Today, Emanuel and I decided to make our engine of choice the Godot 2d Engine. It is an open source, stable game development software, that is actually rated to be better than other notable engines, like Unity, Gamemaker: Studio, and even Stencyl, according to this website:
Emanuel and I looked up a few reviews, and they all said how easy the engine code called GDScript is to learn, and how much more beneficial it would be to learn, as opposed to the alternative C++. They say that it is easy to learn, so easy that it could take only a few days to become proficient in it. So Emanuel will be learning the bulk of the programming requirements for the game we are going to make.
Another deciding factor with the engine, it is completely free. It is open source, and there is no royalties or fees, as described in this screenshot of the website
So this is nice in the fact that, maybe if mine and Emanuel's game concept and development gets to a point of confidence in performance, and how polished it is, maybe we will polish it further more, and potentially work on it even after school, and eventually release it on Steam or something, so long as it passes the Steam Greenlight votes.
My job in the development of the game, is to design the 2D entity sprites, and animations, and I am not positive, but I think I may also take the reins on controller development, and maybe make it so we can use something like an XBOX 360 controller for it.
The Ultimate Goal of this project, is to develop a 2D fighting game. Meeting our expectations, would mean have 2 playable characters, one playable stage, functioning controls, a health bar, a timer, and a basic menu system.
Exceeding our expectations, would mean more than two playable characters, more than one stage, our own music and sound effects (so we don't have to use royalty free music), and custom control options. We plan on developing with the Windows Operating system in mind, and making the game accessible to those without a powerful computer, to make our target demographic as wide as possible.
We both look forward to the coming months in developing this game we are calling "Project Zenf" as a placeholder name.
The first little bit of our project will be considered as pre-development so we can plan out the game details, like the UI, stage concept, character and fight concepts, menu design, etc.
