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it feels like there are big game engines that make very few assumptions (unity, unreal, godot) and ones that make many large assumptions (rpg maker, adventure game studio, renpy) but it really feels like for me the sweet spot is in the middle and has little representation

So two things on this: 1. I get what you're saying, but agh Unreal makes so many goddamn assumptions about your game -_- 2. IME you end up making that middle-ground engine as part of making your game, it's just an engine inside another engine

1. true, but i am comparing it to AGS etc. unreal has been and is used regularly to make successful games in basically every genre, AGS/RPG maker have not 2. correct. this is why godot, learning from unity, takes the approach of editor extensibility very seriously, they also want this to a degree

and i think this is for a reason—that this type of engine is much harder to design. i don’t have time to pursue engine design for the foreseeable future but i feel like, given time and collaboration, this would be such a wonderful tool for developers

maybe somewhat surprising people: i think ECS engines might eventually be the way to accomplish this. but what i am envisioning and how i am envisioning a dev working with them is likely not what your experience using an existing one has been

what about pico8 type fantasy consoles; with heavy limitations but still ability to make many game types

I haven’t used it but it feels like Gamemaker Studio might fit into the middle ground? Every time I see people use it for a specific thing like an RPG it feels like they’re twisting the engine to do something it wasn’t supposed to which implies that it’s got stuff it’s designed for

the middle ground engine i am speaking of would not feel that way, that’s the idea