I recently came up with an idea for a game after 4hr scrolling through 9GAG (Yes, 9GAG) and I'm into it. It's an pixel-art style 2D top-down RPG with class advancement system and that's all I came up with at time of writing.

The problem is I don't know where to start. Engine, platform, programming skill, programming language, and other stuffs. After looking up the forum I saw choices like Unity3D and UE4 but my laptop is the low-medium tier and I don't know whether it can run the dev kit. Also I want the game to be light (around 2GB RAM and a medium-tier GPU as "Recommended System Requirement") and my programming language is Python 3.

As the topic said, where should I start? And should I go read some (a lot) of book?

My Twitter is at @Chr0n10, Discord is at Celestial#6261 if anyone is up for high-speed (and/or agressive) discussions.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry for the long post, here's a potato (in attachment, perhaps?)

Since you're starting from zero expereince, I would suggest GameMaker 2 which will allow your game to run on desktop, and mobile platforms.

https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/features

If you're looking at getting into programming, maybe look at Unity 3D with C#. 2D games are not normally graphic intense unless you have a lot of moving sprites, particle and lighting effects on screen. Standard 2D games like you would see in the SNES era are minimal resource usage with today's technology.

Just to give you another option, have you considered RPGmakerMV?

8 hours ago, Rutin said:

Since you're starting from zero expereince, I would suggest GameMaker 2 which will allow your game to run on desktop, and mobile platforms.

https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/features

Well, I saw GameMaker before and got to fuss around aimlessly when I was like 8 with a Flash game dream. Got back to it last year and I'm kinda disappointed. Can't remember why, just it was worse than what I expected

19 minutes ago, Infinisearch said:

Just to give you another option, have you considered RPGmakerMV?

Gonna look into that.

8 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Panda3D is a old engine that is code only with some 3rd party editors. It can be used to make some very decent games as it supports optimizations; it's the best python engine. Considering your limits this is what I would recommend. It's for 2D and 3D games.

Pygame also works but has a lot of outdated code. It's a 2D focused engine.

Both Unity and Unreal can run on a laptop this low, I have one I keep for testing games and it works. The problem is what those engines you will be tempted to do fancy things that will lead to a lot of freezing..

4GB RAM, core i5 5th gen 1.80GHz overclock to 2.8 and on-board GPU. Let's pray.

8 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Welcome to game development.

And honestly, I expected some roasting like "Don't dream big and fail hard". I'm actually kinda happy being greeted this warmly. Thanks guys

Gamemaker 2 is new it was released this year.  I don't think there is a free edition (yet) like with the last version.  However version 2 has some very nice additions that fit well with your target game type.  You should go to the website and check it out.

I made up my mind to use Unity. Hope this isn't a bad choice.... Still..... Worst case scenario would be me grinding another programming language so yea

A CHALLENGER HAS ARRIVED! FITE!

9 hours ago, ConsolaLarry said:

4GB RAM, core i5 5th gen 1.80GHz overclock to 2.8 and on-board GPU. Let's pray.

6 hours ago, ConsolaLarry said:

I made up my mind to use Unity.

That might be kind of rough.  I haven't used Unity in a long time but you might be in for some long load and compile times.  Could you post your exact CPU?  I don't recall any i5's at 1.8Ghz, especially one that is overclockable.  But you'll want to upgrade your RAM to at least 8gigs, especially if you want to keep tutorials in browser windows open at the same time as unity.