Is RPGM really that much easier than other game engines?

[Nathaniel3W]

I put a lot of work into learning UnrealScript for UDK, C# in XNA Game Studio, Unity, and then at some point I gave RPGM a try. Honestly, I only gave it about half an hour, and I figured that because I couldn't build a whole FFVI in that time, I may as well just stick with what I already know. I'm still working on my own projects far away from RPGM, but I'm wondering how much easier you find it, if you've built games with other engines.

 

[ZenVirZan]

I find it to be the easiest, but only if you're doing that specific top-down style. It gives you an interface ideal for working on that kind of thing, and can be extended through scripting really easily. The inbuilt classes are also super easy to work with, and you don't need to do any drawing or rendering code yourself; it's all automated for you. It's also got the eventing system inbuilt into the editor so you don't need to write an event scripting system yourself.

If I'm not working on something intended to be massive with a lot of content, I would use XNA, or another text-based environment.

I'd use Unity for anything 3D I guess.

On a whole, yes it is much easier than anything else I've worked with. It's just not as adaptable and open-ended; that's the price you pay for using a specialized set of tools.

 

[Xilef]

RPG Maker is absolutely perfect for learning programming at a very early age - in my opinion - due to the event system which is probably the simplest visual-scripting system I've ever seen in my career. No other engine has that, so it let's complete novices write custom logic and flow and push against the boundaries of what you can do with the event system.

Ruby is not a good learning language - again, in my opinion - it's a language for experienced programmers, but the fact that the option to go deeper with RGSS scripting is there raises the ceiling of RPG Maker's potential higher. Coupled with the Win32API interface, you can do almost anything in RPG Maker (but by the time you have the ability to do anything, you might as well move onto a more powerful engine).

I find both Unity3D and Unreal Engine 4 good to use; Unity3D's scripting system I feel is easier to pick up than UE4's Blue-Prints or C++ libraries, but Unity3D I find I hit the limit of the engine about 50% through the project and then regret using Unity3D, so Unity for me is a 3D prototyping platform and UE4 for me is a technology prototyping platform.

RPG Maker I seem to go to for my low-level technology prototyping for some reason. Probably because I know 11 year old me would be absolutely blown away to see what I can make RPG Maker do these days.

 

[Ellie]

It's better in terms of time before getting into content development. RPG Maker removes the need to make your own game engine and other various systems, so you can get right in and make the actual game.

Is that better, in general? It depends on the individual. If you want a tailor made game and have the time and/or skills to create the engine to begin with, by all means, start with Unity and build the system you want. But if you don't, you're doing it as a hobby, or are happy with the RPG maker system then sure, it's cut out a hell of a lot of work.