Ok, I'm a game designer that is looking for a tool that will allow me to quickly develop a PC 3D war game like TotalWar. I tried over 10 years ago with "Blitz Basic" tool but found the amount of programming, art design, 3D mesh construction and animation TOTALLY overwhelming. 7 years part time wasted. I vowed i would never try again until Tools developed to a stage where Drag-n-drop modules did most of the work.  Game designers shouldn't need to do all the low level grid work. Has that happened yet ? Maybe i might need to wait another 10 years ?

Thanks, Grant.

50 minutes ago, Archaic Warrior said:

Game designers shouldn't need to do all the low level grid work

Game Designers shouldn't try to program either unless they know what they are doing. Don't ge tme wrong, this is my personal opinion as Senior Programer from my long experience in the industry and at the end you are free to spend your time for whatever you want.

50 minutes ago, Archaic Warrior said:

a tool that will allow me to quickly develop a PC 3D war game like TotalWar. I tried over 10 years ago with "Blitz Basic" tool but found the amount of programming, art design, 3D mesh construction and animation TOTALLY overwhelming

So the short answer: Such a tool dosen't exists yet!

The long answer is that you can try to pick a game engine like Unity or Unreal, both offer 3D capability and both have at least some Asset Store packages that you could install in addition to enable Visual Coding:

Unreal has Blueprint built-in, Unity requires some Asset Store research.

But in the end, this won't help getting anything together. You still need to search for or create 3D Models you want to use, build your scenes, UI menus and gameplay by yourself.

My suggestion, try to get a team and your preffered engine and learn how to use it properly

A recent article about this: (tools without much 'real programming'):

Thanks for the responses but no one mentioned Lumber Yard ?  The latest and greatest tool ? ..obviously LY isn't an upper-level tool ?  (I'm a Historian, a hopeless programmer with little $$$$)

I'll wait another 10 years

23 hours ago, Archaic Warrior said:

I'm a game designer that is...

Aside from this waiting game what other game(s) have you designed?

39 minutes ago, fleabay said:

Aside from this waiting game what other game(s) have you designed?

That's like asking author J.K. Rowling "What other stories have you written ?"  Not that I'm a Rowling, just pointing out the question is meaningless..

18 minutes ago, Archaic Warrior said:

That's like asking author J.K. Rowling "What other stories have you written ?"  Not that I'm a Rowling, just pointing out the question is meaningless..

OK, so what is this Magnum Opus you have developed that puts you above the indignity of having your self-proclaimed title questioned?

3 hours ago, Archaic Warrior said:

  (I'm a Historian,

I'll wait another 10 years

Well, as a historian you know that not every written word is actually correct and 10 years are a wink of an eye.

Cheers from a former archaeologist ;-)

3 hours ago, fleabay said:

OK, so what is this Magnum Opus you have developed that puts you above the indignity of having your self-proclaimed title questioned?

Here we go .. Like I'm going to tell you ? The whole point about a Do-All-Tool is to allow all the non-professionals out there, to develop their own game / song / story themselves easily . To put all their love and passion into their own indie project.  As to the title Game Designer, I couldn't find title  Indie developer or gamer designer

And when they have a do-all-tool they shout for a do-what-i-mean tool, and when they have that they want a do-what-i-plan-tomorrow-to-do tool. It is already very easy to create a basic game without much knowledge, so easy that the supply has by far overtaken demand, all the non-professionals (that includes me) can make a basic game. Only good games make it to a market.

It is an illusion to think one can create something in the range low average or above without basic knowledge, and the level will rise with the availability of tools. Some may consider tools as Scratch as being child's play, some develop their own frameworks just because they want to. I can tell you from my own experience, if you start today with very little knowledge about programming and invest 3-4 hours every day, you will have your own naive but working C++/OpenGL framework in 1-2 years. Or you can wait another 10 years and have nothing.

Personal opinion, but based on experience. So, stop complaining and get up and create something. You'll gain knowledge, which is fun ?