Depends on the specifics of your project...
Both do 2d, though PQ is specifically built for it, especially frame by frame animation. It also has better support for pixel art. Adventure creator is made for 3d too, so it's more fiddly to use for simpler 2d games.
Adventure creator uses visual programming, which is good for some but not for others. The main reason I started making PowerQuest after trying adventure creator was the I preferred a simpler text scripting interface than visual programming.
Adventure Creator has a bigger community and better support too. This forum is pretty dead as you've probably seen, though our discord is quite active, so if you ask there you might get more info from people who've used both.
Hey!
I just found discovered this framework and it's amazing!
I worked with Adventure Creator for a while and, yeah, the visual scripting is really too much slow and clunky to me . Having a scripting language like AGS makes everything more fast and smooth!
Hope you will continue to support this plugin. It's really a game changer to me.
There is no comparison.
Some things have "flow."
Other things suck and are not well thought out. They lack Zen.
Adventure Creator is for people who can't program and have no zen. They don't know any better. They think AC is how development is supposed to feel. Agonizing, torturous and so over-engineered everything takes forever. That's blasphemy on the Unity forum, you never attack AC. It is the Pope of the Asset Store.
I've bought every tool on the Unity Asset Store for one simple reason ... I wanted to build a combination Adventure Game and Turn-Based combat RPG. No, wait ... I meant I wanted to build LOTS and LOTS of games like this, a sort of genre that particularly interests me.
I started in Adventure Creator, found it slow - tedious - boring and overengineered. Two hours in it and I am checked out mentally. I have lost my initial enthusiasm for my game concept. Too much piddling with a weird set of flags in Visual Script. It doesn't even feel like game design to me it's so labyrinthine.
Started last Friday just playing with PowerQuest having accidentally discovered it here on Itch.io. You know when something is good when you start playing with it and it sucks you into hyperfocus.
It is one week later and I have my prototype up and running ... three dramatic cutscenes, a cast of characters and a very atmospheric game that is what I wanted ... focused on the story and emotions with a component of turn-based combat. The Turn-Based battles are already spectacular. I was trying to copy the fights in "Shelter" and I almost cloned them.
I don't think I would have gotten this far in it in Adventure Creator and after a month I'd probably abandon it.
FLOW is essential to game development. I've written a lot of them and I can tell you that without FLOW you will never finish your game. If the engine itself is an ordeal, the development becomes torturous. It needs to FLOW like PowerQuest.
The ideal background is you should be at least a competent programmer in C# for Unity. You would also be greatly helped if you ever played with the original Adventure Game Studio back in the day (AGS) because this engine is like that one except vastly superior.
UPDATE : After another week of working in PowerQuest, I am blown away. So much better than Adventure Creator as far as 2D goes it is not a fair comparison. A better kit than the old ADVGTK. Spend the time to learn how it works, your brain will be fried at how well thought out it is. Everything is fun and effortless and it flows right through your fingers. You can focus on the story and game mechanics.
