Dryad Engine
An engine for UI-heavy 2D games
RPGs, dungeon crawlers, visual novels, and story-driven adventures where menus, character sheets, and custom interfaces are the real playground.
Core Concepts
Architectural choices that let you focus on your game, not your framework.
Data-Driven by Default
Characters, items, dungeons, stats, skills – all defined as data in the visual editor. Add a new weapon by filling out a form, not writing a class. Promote any value to a moddable property with one click.
One Status System for Everything
Equipment bonuses, combat buffs, passive skills, and character traits all use the same composable Status abstraction. Stack them, expire them, gate them with conditions – no feature-specific code needed.
Narrative That Adapts
Text slots evaluate game state at runtime to pick the right segment. Faction, mood, quest progress – 50 authored lines can produce thousands of unique combinations without branching scripts.
Event-Driven Architecture
Every game action – equipping an item, entering a room, learning a skill – fires a typed event. Scripts can intercept, modify, or cancel any of them. Build reactive mechanics by listening, not polling.
Modding Built In
Layered data system makes mods, addons, and content packs a first-class feature, not an afterthought. Override any value, add new content, and distribute as a self-contained bundle.
What You Get Out of the Box
Batteries included. All of this is already wired together so you can start building immediately.
Characters
Stats, resources, traits, attributes, equipment, status effects, and skill trees.
Items & Inventory
Templates, stacking, weight/slot limits, equipment slots, currencies, crafting, loot and trading.
Dungeons & Scenes
Rooms, encounters, flags, scenes, choices, and quest hooks.
Quest & Dialogue
Structured quests with goals/logs, branching dialogue with conditions and choices.
Save System
Automatic saving and loading, made to survive long projects and frequent content changes.
Plugin System
Extend the engine with self-contained plugins. Bundle data, scripts, and UI into reusable packages.
Infinite Ways to Build Your World
Three built-in exploration systems, plus the freedom to build entirely custom interfaces.
| Type | Best For |
|---|---|
| Map Dungeon | Map-based exploration, fog of war, room-to-room navigation |
| Screen Dungeon | Visual novels, point-and-click layouts |
| Text Dungeon | Pure narrative, interactive fiction, Twine-style games |
Need a city management screen? A crafting workshop? An investigation board? Build entirely custom UI systems from scratch, or inject new sections into the existing interface.
Embraces Community Content
The mod system and plugin system are part of the core, not an afterthought.
Modular Plugins
Add new characters, items, dungeons, quests, or even whole subsystems in a separate mod without touching your original files.
Self-Contained Packages
Plugins bundle data, scripts, and behavior into neat, reusable packages that layer cleanly on top of your game.
Community Ready
A natural fit for games that want modding, community scenarios, or long-running campaigns that grow over time.
Plugins That Ship With the Engine
Drop-in systems you can use as-is, extend, or swap out for your own.
RPG Battler
CombatTurn-based party combat with abilities, cooldowns, and stacking effects.
- Player-controlled party + enemy encounters
- Ability groups, shared cooldowns, bonus actions
- Token-based buffs, debuffs, DoTs, HoTs, shields, stuns
Auto Battler
CombatGrid-based tactical auto-battles with positioning and area targeting.
- Configurable battlefield rows and columns
- Row/column/cross/chain/blast AoE patterns
- Movement, range, summoning, leadership mechanics
Experience
ProgressionXP and leveling for any character with a level trait.
- Linear, exponential, quadratic, cubic, or custom XP curves
- Automatic level-up with stat rewards
- Stat growth wired through the status system
Gender & POV
NarrativeDynamic pronouns and point-of-view switching for story-driven games.
- Character gender attribute with per-character pronouns
- Global 1st-person / 2nd-person POV toggle
- Same scene text adapts at runtime, no manual rewriting
How You Create Content
Writers, designers, and coders can all work comfortably.
Visual Editor
Manage structured data like items, characters, stats, skills, dungeons and quests through a form-based UI. No file hunting.
Google Docs
Write collaboratively in Google Docs, then bring that text into the engine's content pipeline. Perfect for writers.
Scripting
Attach small scripts the same way you attach data. Listen to built-in events or define your own logic in a structured way.
No compile step for content – change something and see it in-game right away.
Free to Use
Dryad Engine is free to use, modify, and share. Create and sell your games with no royalties or licensing fees.