I have a question. First please let me explain what I am trying to achieve. I want to create a text-based medieval game, there are a few around already. My 15+ years expertise is related to website development, mostly marketing, but I know enough to create CMS based websites, and modify scripts and extensions, I finished an Economic Science university and I also have a programming diploma. I also have a partner which is a programmer ( and has a Construction? University bachelor degree ).
Is the Unreal Engine the right tool to do that? If yes, what are the things we should look to improve from the start? Like learning C++, Php, Java, etc. I am not looking to do something marvelous from the start. First I have to dig a hole where to lay down the foundations, so it might look ugly and full of dirt, but if there is potential, improvements will come hopefully.
The goal is to get our heads into the gaming world, we shall see if we shall be slapped or we shall be more or less warmly welcomed.
EDIT: While I am at this, I also have mainstream websites that would love to get some simple mobile apps, like shopping lists where you can check what to buy, daily schedule, and stuff useful for the actual customers. Is that doable with Unreal Engine? I am planning to do it in a friendly game-style funny way.
If you’re doing something text based then it seems like UE4 is overkill. You would struggle to get it running well enough to where it would only be using the graphical features that you actually need.
The problem is that I have no idea what engine to use. I have only found very shady looking engines, with too little clients to be able to make a sound decision over their quality. A very bad answer mr. DV It breaks my heart.
When you say a text-based game, how much of it will actually be text? I personally would use AS3 (Flash) to make something like this simply because it runs great on pretty much any device that someone might have, works on the web, and has always been an extremely easy language for me, after around 6 months I considered myself to be “fluent” in the language.
It would really help to know exactly what you want to achieve. The UE4 is powerful and versatile, but has it’s strengths rather in full 3D environments.
Check out Quest, thats maybe something you’re looking for. Also Unity might be a better choice for 2D games.
That shouldn’t necessarily an issue if you use AIR, which is not the same as the browser plugin. There are quite a few AIR games out there that shouldn’t be compromised by the constant securitiy issues of Flash. Although given how Adobe handles both ends, one might want to avoid Flash just because of the awful support.
Text based with beautiful graphics, I am not speaking about a forum game. I think Flash is not an option for what I want.
Myself knows little programming while my mate is a medium programmer, but we are both willing to learn a lot. In fact from august and September we are both starting programming classes with a private company, we want to refresh things and learn what’s cooking.
He knows Java, I don’t. Truth is that I am looking on something with a lot of predefined things at the beginning, modifying is easier than writing from scratch, at least in this phase of knowledge.
I agree on both Flash and Java. Let me make a quick resume of what I want to achieve ( still basic ideas, many entities interact with other entities ).
Religions entities - Kingdoms entities > Non affiliated organizations entities
Pope will have the same same power as the kings. Leaders of NAO will have the power granted by the money they make, relations they have, etc.
Alliance entity > Kingdoms entities > Regions entities > Cities entities
Alliance leaders > Kings and queens > Nobles, vassals and stuff > Regular people > NPC characters like peasants, regular soldiers, etc.
Ruler position can be conquered through rebellion or once every 6 months through elections. Any non religion player can be part of this.
Pope position can be attained every 6 months through elections by any religion official like this. 1 NPC candidate. 1 candidate designated by the former pope - himself or another, his choice. 1 candidate picked by the 1st tier of officials from a list where every 1st tier official can register - the one who gets the most votes is the official candidate, if votes are tied, the richest one, else the smarter one, etc. Tier 2 picks an option, tier 3 picks an option, etc. Not realistic, but I want everybody to have access to the full game. I will use the NPC candidate if there is no proper candidate or if I want to modify the religion standings.
Pope can excommunicate kingdoms if various conditions are met, king can become heretic by choice with huge religious, production and military penalties.
Pope names and revokes tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 officials, t1 officials can name and revoke tier 2, tier 3, etc. If local kings refuse the access to an official, the pope can excommunicate them or give orders to the other kingdoms to gather armies to defeat the infidels.
Alliance leaders have the veto on what the alliance can do, but the alliance members are free to choose what to do.
Kings can name officials, takes taxes from their lands, a share of taxes from the vassals and nobles, can ask for soldiers, request for a building to be built or demolished ( exceptional situations ) in a province, request for clothes, food and weapons for the soldiers.
Both religious and kingdom entities will own mines, forests, etc, in each kingdom.
NPC characters - Rebels, Cardinals, historical personalities, peasants, regular soldiers, etc, that will affect the game.
There are 2 examples of something similar to what I want to achieve.
I used to play both games years ago one, and one until this summer when I quit. I like the ideas, I like medieval history, I have the knowledge to market such things, and most of it, I am not pressured to make it an overly monetized project, I want to be the really right thing. I will start small, and learn on the way. It’s better first to get a feeling about the MMO dev world, than just jump into it wasting money and most probably following wrong ideas.
For your idea, I would try something like RPG Maker VX Ace Lite (which is free). There are other versions, if you want to pay for them, and you can get buy assets to use in it.
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