Final Fantasy Tactics like game, which engine to chose?

[valepu]

Hello,

I want to join the world of game developing and i want to use html5/javascript since it's a world i'm quite comfortable in.

I am looking since days (though i have limited time during the day) at the various javascript engines for games but i'm not sure which one to chose because of the particular kind of game i want to develop.

 

As far as i can understand Final Fantasy Tactics uses a 3d world with 2d sprites to represent characters (i like this kind of graphic, i liked in FFT, i liked in Ragnarok Online and i find amazing the one in Tree of Savior, Ragnarok Online's spiritual successor) and it kinda looks like an isometric game but it's actually in 3d (since you can rotate and zoom the camera).

 

I am not sure that with my knowledge and my "not that great" art skills i'd be able to build a 3d world, on the other side in a 3d world it would be simpler to implement things such as floating/moving blocks, jumping, climbing, lightning, layered maps (as in maps with underground part or with many floors). And after all it's "just" cubes, cuboids and other basic figures with simple textures, i might be able to handle it (or even find some already made with blender).

 

Now, i need to decide which way to follow: Pure isometric or 3d blocky world with 2d sprites?

As far as i can understand, a pure 2d isometric world would be simpler to build but it would be harder to add advanced features while a 3d world would be harder to build but once you get the grasp of it you'd be able to add other features easily. For this reason I'm more oriented towards a 3d world with 2d sprites (i don't have any experience with 3d, but i don't mind getting my hands dirty. I do have a lot of experience with programming and javascript, just no experience with programming videogames, but that doesn't scare me).

 

While "studying" the various offers i stumbled upon this: http://www.projectgoldscript.com/ which looks quite amazing to me and it's exactly what i want to achieve (the general idea, at least), too bad there isn't any news about it since almost a year I have read he used to use an isometric engine (sheetengine), but then he switched to three.js

 

Which leads me to the questions:

Given my knowledge of the fields involved but taking into account that i don't mind learning and studying even though i have little time and i don't really want to put into my game less features than those i am considering for my game (yes, in other words i'm a little biased towards a 3d world with 2d sprites):

- which game engine do you suggest? 

- can you point me to one or more tutorials that might help me learning how to make something similar to what i have in mind (even a chess game is a good start) with the given engine?

- Do you think it's a good idea to start with a 3d game instead of learning something simpler first?

[ronicasingh]

Hello,

 

I love HTML5/Javascript game development.  But, you say you want to use an engine, you got a few options.

 

Try, Unity3d or Unreal Engine (which is now free) for full on 3d games.  However, in Unity you can make 2d games as well.

 

Other than that, you could try WebGL, lots of coding involved in it.

 

Just search for any of these and you will find plenty of video and readable tutorials.  Take your pic.

 

About art, neither am I, but if you want to learn to draw some of your own weird characters and other sprites, try Inkscape.  Got tutorials to follow on how to use.  You'll be surprised, that after one tutorial, you might just end up drawing your own car design.  Other than that, there are some, not many, but some commercial-use art designs you can use from deviantart.com

 

Good luck.