Isometric 2.5D Game Engine Thread

Hey guys,
I want to make a game (turn-based RPG) that looks very similar to Bastion.
Here's a picture:

Here is what I need to implement:
-> The overworld is 2d, with an isometric view. The graphics would in no way be rendered in 3D, but rather drawn in 2d.
-> The characters would be rendered in 3d, moving about in the 2d isometric world.

I have looked at several game engines, but I find it very difficult to know which would be best to implement this sort of look and feel. Which game engine do you guys feel could be best for me so that I would have the least amount of coding to do for purely the isometric view aspect?

If the character is true 3D you can't use an isometric tiling engine. You're going to have to roll your own, so pick any engine.

If you wanna do the least amount of coding possible I'd recommend Unity.. It does heaps of the work for you (way too much imo). Although unity is a completely 3d engine, they don't even offer 2d physics bodies etc. So what you'd want to do is have the world made up of sprites (get spritemanager2, the plugin, to save coding). The floor would just be made of sprites facing upwards

For a 2.5d isometric world you'd also want to set your camera to be orthographic rather than perspective and you can just play with the angle like any normal 3D world, because you are actually in a 3d world.

"Rolling your own" in any engine is also possible, but not without a lot of coding.

How about pre-render the characters in a 3D program, implement them as 2D sprites in a 2D world.

Further more Multimedia Fusion 2 can do this, and is probably the best bet. In the end though, I'd argue you could probably get away with just having an array of sprites as your tiles and treating them like Buttons as opposed to having it as a "Grid", I've implemented games like this before in MMF2 and its easily the fastest way of doing it without thinking about Pathfinding (because Pathfinding is overkill- you'll never NEED that much precision, simple "is occupied?" checks are enough).

Thank you for your responses Legham and MrCP.

Legham wrote: If you wanna do the least amount of coding possible I'd recommend Unity.. It does heaps of the work for you (way too much imo). Although unity is a completely 3d engine, they don't even offer 2d physics bodies etc. So what you'd want to do is have the world made up of sprites (get spritemanager2, the plugin, to save coding). The floor would just be made of sprites facing upwards

Wow, I didn't know about spritemanager2... I will look more into it, thanks!

formerlyknownasMrCP wrote: Further more Multimedia Fusion 2 can do this, and is probably the best bet. In the end though, I'd argue you could probably get away with just having an array of sprites as your tiles and treating them like Buttons as opposed to having it as a "Grid", I've implemented games like this before in MMF2 and its easily the fastest way of doing it without thinking about Pathfinding (because Pathfinding is overkill- you'll never NEED that much precision, simple "is occupied?" checks are enough).

Here's the thing, my aim would be such that the character can move freely on the walkable tiles. Essentially, the character wouldn't walk one tile at a time in front of him, rather he walks freely, just as in 3D, but upon a 2D canvas. Does that make sense? I realize this adds more complexity, but I feel it makes the game more enjoyable. Let me know if Multimedia Fusion 2 is capable of this.
Moreover, I totally agree with your idea to render the 3D characters in 2D sprites. This is actually what Bastion did in their game.
Moreover, let me know if you guys have other suggestions, thanks!

Torgue Game Builder could do it. Flash or Shockwave should do it (not sure about the 3D model as a character).

You're basically wanting to do a game like Space or Kings Quest, right? If you want your stuff in 3D so it has real 3D interaction instead of fake 3D interaction you could use almost any 3D engine. You could, technically, just take your 2D scene, make a 3D representation in a modeling app & paint that painting on the structure. You'll never see another view so you don't need to worry about back & what not but you could have better collision detection. Any 3D engine could do that. This would make drawing a lot easier because you wouldn't need to do sprites, it would just be 3D objects and the 3D renderer would do all the work.

I'd just say Friar is right and the easy way out is to just use a fully 3d engine from the get go, and just rely on an orthographic camera. 2D Isometric is only useful if you're going into it with the mindset that you're taking something 2D and adding a simulated Z vector to it, which means you're more thinking about its position on the screen as opposed to its position in the game world or 3d space- this is where 3D works better.

Personally though, I prefer to screen method as I'm more stronger with 2D.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

Or you can use Rpg Maker XP or VX, and use a Isometric + a tactical battle system script.

The easiest way, but Rpg Maker uses GDI. And everyone knows thats pure bulls***

This post is old but I figured I'd reply anyway with my 2 cents, as Multmedia Fusion really would be a good option for this. If you combined the Isometric Grid Object and the 3D mesh object then you would have pretty much exactly what you are after, in fact as you say, you could do away with grids entirely and use the 3D mesh object for your characters on a custom painted 2D background at what-ever perspective you want, seems simple enough to me.

^This is very true.