Hey there!

I'm new to being a game dev. My main skill sets are in art, writing, and design (gonna drop a link to the portfolio I use to sell at conventions): 

http://brakinja.blogspot.com/2018/02/piece-examples.html

So, my game was picked up by my university club 6 months ago, and me and a VERY small team have been trying to a demo happen. The problem? It's 1) a club project, so it's not at the top of people's to-do lists, and 2) I'm not a programmer, so even if I WANTED to get stuff done with it (and I do want to get stuff done), I can't. I'm needing to rely on other people to make my game for me, and I think I'm starting to get a little over it (not knocking their effort, mind you).

The main problem, is, again: I'm not a programmer. At all. I have no experience, and though I'm making progress in learning, I'm pretty far away form the skill of others that I work with. 

I'm a man on a mission to get skilled enough to work on his own darn game. The game will involve visual novel-esque dialogue, choice branches, a cutscene system reminicent of games like Gravity Rush and The World Ends with You, and of course, a tactical RPG combat system much like Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem. I've always been bad at Unity (not a programmer), and while Game Maker has been giving me better luck (I can actually make something move in Game Maker), I'm worried it can't do what I need it to do. God don't get me started on making an isometric map.

So here we are. How should I approach learning how to do this so I can help my future team (I know this won't be a solo project), what tools are out there I should consider, and what engine can help me make this game happen?

Since you've already had some luck with Game Maker, I'd say return to that, see how much you can do.
I promise you it's possible to do an isometric map in GM as well - I think your issue in that regard is that you wouldn't know how to work with isometric coordinate systems and tiles - but read an article on it. Check these.

Since you're coming from the design angle, then I think the most valuable and important bit you can create now is a design document for your first working prototype.
Be concrete about what your game is supposed to do. Describe everything and use it as a bible when working on your project.

It's cool to dive in to larger engines and programming languages, but if you can start with *anything* you're comfortable with, I'd say do that.
There's some learning associated with making a game either way. And It will be a rocky road too.

(Nice portfolio btw - I suppose you're making all the sprites, tiles and visual novel art for your project?)

10 hours ago, SuperVGA said:

Since you've already had some luck with Game Maker, I'd say return to that, see how much you can do.
I promise you it's possible to do an isometric map in GM as well - I think your issue in that regard is that you wouldn't know how to work with isometric coordinate systems and tiles - but read an article on it. Check these.

Since you're coming from the design angle, then I think the most valuable and important bit you can create now is a design document for your first working prototype.
Be concrete about what your game is supposed to do. Describe everything and use it as a bible when working on your project.

It's cool to dive in to larger engines and programming languages, but if you can start with *anything* you're comfortable with, I'd say do that.
There's some learning associated with making a game either way. And It will be a rocky road too.

(Nice portfolio btw - I suppose you're making all the sprites, tiles and visual novel art for your project?)

Thank you! And yeah, I'm the main art lead, meaning I'm making all of the character concepts, UI, battle map design, overworld design, sprites, etc. I actually have a full Google Drive just for this game, and the doc explaining the mechanics of just one battle is 15 pages on it's own. Which is good to hear that's what you're supposed to do, it's good to know I'm on the right track here.

Because my sprite work honestly isn't great, I was actually going to utilize hand drawn illustration for sprites, but with fewer details than the visual novel portrait of the same character. For example (without showing any assets I've made already), it's sort of like the attached images. From where I'll either be animating about 4-5 frames per action traditionally, or create a more fluid movement using Spine. 

Thanks also for the link on implementing an isometric map into Game Maker, this is honestly the most concise thing I've seen so far and it's an enormous help. I'm definitely going to study it starting today, and try to figure out where in Game Maker his code is supposed to go. Once I have something rudimentary, maybe I can finally simulate a battle before the year's over!