages to unreal when you want control over game functionality, and there is a lot more knowledge around engine modification that unity's community doesnt talk about much even tho they are both open source. If you mean unity games feel clunky then thats 100% the devs fault. If youre making a 2d game, I think unity is pretty universally acknowledged as a better choice than unreal. Mainly unreal doesnt break from update to update, using it is clunky, but you have a slight amount of extra power as a coder and if you know how to code, their visual scripting system is really solid to get things working but you are kinda hung out to dry and expected to figure out everything on your own. Unity is very beginner friendly, has a lot of support and knowledge not just from unity but from online content creators as well, and does a really good job of building you up with their official learning pathways. The downside is unity's decisions as a company get on my nerves, but they are really good at making gamedevs out of people who take the time to learn.

Using the engine isnt hard, its literally just being capable of navigating windows. Creating assets, coding, and design work is hard. When you export from blender into either engine, things will break, you need to make your shaders in engine or export from an external tool like substance to get nice mats, and fixing those issues is still a problem. Unity has better documentation when you get started with everything and offers a lot through their official website, except they just dumpstered unity answers with 2 weeks notice but other than that the official tutorials are really useful. Unreal so far has been like drinking from a firehose and if I didnt have prior experience with unity over the last 3 months I probably would have had to give up on it. Unity is a good way to get started with C# and art in real times engines . If you have a little knowledge about the stack it will make a transfer to C+ not as bad later on if you actually need unreal, or just switch anyway because visual scripting will be such a relief after C# that you might not even need the code, just the knowledge of how to code.

 

[KiaAzad]

Almost all engines can get the job done, but each excel in different areas.
Unreal seems much easier for 3D, but 2D still needs some attention
Renpy is perfect for story based games
Unity does both 2D and 3D relatively well, but feels like an unfinished engine
Godot makes 2D easy, sucks at making complex interfaces
RPGM, never tried and unless they make it free, never will
There are other engines like construct and defold, I just didn't have time to try them