Hi, I'm MrMallard. I had an idea for an RPG kicking around in my head, so I decided to give game development a go. I'm pretty impulsive when it comes to projects like this - look at my abandoned GeoCities page at geocities.ws/mrmallard for proof of this - so there's a non-zero percent chance that this account will go dark in a matter of weeks. Regardless, I'm living for the moment, so here I am typing out an intro. I'm a bit of a layman, so please forgive any wonky terms I use to explain what I'm talking about.
Why Stencyl?
First of all, it's packed with features at the free level. I looked at a game engine that had a 30 day free trial, and it wasn't all that feature complete for those 30 days. They're hoping for people to use a gimped version of their software for 30 days before ponying up cash for a month-to-month license, without a Free tier. Another one I saw had a Free tier that, for what it's worth, seemed like you could use it permanently without paying - but alongside the expected "no exporting" policy, it only allowed the use of 50 objects. Stencyl doesn't offer the full package for free, but it does seem to allow access to its full set of features right off the bat and it does seem to allow for limited publishing opportunities.
Secondly, I was won over by the free-to-use Stencylpedia tutorials. I dabble in stuff like this, , but I'm not very experienced in coding and map editing and stuff. The fact that Stencyl gives you the software and lets you go crazy with it was one thing, but providing free resources to help users get better at using the software? That was a really nice discovery.
Third - it's not super complicated or resource intensive. I'm not looking for an Unreal Engine 4. I would consider Unity, but I read that their 2D development mode or whatever is a bit buggy because it's still attached to their 3D mode. A game engine like Stencyl is exactly what I need - 2D, user-friendly, feature-packed to mess around with.
And lastly - dude, the Dangerous Dungeons games were developed on Stencyl. That's awesome.
What am I making?
The project I want to make with Stencyl is a top-down, turn-based RPG. I'm a big fan of older turn-based RPGs like Phantasy Star 1, the Dragon Quest games and Final Fantasy 5 - so I decided to try my hand at making one. I like writing stories, so this is one of the better genres to do so. Of course, there's a lot of work to be done in order to build my own RPG from scratch - but I want to give it a try regardless.
So far I'm working with a handful of story/character concepts, and that's about it. The plan is to cobble together a basic RPG, graphics and all, get the basic things down like dialogue and scene transitions between different maps, see what I can do about a turn-based battle system - this is what's probably going to sink me, if I even get this far - and then see what I can do about getting outside help in regards to the graphics and music.
I've made myself a test sprite for the PC and a rudimentary tileset for environments. I've also downloaded a couple of utilities that I hope will help me in the long run.
I hope that my time with this project will be productive and fun, and I hope that my activity with this project will bring me back to this forum to chat, learn and possibly discover new tools.
