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Every once in a while I'll get it in my head to make a 3D game, rather than a 2D one. But I don't want to spend the time building any assets - not only am I bad

Every once in a while I'll get it in my head to make a 3D game, rather than a 2D one. But I don't want to spend the time building any assets - not only am I bad at that, but I also don't know if my idea is good until people try it and give me feedback... which requires a working prototype. What I'm looking for is a game engine (asset library?) that lets me build my town by placing buildings, and dropping in my main character - and then I can just run around the town, opening doors and talking to people. Tons of tons of game have dialogue, medieval fighting, assassinations, kill moves - I don't want to have to spend time making any of that. I want to test my game ideas and see if they are fun. I want to write the parts that are unique to my game, the story and the decisions you make. Then, later, I can go back and iterate on assets. Both game engines now have Asset stores, but I'm not sure the level designer is to the point where I can quickly iterate over my ideas.

kbenson 12y ago
The Unity asset store has libraries as well as graphical assets. I haven't looked in a while, but I imagine someone may have written a simple game engine to do what you want that you could buy if it isn't too costly. I just looked, and this is the third thing I saw: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11067 https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11067
mtinkerhess 12y ago
There are (at least) three levels of development in a game: engine, gameplay, and content. Depending where you draw those lines, Unity gives you the engine and you provide the gameplay and content. It sounds like you're interested in just working on content, in which case there are tons of games that let you do more or less what you describe through modding (eg Skyrim).
- baddox 12y ago
  It's not for FPS's (although it's been used for that), but Starcraft 2 has really impressive modding features. I've been third person action games, arcade shooters, 2D platformers, and tower defense titles. There's even a popular soccer game where each player is a unit from Starcraft.
fulafel 12y ago
Unity is good leap forward in getting game dev to a higher level of abstraction, but what you mention is not there yet. This sort of asset store for reusable components is a long standing goal in sw dev in general.

kbenson 12y ago

The Unity asset store has libraries as well as graphical assets. I haven't looked in a while, but I imagine someone may have written a simple game engine to do what you want that you could buy if it isn't too costly. I just looked, and this is the third thing I saw: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11067 https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/11067

mtinkerhess 12y ago

There are (at least) three levels of development in a game: engine, gameplay, and content. Depending where you draw those lines, Unity gives you the engine and you provide the gameplay and content. It sounds like you're interested in just working on content, in which case there are tons of games that let you do more or less what you describe through modding (eg Skyrim).

baddox 12y ago
It's not for FPS's (although it's been used for that), but Starcraft 2 has really impressive modding features. I've been third person action games, arcade shooters, 2D platformers, and tower defense titles. There's even a popular soccer game where each player is a unit from Starcraft.

fulafel 12y ago

Unity is good leap forward in getting game dev to a higher level of abstraction, but what you mention is not there yet. This sort of asset store for reusable components is a long standing goal in sw dev in general.