I’m looking to make a 2D RPG/Adventure game. I have looked into TGB, and it looks pretty good. Is there any reason I should use Unity over TGB for a 2D project?
Thanks,
Keifer
Using a 3D game development environment for a 2D game? Sure you could do it, but why? If you only wish to make 2D games I’d use Novashell.
http://www.rtsoft.com/novashell/
If however you’d like the flexibility to make a top down RPG, and then later use all the knowledge you acquired in the process to make a 3D game, then I’d go with Unity.
TGB doesn’t offer a web player. If you write your game in Unity (and there have been other 2D games made in Unity, keep reading the forum) you’ll be able to publish a web player (for demo, ad sales, etc) as well as a downloadable game that you can sell.
You could say the same thing about Flash. But I would pick Unity.
Tachyon made a fantastic 2D RPG with Blitzmax.
→ http://www.basiliskgames.com/book1.htm
You could make such a game also in Unity and benefit from the strong sides of Unity (maybe some phyics, webplayer distribution, …) but what’s missing in Unity is a reasonable 2D command set, so you’ll have to do everything on your own which can be a drag depending on what you’re exactly after. No idea of TGB…
Personally for 2D offline i would go for BlitzMax and Unity if i need features only Unity offers.
I am just guessing that for an RPG you won’t need the fastest most accurate pixel perfect sprite collision functionality. That being said, I don’t think there is really anything missing from Unity compared to a 2D focused engine.
With the toon shaders, it is easy to give it a very good 2D look. For certain things it can be much easier to animate 3D objects compared to 2D. For example, it would be much harder in 2D to draw in real time a turret that aims at a moving target.
I think it mostly comes down to your Art goals. Game play will probably be the same if you are an agile programmer.
I disagree as there is a little bit more than just a pixel perfect collision detection between a 2D tool like BlitzMax and Unity. BlitzMax is build for 2D and you feel that when you’re using it.
As for if it’s better having 2D or 3D media this depends on what kind of game you’re after. How much performance can you use (3D models use more polys than just 2D planes)? How much time can you put into the creation process (drawing skills vs. modeling/texturing skills)? And if you want it look 3D you can still render out an animation in much higher quality than in realtime 3D and it’s likely it will perform better. You also won’t encounter shader issues on older cards with rendered out animations.
After all you should take the tool you feel most comfortable with and which gets the job done. There are a few core functions you’ll mostly need but too much tech, for a casual sized game, often means you’ll end up with a techdemo but not a convincing game with some depth and enjoyable gameplay.
Now this flag changes everything…