- Written by Matej Pavlič
Indie Game Maker came on my radar when I was searching online for software that would be worth checking out. Now when I got to it the game engine has been discontinued and I can understand why. Unity and Unreal Engine are big players in this world and it's simply hard to compete on this market these days. As this was Autodesks try to get a piece of it by combining software like Maya, Mudbox and Stingray (the engine) I can imagine this was not a cheap solution when running on a subscription. Based on the tutorial kit they still have online it looks like a decent piece of equipment and though the Stingray engine is now a part of Maya LT, further development has been suspended meaning there will be no more improvements and updates to it. That virtually means it's a dead end and makes more sense to put my effort elsewhere.
- Written by Matej Pavlič
The following comic shows an answer to a question most of people ask themselves at least once in their life: What is the meaning of life? As the comics shows, and should be self evident, our lives in this universe are quite meaningless.The question in this case is then not what is the meaning of life, but how we choose to live it.
- Written by Matej Pavlič
I'm cheating a lot lately. I used the same comic again and just changed the text. Well at least it was done quickly :D
- Written by Matej Pavlič
9. RPG Maker
9. RPG Maker
I won't loose too much time with RPG Maker since the title already applies it's a Role Playing Game maker. So not exactly what I'm looking for but still worth mentioning. It's a hentai story telling platform which you could say it takes it's base in The Legend Of Zelda games but it looks more like some of the first such rpg games on PC (Knights of Xentar comes to mind). At least from my memory but can't say for sure as there are other platforms where stuff like this could have been been before.
So the software includes more or less everything from characters to map backgrounds. You can define skills of your player and enemies and add chests of stash and rewards. This is what all will look like in the end:
You can create a complex world to play in and buy extra graphical add-ons. There are animations used for battles and pictures for detailing the story or as a reward for a task done.
Pricing
There are many versions of the software each more expensive and having more options as you can see bellow.
You can check out more on their website. If there are many tutorials available so you can go in deep very quickly. I only made a quick map which was pretty intuitive so not sure how demanding is to make character/script or an event. I think you'll see pretty quickly if this is for you or not.
- Written by Matej Pavlič
8. GDevelop
8. GDevelop
GDevelop is an open source game maker with possibility of deployment to most of the systems. It has some similarities to Construct 3 in the "coding" part otherwise it's again a combination of all the previous programs. So really nothing new other than the user interface.
Tutorial
In this tutorial I once again did a top down shooter with a canon shooting at oncoming tanks. You can test it out on the following link.
Interface
The interface is simple with the familiar setup. Scene in the middle, objects and properties on the right. Game properties are on the left and can be hidden.
Events
Events are what define objects in GDevelop and look similar to the ones in Construct 3. You have plenty of drop down options to choose from which should be enough for a game you're planning.
Pricing
Pricing seems reasonable as you can make games for free with limits of packaging. Packaging limit extends on subscription while you get all the other options for 2€ a month.
Showcase
Plenty of games can be found on their website and some of them look pretty decent. Take a look and see if any of them is up to your expectations.
Score
Probably the cons of each software only become obvious after a prolonged usage on specific examples. But at this stage I can say that GDevelop is up there with the rest but what sticks out is the price. Since you can make the most of the game for free and start a subscription only when you're ready and need more testing.
Difficulty: 8
Literature: 9
Cost: 7
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Overall score: 8