5

For a Christmas gift, I'd like to make a brief Zelda-style (circa Link's Awakening) adventure game. I have extensive experience with python, JavaScript, XML, PHP but have never undertaken game development.

Not picky about platform (investigating pygame), but extra points for browser and double points for Android.

A bit overwhelmed by choices.

Seeking game engine with Hype-style UI that lets me spend most of my time doing fun things (creating sprites, maps, dialogue) and minimal time coding (collision detection, AI).

Also want world peace, pony.

What engine do you recommend?

EDIT: I'm seeing some consensus among other stackoverflow answers that AndEngine is the jam for 2D. Googling brings me this editor: http://www.andengine.org/forums/updates/leveleditor-t720-10.html

Are there any more tools like this to supplement my laziness levels?

EDIT AGAIN: All right, TILED is amazing: http://www.mapeditor.org/. If there's something like this for characters, I'm a happy developer.

UPDATE: Spent 7 hours on AndEngine installation and still couldn't run examples. Gave up. Currently pursuing Akihabara: http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/

AteYourLembas
  • 303
  • 3
  • 12
  • 2
    I don't know about the engines, but if let me know if you get that pony. – Steven Mercatante Nov 18 '11 at 04:21
  • 3
    Kesiev's akihabara turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. One of his examples is a Zelda-style game. It was very easy for me to edit the splash image, sprites, maps and dialog to do what I wanted. You would never ever do this for a commercial application, obviously, but for a personalized Christmas present it was perfect. Seven hours of work and I had what I wanted! – AteYourLembas Dec 14 '11 at 19:22

3 Answers3

3

You definitely should check this : http://www.solarus-games.org/. It is an open-source game engine, specially made for Zelda A Link To The Past style of games !

3

One month is not a lot of time for any kind of game development - especially if you have no prior experience with this.

My first piece of advice would be to dial your level of ambition down - way down. Start out with an extremely basic idea (type - move an avatar around a small game world and get text to show), and then build gradually on that if you have the time.

For Android development, I would make a very simple recommendation: use the native graphics API. It's easy to build the user interface using native SDK, and the SurfaceView and Canvas provide more than adequate enough tools for a simple game. For what you want to do, AndEngine and the rest are simply overkill. If you want to do something bigger and better later, then it may be worthwhile to spend time with a full-scale game engine or learning OpenGL - but not for a simple 2D game.

Good luck.

Michael A.
  • 4,163
  • 3
  • 28
  • 47
1

As mentioned in the comment above, kesiev's akihabara turned out to be the jumping-off point I was looking for: powerful, flexible and well-documented. I recommend it!

AteYourLembas
  • 303
  • 3
  • 12