Hi, it's nice to meet you all!

As the title says, I'm looking for advice and I am brand-new. I've created personal board games (on a non-professional level) in the past but I've always wanted to try my hand at a video game- especially now that I am between jobs! 

The other night while I couldn't sleep I was struck with inspiration for a First-Person Horror-ish game done in the PS1 style. Very small, very short game that is mostly dialogue. Something small that I can use to learn the basics of actually creating games. My first thought was, well, a lot of the PS1-style games seem to use Unity! So I tried to start there. But, I'm having a LOT of issues even getting it to work. I can't create or open projects and the program just hangs! After fighting with it for about three-four hours I submitted a bug report to Unity and have given up on it for now.

My question now is... What other beginner-friendly game engines would you all recommend for a First Person 3D game with low-resolution graphics?

Side Note: I have also considered tweaking it into a Visual Novel because this first game would be mostly dialogue and dialogue choices in a small setting between two character. But then I would have to consider whether to change the art style and I would potentially need to change any future installments to fit with the first game! That's a lot to think about when I'm still working on trying to learn.

Update: After waiting it out a bit, Unity seems to be working now! Not sure what was wrong before, honestly. But at least now I can get some more work done.

Unity will allow you to make a demo of your game, faster, but as far as fps games, Unreal 4 + 5, Godot if you want to learn that, Cry Engine and good old Source Engine, from TF2, will allow for competent fps demo and full games. Question is why settle for a PS1 style of graphics? Are you personally nostalgic for that fps era, or trying to sell it to others in that fps aesthetic? All may give you what you want, via plug ins and mods. Look around, and you'll find what you want. Good luck with your project. Personally, I 'd go with Unity 5, and Unreal 4. 

Note, others may know more than me, but good luck. Ask around. 

If you're brand new, then most likely trying to do a highly interactive 3d game is trying to do too many things at once.

Now I know it is the game you have the idea for, and you probably feel reluctant to give it up, but maybe you can take a few intermediary steps:

Here's what I'd suggest:

1. Find a tutorial that does something similar to what your vision is
2. Try a couple of hours of that similar tutorial, try even completing it. Usually it's necessary to do something guided for starters and then you'll also understand the tool you use better.
3. Try making a game on your own. Something very simple, like a character moving and interacting with 1-2 objects. Making a game without the tutorial is a completely different experience.
4. After making a simple game return to the vision. Try to understand everything you need to do to make your vision work. Some things would be:
   1. how do I divide my code and entities etc. in this game?
   2. how do I create assets and get them into the game?
   3. how do I create levels and content? (making level is completely different challenge to getting character dialogue or story triggers in your game)
5. After working on your vision return to make another simple game, again something very small, but interactive. Try to do a single thing from your vision.

Perhaps you see now that the pattern I suggest is roughly: vision project -> small game -> vision project -> small game etc.

Game development is had and it requires learning quite a few things. This becomes easier if you can create a ladder of smaller projects towards your ultimate goal, and will probably keep you motivated for much longer than just working on the big project, because inevitably it won't be fun all the time.

Also going with this logic, one of the small games could be a visual novel treatment of your idea. Basically all professional games are also started with a prototype, that often won't have much to do with the final game, but is used to explore the setting and ideas related to the project.

I hope you got something out of this, and I hope you make a great game :)

Sorry I haven't replied yet!

To Neo-Kevinci: I actually do enjoy the sort of nostalgia for the PS1-era graphics and I was inspired by the Haunted PS1 collection(s) of games. Though I am realizing that I probably don't have to make it a first-person game, especially with the sort of story I'm thinking (though maybe in the future?). Which brings me to...

My reply to anothercastle: I actually did decide to go the route of turning the game into a VN. Much easier to handle as my first project! And maybe in any future projects, I can incorporate more into the gameplay as I learn.

Thank y'all for the words of encouragement and advice! They mean a lot!