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[LeeRoyBrown]

If someone were to start making a top down 2D RPG.

For example, imagine you're in an indie game competition, and need to build the game within 24 hours.

What engine would be the most efficient, easy to work with?

 

[Yokai]

Honestly, most engines are pretty competent at making good 2d games these days. Unreal Engine 4 has been making strides in this department, making some pretty interesting tools you can read about here. Unity3d, despite the name, actually also spouts a good set of 2d game development tools. Unity3d and UE4 are both very accessible in terms of price.

If you're not as familiar with programming, then something like GameMaker would probably be best. You can probably get by with Unity or UE4 without programming experience, but it would be much harder to keep the systems functional.

You could use something like SDL2 or SFML if you know C++, but you'd have to be comfortable with programming and also willing to do some extra work for some things (like collision detection.)

I guess that's the best advice I can give without knowing your own personal history or what talents / skills you have. If you're an artist with no programming knowledge, go with gamemaker or something similar with user-friendly scripting tools.

 

[Bjoern the Smexy]

If you really plan on creating a 2D RPG have you considered using the RPG Maker?
Since the RPG Maker XP you can customize it pretty easily if you know Ruby, which is not that hard to learn and there are maaany tutorials about it and even its use in the currwnt versions of RPG Maker.
The program itself is very easy to use too.
And the VX Ace version (the latest iteration) is easily available on Steam for like $30 or so.

 

[skLaFarebear]

RPGMaker would probably be the best, especially if you're on time constraints. Unity is also great as well with its orthographic camera for 2D, but it does require some programming experience to efficiently use.

 

[sinnergy]

If someone were to start making a top down 2D RPG.

For example, imagine you're in an indie game competition, and need to build the game within 24 hours.

What engine would be the most efficient, easy to work with?

My best bets, Unity or stencil.

 

[Luigiv]

If you don't have a lot of coding experience then Game Maker is a great engine to start with. Maybe not the best but it's pretty good if you're simply sticking to traditional pixel based 2D rendering.

If you feel a bit more confident in your programming abilities and want something with a bit more rendering flexibility then Unity is pretty good. Whilst technically it's a 3D engine, 2D can be faked easily enough with the added side effect of more rendering options than a true 2D engine.

 

[Alchemy]

How much experience do you have programming? I like using Unity, but thats mostly because I just do everything in C#.

 

[Mephala]

I don't think 24 hours to pop out a game is realistic no matter what engine you pick unless you're already familiar with the tools. At least, not for any real chance of winning a competition.

If it is a top down 2D RPG then I'd say give RPG Maker a run. Not the best but it is very simple and will give you what you need.

 

[Jonneh3003]

Not sure about ease of programming but man does this look cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLpPw864eA

 

[baterism]

Construct 2 is quite nice. HTML5-based so it can be ported quite easily to many platforms. Personal license is around $150 if I'm not mistaken. There is free edition with 100 events limit for you to try. Quite easy to learn and reliable enough for 2D games.
But learning it under 24hrs is not realistic though.