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There are currently three popular graphic adventure game engines on the market:

Each of the engines has a different philosophy, and generally, the games developed with each of these engines end up having very distinct styles.

But there is nothing preventing you from using one of these engines and developing something out of the conventional style - except for a few minor details, their feature sets are very similar.

I'll give you a quick run over the main characteristics of each of the engines, so that you know what is available to you. In comparison, it might be reasonable to say that Adventure Game Studio is not as modern as its siblings, but I'll leave that judgement to you.

Adventure Game Studio

Image from Gemini Rue developed with Adventure Game Studio

Strong focus on retro games, inspired by Sierra's AGI

Large community

Fairly easy to use

Limited resolution (Supports custom resolutions as of 6/2016 )

Open source under Artistic License Version 2 (Editor released on 10/26; Runtime on 4/27/2011 )

Wintermute Engine

Image from Alpha Polaris developed with Wintermute Engine

Very powerful and flexible

Supports 3D characters and shaders

Significantly more difficult to use

Free and open source

Visionaire Studio

Image from The Whispered World developed with Visionaire Studio

Smooth, high resolution graphics

Extremely easy to use

Does not require any scripting

Requires commercial license

Note: The developers are currently trying to add support for 3D characters and a few other features that should make it capable of competing directly with Wintermute.