[Raiko]

What exactly should be put in a RPG engine?

Im beginning my own, but Im not sure where I should start exactly. It is always good to have a base engine first before starting a game :).

[DrunkenCoder]

It depends on what you aim todo, if you want it super generic you should design in mostly like any other game engine, fully datadriven fully scriptable etc etc GameDev.net have a nice engine building series
here here and here but for most personal projects something like that is overkill I would say that the first question isn't really what should be in your engine but what type of game your aiming for and what you want to achive with your engine ponder that and then for best chance of success trim all the fat you can think of and then strip it down somemore then start the project with clear objectives and a ready made featurelist, that's if you want to finish it... if you just want to spend all time coding and never actually getting closer to your goal slowly having your project slide into oblivion then by all means just start coding without having a clear game plan...
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If there's life after death there is no death, if there's no death we never live. | ENTP

[Raiko]

I was going for a traditional console RPG type engine. I apologize for forgetting to include that.

Though haveing an Earthbound style engine (one in which you can see your enemy and attacking order is determined by the position of your characters and enemy when they collide) would be ideal

[DrunkenCoder]

Maybe you partly missed my point, I've never seen Earthbound but you'll have to think one step further than Eartbound or FF or DW, what screen res / color depth do you want, what sort of effects what should be possible to control with scripts is it aimed to be expanded later by players or do you just want to get the thing out the proverbial door?
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If there's life after death there is no death, if there's no death we never live. | ENTP

[Adam]

I think a simple tile engine would be a good start.
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https://numbatlogic.com

[Rainer Deyke]

Don't write an engine. Write a game.

Then copy the game and modify it to create another game.

Now factor out the common functionality from both games. That is your engine.

If you start out just writing an engine without a game, there's a good chance that you'll get lost in your own abstractions, chasing some universal roleplaying system system that can be anything and everything but doesn't actually do anything. At least that's what I tend to do.

[Raiko]

Thats why I asked what should go in an engine so I don't go overboard :)

[Rainer Deyke]

Then start with a game. Design the simplest possible game that could possibly be fun. Something like Ghost of the Haunted Grove might be a good starting point. It took me three days to write, engine and all. Then again, it is quite possible to write something even smaller.

Now write the game.

When the game is finished, you have two options: you can change the design for the game to be larger and more complex. Or you can design a new game and reuse your old code. Either way, design it something that's a small improvement over what you already have, then implement it.

Don't design everything up front. Design something small and implement it. Repeat as necessary.

[korndog]

Hey.

I can tell you what I planned for when developing my latest engine. Try to account for these (very basic) things before you begin:

-- structure that holds your gfx
-- structure(s) that holds object definitions (NPC, PC, trees, etc) and how they relate to your gfx
-- map structure and how it relates to objects
-- scripting, or how events happen
-- where to store script variables, player stats, enemy stats
-- how text gets displayed
-- non-bitmap based gfx (rectangles, circles, pixel fx)

There's a myriad of more mundane features that you'll account for depending on how complicated you want your engine to be. For instance, what happens when an NPC walks into the player? Does the player hold it up, or does it pass through the player, or does it push the player? That sort of thing.

That said, yeah, a tile engine would be a good start =^) Good luck.

[BigManJones]