Reviews - flakyfish

There's a lot of untapped potential left in this engine.

I was one of the main testers back when the developer was building this engine over a decade ago, since RGM v1.0, back when bithandler was active with its message boards. I supported him to create the subsequent iterations that include the multitude of weapons and bullet features. Sadly, he stopped working on it due to time constraints in his life, and I wish to re-connect him and even fund him to continue putting in more features.

That being said, I've picked this engine up and put it down several times over the past 10+ years. I fell in love with the idea of single-handedly being able to create a game that doesn't take in insurmountable hours to make. However, as I've created a couple of games that I never published (and regrettably deleted), I became more and more familiar with exploits of its limited features to push for pseudo-features that could make our games more interesting. I'm very familiar with every facet of the engine, but I digress. I realize that making a solid game on here, albeit with its limitations, still would take hundreds of hours of work.

I think this is a wonderful engine for anyone who has always grown up interested in making up games when playing as kids. It's a good creative exercise, and brings a factor of nostalgia with its Wolf3D-style gameplay. And, because it doesn't require rigorous coding like literally any other engine out there, it enables us to create full-length games by ourselves over the course of several months, or a couple of years.

Merger3D was the most impressive game created with RGM, and has inspired me to create my own game that is just as extensive, if not more! Seeing the creator push boundaries, including the creative use of Cut Scenes and even pushing dimension limitations on weapons has opened a refreshing avenue for what the engine creator left behind. I've been working on a game of my own for about 300+ hours now, but wish there was a community to inspire each other. I wish to connect with anyone who's actively utilizing this engine so we may share ideas.

Now, I give this a 9 because there are quite some limitations with the engine from what the creator left off. If he had just added a couple more things, we'd have a whole lot more to work with. For example, if there was even 2 keys available for each level, we could create more interesting levels. I've been planning to create a .gamepak for each individual level in my game, so that each level can have its own set of 40 wall textures, its own key design, and its own 5 unique enemies. That I can live with, but I wonder how different of a game it could be with a limitation of 6 enemies? Or 7 weapons? Or 50 walls? Or 20 sprites? Or 2 different ammo/health pickups that give different amounts? Or different types of ammo specific to weapons? Or different sounds when "Treasures" are collected? (I'm using Treasures as invisible sprites that trigger a certain sound in the level) Or, imagine v5 allowed for us to change the sprites on enemy bullets/bullet impacts/bullet speed, like v4 does? Or, if height could be doubled so as to create a more dynamic looking environment (and make outdoor levels look more realistic)? From what I remember, the creator of RGM implemented all the features that we see in today's latest versions within a matter of days. It was just up to people like me and stickman64 and a few others to suggest them as we tested the versions. But again, I digress.

I suppose this is a half-review and half trying to connect with a community. But yeah. There's a lot that can be done with this engine and I have yet to see a game that uses it to its absolute full potential! Hoping for anyone on here to reach out so we can connect.