Announcing My Own Game Engine! (And What This Means For Dryad Quest…)

Hey everyone,

I’m excited (and honestly a little nervous) to finally share something I’ve been quietly building behind the scenes for a while: my own game engine! 

There are two main philosophies it follows:

• Easy to use: You don’t need to install anything or write a single line of code. Just use the Editor’s forms to create your own game or modify existing ones. The engine already handles all the basics you’d expect from an RPG: characters and party, items and inventories, VN-style scenes and branching events, quests, gallery, skill trees, crafting, and more.

• Built to be extended: If you do want to go deeper, it’s designed so you can plug in your own custom UI and systems with a bit of Javascript, without fighting the engine or rewriting everything from scratch.

Why am I doing this?
Honestly? I reached a point with Dryad Quest where the limits of the old toolset were slowing me down, making every update more work than it should be. I want to bring you a bigger, more flexible, and more interactive experience – something only possible with a tool I control end-to-end.

But this isn’t just for me: the engine is being designed from day one as a general-purpose project. Down the road, other creators will be able to use it for their own games and stories, modders will be able to add new features, and (hopefully!) you’ll get to play a whole ecosystem of new content built on top of it.

The state of the engine right now

Right now the engine is fully functional, but still in the early stages of development. That means you can already build and play games with it – but things are still evolving, and breaking changes may happen as I refine the core systems.

To showcase some of what it can already do, the engine ships with a built-in Tutorial game – which also includes spicy animated scenes if you turn on the “lewd” mod.

What it is not (yet)

This new engine is not the one DQ is currently running on.

It’s heavily inspired by DQ and everything I’ve learned while developing it, but this is a completely separate project, written from scratch using modern web tech (specifically Vue 3).

In the future, I do plan to move DQ onto this engine – once it becomes more stable and battle-tested. The goal is that, when that happens, DQ will gain better tools, cleaner systems, community extensibility out of the box and much more room to grow.

What’s next

My next step is to release a small spin-off game about Ane and Klead built entirely in this engine.

That spin-off will be my testbed:

• to stress-test the engine in a real project,

• to experiment with new systems and features, and to iron out the rough edges before they end up in the main game.

How to access Dryad Engine

1. Download the engine here(windows or linux version): https://mega.nz/folder/cRUjSZLD#m55VFuI-7q138TZZYGtbuQ

2. Extract the zip file and run 'dryad-engine' executable. It already includes the Tutorial game.

   [Optional]Lewd Mod :

3. To access spicy animated scenes with Riko, download the lewd mod here: https://mega.nz/file/MEUgFBjA#Ud76Auk0Aj98C9AsFHFfxzoImDM3gDDYhEdtg_XOeGw

4. Do NOT extract the .zip. Instead put it inside [path/to/engine]/assets/install. Then in the engine main menu press the 'Install' button in the top left corner and choose the mod to install. When starting a new game, make sure to check in the lewd mod before pressing the play button.

   [Optional]Premium Supporter Pack:

5. To have extra cool outfits for MC and Riko(that can found in the Riko's bedroom), install Premium Mod(following the same installations steps as for the lewd mod): https://www.patreon.com/posts/146050854