Hey everyone! ( ^_^)/ So, right now I am drawing up a bunch of concept art for a 2D RPG (with the whole center camera movements and such... like the old Zelda games). Now, the best way I can relate the gameplay to is "Ib" and "Ao Oni"... I was wondering what program I should use to develop it... Any suggestions? ... preferably free please. ( óuò)
RPG Maker is really the best option I can come up with. RPG Maker VX Ace is the top of the line but costs $90. RPG Maker XP has an enormous amount of community support for it, and only costs $30. There are free programs out there, but I can neither remember their names, nor if they were of any quality.
Game development is kinda hard, and requires programming one way or another. If you like that, I highly recommend it.
Game Maker by Yoyo Games. Comes with like no assets, but...if you're creative, you can export assets from the RPG Maker series and get them to work for you in Game Maker. (If you want an example PM me).
Very easy is Java, using Eclipse use it all the time (that is if you know Java) ---------- Post added 11th Aug 2012 at 08:34 PM ---------- ohohohohho! Also, check out gamesalad. Very awesome and easy to learn Game Design Engine, Make Games for iPhone & Android - GameSalad
Game Salad...drove me a bit...insane as it has a bunch of constraints (or I couldn't figure out how to get it to work). I'd prefer Stencyl which is like their competitor (and currently using to make an iOS game).
I'm going to have to say that any of those pre-packaged platforms are pretty tragic. You're inevitably going to want to do something that it just isn't going to let you do, and almost everything that comes out of them is the same game, just with different graphics, because they're all (literally) working on the same framework. I'd encourage you to write the programming side of it yourself.
If you'd prefer to do it from scratch, might as well go with a program like Blender or one of these other free rendering programs. I'm still figuring Blender out myself as I have an interest in gaming (particularly Dark-Themed RPGs, because I think there's not enough). Of course, professional level game development software is stuff like Maya, but that costs around 1000 bucks from my understanding...
If it hasn't been mentioned, Adventure Game Studio is really quite well done. If you've done any Java before it is very easy to get use to - it is intended for 2D point'n'click adventures but can be used for RPGs and the like as well.
