There are a ton of good game engines out there. If you're making a 2D zelda-like, your best options are probably things like Gamemaker , LÖVE2D , or Godot. If you want to make it real tiny you could even make it in PICO-8.
Unity is a classic for these things but I found it cumbersome to use for the while I did, especially for 2D games, and many people stopped using Unity as their game engine after the pricing issue.
My personal recommendation is Godot. I spent a long time using Unreal Engine, Unity, and Gamemaker, but ultimately Godot is the only engine that clicked with me. It's not everyone's preference and that's okay, but I do recommend it after using it for multiple years.
You specifically point out wanting to get started pretty fast with it, paint tiles and get moving, and I'm not aware of any game engines that will get you the exact thing you want out-of-the-box without also imposing incredible limitations, it will all take some amount of setup and custom code to get started. Godot can get you pretty close and pretty fast.
There's a tutorial series by Heartbeast, Godot 4 Action RPG on doing pretty much this exact thing in Godot 4. (Sorry, I couldn't find a version of that video on a federated platform, so youtube link)
No matter what you choose, I hope you show us what you make! Good luck with it all!
There are a ton of good game engines out there. If you're making a 2D zelda-like, your best options are probably things like Gamemaker , LÖVE2D , or Godot. If you want to make it real tiny you could even make it in PICO-8.
Unity is a classic for these things but I found it cumbersome to use for the while I did, especially for 2D games, and many people stopped using Unity as their game engine after the pricing issue.
My personal recommendation is Godot. I spent a long time using Unreal Engine, Unity, and Gamemaker, but ultimately Godot is the only engine that clicked with me. It's not everyone's preference and that's okay, but I do recommend it after using it for multiple years.
You specifically point out wanting to get started pretty fast with it, paint tiles and get moving, and I'm not aware of any game engines that will get you the exact thing you want out-of-the-box without also imposing incredible limitations, it will all take some amount of setup and custom code to get started. Godot can get you pretty close and pretty fast.
There's a tutorial series by Heartbeast, Godot 4 Action RPG on doing pretty much this exact thing in Godot 4. (Sorry, I couldn't find a version of that video on a federated platform, so youtube link)
No matter what you choose, I hope you show us what you make! Good luck with it all!