Want to make a 2d top-down or angled RPG. Starting out, could use some advice.

[yougetagoldstar]

then when you get to the critical information, the information that actually makes a game, the learning curve skyrockets, and explanations seemed rushed

Can you expand on that a little? It sounds like you have the basics down and are having some trouble putting it all together, but I also get the impression that you feel there's some specific concept that's not being covered adequately. I know it's not easy to do without being more familiar with whatever that concept is, but can you try to explain what exactly you're getting stumped on?

hi airstruck. at that particular moment, I was thinking about a certain tutorial I was watching that finished with the concept of game physics. They were using some physics world thing, but I'm sort of pushing that aside and going back reviewing the basics of lua, and taking the basic tutorials on this site. Then I'll go back to looking for advanced lua stuff. I'll definitely have more questions soon (i always do). When that time comes i'll definitely be more specific (and hopefully not include a rant).

Thanks for those links Beelz, I'm checking them out now, seems like they cover some things I'm gonna run into. and if anyone has more advice/pointers my ears are open!!

hmm... somehow that painting analogy is uplifting. thanks for that santos, and thank you all for your comments. it's surprisingly helpful to think about this differently, if anything because it makes me think less about how hard this is gonna be.

at least I got my starting test image to show up on the screen last night. love.graphics.newImage? I can handle that. now i gotta figure out how to animate my character sprite sheet again. sigh. here we go.

[Positive07]

Did you make that art?!! It's stunning, I love it

[yougetagoldstar]

Hey Positive. Thanks for your comment earlier, that helps. I saw you recommend Bump for collisions. that'll be the first thing I check out when I get there.

Yeah I did, thanks, but it sucks cuz I'm gonna have to change the look of it a bit. I want to keep the same feel, but just look slightly more earthy and stuff. And I'm expecting I'm going to have a grand ole time figuring out how to make collisions with this design choice, and figuring out how to make trees and things appear behind the player when he's in front of it, and in front of the player with behind it (i haven't gotten far enough to even start searching how to accomplish that), I really want things to feel as natural as possible, and I'm hoping LOVE can do that. I know there is a ton of work ahead.

[Positive07]

Bump is limited to (non rotated) boxes, so basically you say, all this rectangles are solid and this rectangle which is the player can't go through them, this other rectangles are enemies, if they touch the player the player dies and so on. Then each update you move the player box, and enemies boxes as needed and call update, this checks for collisions and if there are any it gives you the elements that collided so that you know if the player died or is still alive and so on... Bump also helps resolving them but you better read the documentation and some examples, since I'm trying to give you a basic explanation.

Now bump does all this, but nothing else, it won't draw boxes to the screen, nor images... You do that stuff, so you can define as many boxes as you need for your map, then in the game you can end up drawing a single solid image, you define a box for your player, but then you draw an image, you just need to make sure that the position of the box is where the player is and that you draw the image in that very same position, otherwise you may be colliding with a wall but Bump actually thinks that the player is 300px to the left so he can keep going... Your physics world and your rendering world need to be connected somehow, otherwise you'll find this mismatches.

It's not simple but with some trial of error and some asking here in the forums you'll get it right!

Keep it up! Would love to play a game with art like this

[Zireael]

That art is indeed stunning! Keep going, yougetagoldstar!

[noway]

There is much more to making a game than programming. IMO, programming is only a quarter of the necessary work.
Given that, I would suggest you to find a game engine that doesn't require much programming and concentrate on the things you can do ("I can create art/sprites, I can make music, I can write stories/come up with game concepts.").
Alternatively, you can team up with/commission somebody, who will do the programming for you.

I'm not familiar with any generic no-programming game engines, so I can't give you any advice on that.

However, I would suggest you to take a look at Flare and Hero of Allacrost (especially, if you prefer open-source tools).

Flare is a game engine aimed for isometric action-RPGs (Diablo-like).
It has all the necessary features and should allow you to make such type of a game without any programming. Diablo-like may sound far from what you want, but several years ago there was a game Polymorphable, also made with this engine. It looks closer to what you have described. Flare also has been ported on Android. If you have an Android device, check out Exiled Kingdoms. It demonstrates a lot of the underlying game engine features.

Hero of Allacrost is a jRPG, and for me it looks quite close to what you want.
They are missing artists and game designers on the team, so you might consider to participate.
This would allow you to get a closer look on gamedev process.

Speaking of your rant, It seems to me, that apart from actually making a game, you also want to understand how the game programming works. It is a reasonable desire. However, you assume that understanding how to program is a prerequisite to making a game. Well, it certainly helps, but, in fact, it is not required. IMO, your strategy should be to get a basic impression on the game programming process, and after that to concentrate on the non-programming tasks. To get an impression on the game programming, the best way is to follow the development of some simple game from start to finish. You have to experiment on your own, or you have to keep looking until you find the tutorial that is accessible to you. I don't know your programming level, so I can't advise you anything on that. (Well, I am writing a tutorial series and I'm interested in feedback; give it a try).

In any case, writing from scratch a 2d RPG engine is a lost cause unless you have a couple of years of programming experience, or willing to put an equivalent time into learning how to program. Flare has been in development for 5+ years(!) and Hero of Allacrost, with some breaks, - for 10+ !!!