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- 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.
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- Written by: Matej Pavlič
Coming up to a point when I consider the benefits of having a detailed background and also more details in the characters. What is the compromise you can use here as we know that some people will only read the story while the others will concentrate on detail. I find it best to maybe spend a bit more time with detailing the background and a little less on the characters. Backgrounds can be prepared in advance and the time spent on them will distribute to all the comics it was used on. At the same time, spending less time on character detail will make you draw a new comic faster. Although over time also details could be prepared in advance and then reused afterwards.
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- 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.
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- Written by: Matej Pavlič
When I started writing up these reviews, my list had 17 game engines. Going through I've found out some are simply discontinued, require coding knowledge or are too simple to even mention. My list was done based on an internet search and I expected to find some more programs to check before the end. As I've repeated the search now I've found additional candidates and the list is now at 40. Being overwhelmed by the amount of options I've set myself at quick searching through the titles to figure out if any of them can be removed quickly. So from here on I'll quickly mention the ones that are interesting but not attractive to me, the ones that require coding and also others that are discontinued.
Coding required:
Cocos2d - free
Corona - open source / free
Gideros Mobile - open source / free
AppGameKit - 80$
Playcanvas - Free / up to 50$ a month
V-Play - Free / up to 120€ a month (currently 30% off)
Monogame - open source / free
Superpowers - open source / free
Playcanvas is a Game engine / Rendering software which unfortunately requires coding but brings a good 3d environment to the table. It's not difficult for use and you can set up your game are pretty quick. Also building and defining objects is easy and understandable. Things start to complicate when you start scripting, of course if that is not your cup of coffee. You can use it for real time rendering applications.
Discontinued:
Crafstudio - Free / Cooperative game engine and educational tool
Cocoon - Html5
Crafstudio is a free game studio which uses puzzle blocks for definition and was made with collaboration in mind. At the moment it seems to be discontinued and having some issues with servers setup for p2p it's worth a mention but not sure if worth to try out. Graphics look cute and so do some of the games you can download inside the program.
Worth to mention:
These two are 3d engines primarily used to build FPS games. CopperCube is free with limitation while GameGuru costs 20$ (no trial so I had to sneak about to find it). You can buy all sorts of add-ons for GC and build virtually any type of game you want as everything is pretty much premade.
CopperCube - 3d Engine / no coding required
GameGuru - 3d Engine, no coding required
App Solute Creator - Features: ● Creative hidden object gameplay ● Match 3, Collapse, Bubble Shooter and Snooker mini-games ● Interesting facts about the outstanding personalities ● Power-ups, achievements, collections and more.
No mentioning of any payable version but have not installed it so could be licensing from inside the program.
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- 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.
