New to Gdevelop, but not to indie gamedev

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My name is Rory and I’ve been using game design tools as an indie developer for a long time. I’m not sure if I could be counted as “indie developer” because I’ve never had a release.

A little history of the software I’ve used:
Klik & Play
The Games Factory, replaced by Click & Create when I found out how many more options C&C had
Construct
Construct 2
GDevelop

What I usually do is RPG type of things, I enjoy building engines and have a very unique game I was working on in Construct 2, but since they’ve slowed development on C2 for C3, it’s been difficult to keep up with the latest techniques. I have learned a lot, but I’m still not good at my own graphics, which is where the community comes in. Basically, I develop the game but require help from other people to do graphics and sound and music. This would be done contractually with the payoff being a good selling game. This was always the plan, but the ever-changing environment of game design the last two decades have really changed that plan over time. However, I do feel we are finally stabilizing a platform, HTML5 Canvas, and feel comfortable with this being the ultimate platform for the type of classic RPG’s I enjoy designing.

Sure, I’ve played around with other engines: Game Maker, RPG Maker, Unreal, all those others that people just gush over. But I find the simplicity of Construct style development (C&C? K&P?) to be far better for this goal of a one-man development team.

The only thing that is preventing me from moving forward in this endeavor is the lack of a tilemap object. I hope GDevelop can incorporate this sooner than later. I’m currently working on a sci-fi book so I’m in no real hurry, but once that’s done I will want to dive back in and do my game, preferably in GDevelop.

I’m a Linux user these days (Ubuntu), which is why most other engines are out of the question. I know there are a few that are really good, but having to learn an entirely new way of doing things to get my one game out there is pretty lame if you ask me. So I hope over time, GDevelop gets to the point where I can use it as a professional tool to create the RPG of my dreams, one that combines the best elements of every RPG I’ve ever played.

To be fair, I have a GDevelop project saved with all the variables I’ll be needing, but without a tilemap, I’m stuck. Everything about RPG’s (well, everything about 2D video games) needs a tilemap object for the designer to use.

Thanks for your time and I hope to enjoy more of this software and get to know people in this community better over time!

~Rory

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Hi.

To be honest tilemap is something people was requesting for a very long time but it was never get in to focus. So I would not recommend to put your expectations high regarding when we get tilemap support in GD5. It might be a long time or never or tomorrow. Never know really, usually everything comes with a surprise without any announcement :wink:
GD5 do have a dialog system in development though which is going to be very useful for making RPG games.

However, in case it is happen GDevelop is not going to be your choice of engine but you are uncertain what direction to go, one engine you may have not tried yet is RPG in a Box.

It have been released recently and personally I find it a pretty awesome, really fun to work with.
The main focus of the engine is to provide all the tools you need to develop an RPG game including a voxel editor. Yes it is voxel based which may be not exactly your style but the nice thing about it you can make pretty much anything out of voxels and the tool include a really nice voxel editor to do just that which can be very helpful for people with no art skills. You can make anything out of voxels like tiles, characters, items with full animation support. If you are on your own for the entire project but you are not an artist, I would recommend to have a look and play around with the idea of implementing your game in a voxel world.

Even if you would like to stick with your current art, it is possible actually to convert flat 2D images in to 3D voxel models using 3rd party tools like MagicaVoxel and Qubicle but it is something that is also planned to be implement in to RPG in a Box directly so no 3rd party tool would be required.

The engine is under development, not all RPG features included just yet like Inn, Shop, Crafting, Classes for example, but the developer is extremely passionate about it and very active, getting new features almost every week. I highly recommend it to have a look :+1:

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Thank you very much for the information. I would like to use an RPG specific engine, but they are always very limited and focus on a particular style of RPG, often the JRPG. I have a lot of influence from that, but those engines aren’t designed to do the type of action I seek to do, as the way I have my game planned, something like GDevelop would be perfect.

Most RPGs are tile-based, square by square. I need that simply for the world building, as the player should be able to move freely around the map without sticking to the squares, and all battle scenes are NOT turn based, but side-scrolling action sequences (allowing the player to pause and pick the next move, or change weapons, etc.). On top of that, towns, dungeons, caves, anything that isn’t the world map is to be side-scrolling.

To give an overview: the world map will be like Final Fantasy style, while maintaining a Zelda2 approach to the movement speed over certain tiles (swamps and snow make you move slower). The battle system is truly random, in the style of Final Fantasy battle randomization.

You do not pick a class, your class is determined by what you use, and as you get better at a skill, new techniques unlock. There are three sets of active skills and a set of passive skills.

So to sum up, in order to do all this, a typical RPG engine is not useful. To incorporate the elements of Zelda2, FF, Castlevania, Metroid, Ultima, and Elder Scrolls, nothing will be easier than to use this type of engine that GDevelop offers.

I would keep doing it in Construct 2, but as I say I’m using Linux now, and I can’t see myself paying $100/year for Construct 3 just so I can work in Linux on a project that might take many years to complete.

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Forgot to add, that software you offered up is not free for use, and there’s no way for me to see if it’s any good anyway. But I’m assuming it isn’t due to it being specific for RPGs.

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There is a demo version you can try that also available on Linux. The demo has all the features available to you with the only limit on what size a level and voxel model can be but it should be enough to evaluate if the tool is right for you or not.
But judging from the description of your game, I think it would not fit your project.

001 would may be fit your project best because it is a complete RPG engine with all the features but extended with many more functionality that allow you to make any kind of game even platformers, board games, puzzle games or even first person shooter. However it is not free and not available on Linux, but I did try the Steam version on Linux with Proton and did work perfectly. I did not noticed any problem.
There is a 14 day trial available I believe. The workflow is very unique, nothing like any other engine so it might take more than 14 days to get the hang of it. So if you ever consider to try the 14 day trial I recommend do it when you have the time available to dedicate to this tool.

Regarding C3, as far as I know if you once start the editor in your browser, it is continue to work offline even after your subscription expiry so you can continue to develop your games, only need to make sure do not clear your browser cache. Then you can pay a subscription again if you either need to update C3 or you want to publish the game. I realize it is not cheap, but one way to reduce the costs if you don’t often clear the browser cache.

Anyhow, I don’t personally see tilemap support coming to GD in the near future. Maybe if you go to GitHub and demonstrate the game you made in C2 so far and explain that you would like to bring that game over to GD but only if there is tilemap support then maybe a dev would consider it to help wit that.

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That would be an excellent option, the last one you mentioned that is. I do have a generalized preview of what I am doing, but I need that tilemap! :stuck_out_tongue:

I mean, I’m serious about this game, too. If I had a way of working on it in Linux without fear of an expiration date on the software I’m using, and without boundaries holding me back, then I would be so happy! I’ll head over to github later and find my C2 compile of what I’ve been working on. It would totally be worth it I can get this going again!

I know GD is different from C2, but I’m willing to start all over if I know it’s on a platform that won’t expire in a few years requiring more purchasing to keep updated.

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At the bottom you can see there is a link to the Win and Lin 64 bit versions, easy to start up with NW.js

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Wow, that’s a large download. I like the side scroller battles I think it is a good idea.
I hope someone can help you with this.

But in case no one offer you help, an other thing you could actually do is create the levels in Tiled:

Then export the levels from Tiled as an image and use it as a background in GDevelop.
Then you could use an invisible object as a collider, places where you don’t want the player to walk through like walls, boxes, buildings…etc And things that you want to interact with like chests, doors, switches…etc could be single sprite objects in the scene and you can put things that you want to be able to walk behind on a top layer in GD.
I know it is not that convenient as having a tilemap editor built-in to GD, but one way to do it if there is nothing else and Tiled is the best tilemap editor out there and actually it is more likely someone may make an extension to import a Tiled level than create an entire tilemap editor for GD.

Good luck :+1:

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Actually, I just checked and Tiled export images with transparency, so even things that you want to walk behind but don’t want to interact with could be done in Tiled exported as an image and used as foreground on top layer in GD. Tiled also support layers and you can choose what layer to export as image so you can design the entire level in Tiled, background on one layer, foreground on an other. You need to bring only those bits in to GD as individual sprites that you want to interact with like switches, doors…etc :+1:

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