Any beginners advice or resources on developing a 2D RPG/Puzzle video game?

CrypticCuriosity629
2026-03-22T21:22:38Z

Hey guys, I hope this is the right place to post.

So my adhd hyperfixation has recently shifted towards an idea for a game and I want to indulge my ADHD by learning all I can about game development to see if I can achieve this idea to the point that maybe I can put it in "Early Access" to fund even more resources on it.

But I'm not sure where to start. I'm looking into Godot because it's free and open source and has a lot of community resources, but also wanted to see if anyone had any ideas here.

I have some coding experience, a lot of technical experience and pick things up extremely quickly.

The basic idea is that it's a 2D Sidescrolling RPG, but with Match-3 "Candy Crush"-esque mechanics for battles and fighting.

Extra details
If you've played "You Must Build A Boat" or "10000000", it's a LOT kind of like that, in fact those games kind of inspired me, but more refined with a lot more in depth RPG elements and it's a bit more forgiving focusing on keeping a "flow" going, since one of my biggest pet peeves is YMBAB's RNG being very unforgiving and you'll randomly just sit there staring at the board with no moves until you die.
So the systems/mechanics I'd need to combine to work together are the following:

A Match-3 type board where you match tiles, make special tiles by combining 4 or more tiles, all the features of a typical match-3 type game, just tied to outcomes outside of the board-interface.

An RPG element, with character attributes, leveling, items, spells, weapons, gear, potions, etc. These elements effect what tiles are on the board during gameplay, effect the chances of certain tiles, and effect health, speed, mana, or grants special in-game abilities like "Precognition"(gives a hint for a move), or "Scroll of Revival"(You can continue without starting over), etc. Attributes also effect things like tile chances, so a higher strength will get you more combat/physical tiles, or a high intelligence will get you more magic tiles.

Visual Elements include an auto-running sidescrolling viewport while Dungeon Running. Character auto-runs until encountering enemies, running is not controlled by player. Match-3 board will be beneath that. Time between enemy encounters can be used to clean up the board and match unneccesary tiles, make special moves to line up for next battle, or to replenish health.

During Battles, it'd be an over-the-shoulder battle view, similar to Pokemon style battles. Character will have health, enemy will attack character at regular intervals, player will have to balance matching combat/weapon tiles to attack enemy, and matching health/mana potion tiles to replenish health or mana(if they have potions equipped). Enemy can cause environmental effects like poison(some tiles will be poisoned so you lose health if matching them), or being frozen with ice(You need to break tiles next to the ice tiles to break them), or confusion(switches the colors of tiles). Will be block/parry mechanics, occassionally for a few seconds before the enemy strikes, you're required to match a designated tile to either block or parry that attack.

In a saferoom it'd be like an isometric kind of "inside a building" format like in Pokemon, just more detailed. I'd like to have saferoom customization and the ability to upgrade your character or gear too.

Anyways, I'd love any advice or resources. Or if you'd like to help out or discuss the game idea more I'm up for that too.

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