Searching for an Engine/Development Kit Thread

Me and my friends have decided to make our own 2D or 3D Sideview game a few months ago, we never actually started on it because we didn't know which engine or development kit to use, We have a rough plan on what the story will be and we want to make it look like a sideview-like game or something like Trine (Of course it's not gonna be as good as trine since it's our first attempt.

We already have a team together with 2 Average Programmers, 2 Writers and 1 Level Designer (Me) and 3 other unskilled people who want to learn, I'm working on the story with a friend as I type this so i'll keep it short.

We've already checked out Game Maker and Unity but I don't think theyre exactly great for the type of game we're making (Sorry if I'm wrong, I'm only an experienced modder. I havent made any games yet, neither do I have much experience with many engines) so I'd highly appriciate it if we could get some support by you guys recommending us a good engine/development kit or what you call them, for what we're trying to achieve.

Any type of help is appriciated.
Thanks in advance.

~Ryan (( Kuzen / Midvinter ))
-Also sorry if this is posted in the wrong section, I have no idea what's supposed to be where.

Edited by: Lusaa

Given that you haven't mentioned anything about your project, or why GameMaker / Unity isn't suitable for you, it's impossible for anyone to suggest anything.

I don't exactly know what to mention when we've not started on the game yet, all we're currently doing is trying to think of a good fitting story. The only thing I can say is we're making it a 2D or possibly(dont depend on it) 3D sideview game.

I haven't personally checked out 'Game Maker' yet but i am planning to do so very soon, yet it seems my friends don't like it. And Unity, well I've checked it out and it just doesn't feel like it'll fullfill our desires in what we're trying to achieve as in a Sideview Trine'ish game from what i've seen of it so far, Of course I could be missing something.

Im just simply trying to ask for some help for picking something since I personally dont have any experience with most Engines/DK's.
One of us has experience with Game Maker and he said it's not really that great for the style game we're doing so I decided to post something here since I would've thought we could find some advice here.

Edited by: Lusaa

Unity is fine for most applications and Trine isn't anything particularly special as far as the technical / implementation side of it goes. Unless you have any stand out features that require specialist tech, you're probably fine.

Alright that's probably all I need to know I'll do some more research on Unity then cause I probably missed out on a few things.
Sorry for not explaining it clearly. And thanks for the help!

No problem

In future, it really does help to be specific however!

Yeah i'll be making sure to do that!
I thought however that I've already given enough information but after reading it from someone else's perspective another 2 times I thought to myself it wasn't very accurate either, but I wouldn't have seen that if you wouldn't have replied, so thanks again.

Yet again I didn't really know what to mention since we haven't really started on anything yet.
(We're planning on starting as soon as the day of friday though)

Update: The story for our game is done, i'll need to tweak it up a little so it doesnt have unneccesary crap in it and so the sentences make sense but everythings been working out so far. And also, I'll be doing another update report by the start of next week if that's fine.

Edited by: Lusaa

Unity is perfect for begginers, trust me

Yeah I've checked it out for a good amount of time and it doesn't seem too difficult. We've been an, how i'd like to say it, Proffesional (Elder Scrolls Mostly) Modding team for a couple of years, but none of us know anything about making a game from scratch.

Also i'm just a writer and/or Level Designer for the most part so I know literally barely anything in this sector (As in engines/Development kits, however you like to call them. I dont even know..) But i've been interested in it for quite some time so i suggested it a few months back and everyone agreed to it but it's never actually come as far as we are now.

We always became uninterested after finishing thinking of like alright, what kind of game are we making? 2D? 3D? which Engine 'r we gonna use? What's the story gonna be like-ish? Well you know what I'm saying, I think almost everyones been through that atleast once.

We haven't really started yet because everyones going to be really busy the upcoming couple of weeks, but in about 3 weeks we all have loads of free time so we can finally start on it. I'm already working on some idea's myself but we can't really work them out yet, we've got busy lifes, you know? Well thanks for the advice you two, I'll get going since I'm writing this at work, I don't want my boss to get angry cause I'm just lazy-ass'ing around.

Edited by: Lusaa

If you go with Unity and don't have a coder, I would recommend you also get PlayMaker for Unity.
Hutonggames.com
Great way to wrap your head around how programming works, also fast way to code events into levels.

We use Unity at StrangeLight Games. Easy to use, can script in C#, javascript... its community is huge and you can find a high number of tutorials online. Pretty powerfull tool, even the free version

Cannot go wrong with Game Of Engines. It has a simple install, Easy to use manual and fantastic game engine. www.indiedb.com/engines/game-of-engines

Thanks for the suggestions Steadi, MurDoc and StrangeLight, I'll check it out once im back at home. (At work now).

Edited by: Lusaa

I'd add another +1 for Unity since Unreal (another great engine) is in the process of changing version and tech. If you used unreal you'd probably have to rebuild your tools when the next version comes out in who-knows-when. Unity also has great support.

The easiest available is Game Maker Studio, and then Unity.

Don't even try Unreal Development Kit, unless your team is experienced in that area.

We have 1 guy that's very experienced in UnrealDK, but I wouldnt dare starting with that since the rest of us don't know alot of it, Thanks for the advice though.