Hopefully not easy enough so that Steam will be flooded with trash.
Oh, wait.
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Nobody complains that shitty bars have shitty house bands playing in public.
Game development that gets rid of technical problems and encourages a wide variety of artistic choices is always going to be a good move. Itâll be work to sort through it all, but thatâs what curators are for, hey.
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For every âyou can do anythingâ toolbox, a custom built solution is always going to feel more personal. And thatâs been a real part of the problem with the glut of games made with existing engines, particularly Unity. Itâs sort of the RPG Maker effect, once everybody can make a thing, nobody really cares about most creations anymore.
No matter how easy game dev is, you still have to put the personal effort in if you want it to stand out. Not necessarily âgoodâ, but enough that people donât go âoh this is an [XYZ] game and it really looks/feels like one, ugh.â
Iâve never really dabbled so: how much of a fully rule-redefinable 2D fightman engine is MUGEN, in this day and age?
Did you know Koihime Musou is built on a MUGEN variant? Because it is!
So itâs pretty full featured! But again you have to put in the effort to make it have a unique feel. And youâll be limited on what kinds of effects you can do to whatâs supported by the engines, unless you hack it yourself.
Modern MUGEN is kind of more of a spectator sport than a thing people actually play, though.
My knowledge of MUGEN is about a decade out of date, but even back then, it was quite possible to make extremely elaborate ruleset changes if you were willing to take the time to override everything yourself. Somewhere many hard drives ago, I had a copy of a demo project a friend made for a Guardian Heroes-style multi-line fighter with RPG level-up mechanics and everything. The problem was that it wasnât something you could drop other characters into without a truly massive amount of reworking, particularly when throws and other moves which literally took control of the other character were involved. If youâre doing an âentirely enclosedâ game, you can do a TON of ruleset modifications freely, because you can control all the cases⌠but then youâre still stuck making something thatâs âincompatibleâ with most of the other MUGEN stuff out there, running on a sporadically abandoned-and-revived-and-abandoned engine not licensed for anything other than freeware distribution.
Which is too bad; it was and is extremely robust. But themâs the brakes.
Iâd argue that all things are âmiddlewareâ and each consoles job isnât to be universal but to curate the right choices. Eg the NES, PlayStation, Genesis, and especially the NeoGeo really highlight this. Playing with the quirks of each system is what gives each system their character.
edit: I know you were referencing unity and other solutions, but it still works.
I get what you mean, that each engine should give the games running through it their own individual feel. To an extent, you can get this out of Unity, UE4, Game Maker, RPG Maker, etc.
In the modern age, not much really limits you with enough effort, though. Most of the problem of games feeling too similar comes from them sticking too closely to the examples and common creations of their respective platforms, and you can do a lot more within their respective confines but few put in the effort to do so.
i donât know anything about it myself, but iâve read on tumblr tales of people using multimedia fusion to create fancy menus and stuff for their mugen games? that doesnât even sound like something thatâs possible iâm probably misunderstanding and talking shit
i was surprised when i got nuclear throne on vita recently that it opens with a âmade in game maker studioâ scren
Nah, I could see that happening. Iâm pretty sure Multimedia Fusion can launch other applications, and MUGEN lets you configure a ton of stuff using command-line options; changing config files, jumping directly into matches with particular settings, etc.
I really wanna make a game sometimes, and then I think about how much of a stickler for details I am and that working around the intricacies of a game engine would drive me nuts, and then I donât.
Iâll be honest, if you donât decide your limitations and capabilities early, and stick to them, you are going to have trouble getting anything done.
Trust me, speaking from experience!
I donât know what my limitations and capabilities are. If I would REALLY want to make a game, I would make it right now, no matter how. Maybe I am making excuses. Maybe I am too scared to figure out my limitations and capabilities.
Think mauve means, for the game. Unless youâre making another Dwarf FortressâŚ
Just make games, dude.
what would be my avenues for making a simple puzzle game outside of puzzlescriptâŚ
how much work do you want to put into it? Puzzlescript automates a lot of things for you. I would recommend something that automates a lot of the work for you but on a slightly lower level. And, honestly, Iâd definitely stick with something web-capable, personally. No sense making a game people have to jump through hoops to play.
You could try Pico-8. I donât have any personal experience with it but itâs probably closer to what youâre looking for than most options. Beyond that, the usual array of Construct, Game Maker, etc.
So Amazon just released their open-source 3D game engine to beta testing. Free except paying for the AWS services it uses.
Possibly of interest
I made a bunch of games with Vertex Meadow the other week. Itâs a pretty cool thing to fiddle with.
And you can edit any of the games you play by hitting the E key, which is always a nice touch.
No one seems to have published a wireframe one yet⌠⌠âŚ