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Godot

All
42
Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
11
Specs
Endi Sukaj
Dana Olson
Beyond01
Top Pro

Integrated animation editor

Every property can be animated. See More
EnchantingShimegi
Top Con

C++ Engine API not very friendly

The base C++ code from Godot is not documented, it's hard to set it up, to compile and hard to extend, it could use better programming standards. See More
Endi Sukaj
Dana Olson
Beyond01
Top Pro

Built-in physics

Add physics to 2D and 3D scenes, through rigid and static bodies, characters, raycasts, vehicles and more. See More
DelightfulHermes
Top Con

Primarily supports own proprietary language (GD Script)

While it's very accessible, and if you know Python you'll pick it up fast, having to learn a new language to fully make use of the platform can be a bit discouraging. And for those learning to code as well as learning Godot for the first time, many would rather learn a language they can 'take with them' when they explore other platforms in the future. See More
RealisticObrigwabibikwa
Linkans
Top Pro

Fully dedicated 2D engine, no hacks

Godot has a mature 2D engine with many features used by modern 2D games. See More
juanitogan
Top Con

No console targets

Given that you can target both desktops and consoles with the same code base in other engines, the lack of support for consoles in Godot is pretty hard to get past if targeting desktops for a game. But asking for an open-source engine to target consoles is probably too much to ask. But it would be interesting to see some legacy consoles targeted even if current ones cannot be. See More
RealisticObrigwabibikwa
thermoplastics
Krzysiek Siewiorek
Top Pro

Lightweight

The executable is portable and less than 40 MB in size. See More
PrivateAlastor
Top Con

Annoying minor bugs

Minor bugs can go unaddressed for some time, due to it being a free program. See More
Endi Sukaj
RealisticObrigwabibikwa
Wernight
Top Pro

Can be deployed to multiple platforms

Deploy games to desktops (Windows/OS X/Linux), smartphones (iOS/Android/BlackBerry), and the web (HTML5 via Emscripten). See More
juanitogan
Top Con

Strange terminology at its base

Scenes can be made up of other scenes. That makes some sense. But even the smallest object (or prefab or asset) in a scene -- such as that spoon on the table or the marble on the floor -- is still called a scene... except when it's called a node. This is a bit odd for those coming from other engines. With all the great decisions behind the basic design of this engine, the choice of this term from all the potential other terms out there seems really out of place and only serves as a constant reminder that not everything about Godot is great. See More
juanitogan
NotApple
Top Pro

Unified game editor interface

All the game development work is done inside one program: the engine editor. The scripting is done in the same program. No need for Eclipse or other front-end editors. See More
Bryan
ivan velho
Top Con

No built-in way to import atlases

Godot does not have an easy and automatic way to import atlases created by other tools. However, there are plugins that can be used to import atlases from other engines. See More
Endi Sukaj
NotApple
Top Pro

Under constant development

This engine barely released one year ago has more than 1000 forks on github and about 100 developers. Not only that just a bit of browsing trough issues you will quickly find out the dev community loves new esp free technology and does not shy away from completely rewriting parts of the engine. The audio engine is being completely rewritten to use threads and so forth. See More
Endi Sukaj
Anton Savoshchenko (AntonioModer)
Top Con

2DPhysics is weak compared to Box2d

Box2d has much more features. See More
Monika
RealisticObrigwabibikwa
Linkans
Top Pro

Free and open source

Godot is licensed under MIT license. Anyone can grab the source from here, and compile the engine themselves. See More
cripztillidie
Endi Sukaj
Hansjuerg Wuethrich
Top Con

NoAdmob or other AdNetwork support

Godot has no native support for implementing advertisements into your game. See More
Dmitry Feofanov
RealisticObrigwabibikwa
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Editor and runtime are fully cross-platform

You can run Godot on all 3 major operating systems (Windows/Mac/Linux) and build your game to all available platforms from each without any platform-specific work needed. All platforms including Linux are supported first class. See More
test123
Top Con

Difficult to optimize

Godot has an OOP architecture. Everything is an object internally and data is spread among many classes, thus it's difficult to optimize (i.e. not cache friendly, difficuly to vectorize or paralellize, etc). Read about "Data Oriented Design" for more info about the problems and solutions. See More
thermoplastics
William Tumeo
Top Pro

User friendly UI for all your team

Non-programmers (musicians, artists, etc) can join the development easily. See More
AwareHera
Top Con

Many buggy and half-finished features

See More
Linkans
Top Pro

The list of supported languages is growing

Officially, Godot supported languages for now will be GDScript, C#(Mono), VisualScript and C++. See More
Paolo
Elisha Knight
Top Con

Hard for a Unity user

Coming from a Unity background, Godot engine is hard. See More
Hirnbix
Top Pro

Instancing and node concept makes sense

The node and the instancing concept work very well and helps developers to structure content efficiently. See More
Laura Kyle
Hirnbix
Top Pro

Drag & drop interface

Many parts of the editor allow you to drag & drop, which makes working with assets and scene trees a joy. See More
Hirnbix
Top Pro

Fun to use

An important aspect that can't be grasped without using the engine for a few days. The Interface is evolving nicely and making games is just fun. See More
Monika
Linkans
Top Pro

Internationalization of the editor

You can change the language shown in menus. Godot translations can be found here. See More
Chloe Montanez
Timo Kandra
Top Pro

Really good community

The community is great and really cares about the engine. It is easy to get help and to be part of Godot's future. See More
juanitogan
Linkans
Slimothy
Top Pro

Easy to learn scripting language

Godot has their own scripting language called GDScript. The scripting language is easy to learn with Python-like syntax, but it is not Python. It's very powerful, easy to learn, and it's free of unnecessary things because it was custom built for optimized integration with the Godot Engine. It can be used to add custom behaviors to any object by extending it with scripting, using the built-in editor with syntax highlighting and code completion. A built-in debugger with breakpoints and stepping can be used and graphs for possible bottlenecks can be checked. See More
Bastian Böhm
Top Pro

Friendly towards Version Control Systems

The engine is build not only to support version control but to really use it. Scene files for example which usually get compiled into some sort of unreadable data stay in a text format - that way you can actually see your changes in a version control system like Git. See More
Will Nations
Top Pro

Creating editor tools is a breeze

Godot Engine is itself a Godot game. By adding the "tool" keyword to the top of a script, you can design extensions for the editor itself INSIDE the editor. Integrating these editor scripts into a bundled plugin for sharing is extremely easy to do. See More
Will Nations
Top Pro

Easily expanded scripting system

With 3.0's addition of NativeScript and PluginScript via GDNative, developers can easily define bindings for new scripting languages. In addition to the primarily supported C++, GDScript, VisualScript, and C# languages, the community has contributed D, Nim, and Python as well with more on the way. See More
Will Nations
Top Pro

Built-in documentation linked to the internal ScriptEditor

The editor has a fully searchable index of class API documentation for everything the engine offers (NOT just a web interface). You can easily open the documentation for any class by Ctrl-clicking the class's name in the in-engine text editor for scripts. See More
teadan
DaringSkythes
Top Pro

Incredible documentation after 3.2.2 beta

The documentation used to be weak, but now we have nathen with his help the documentation is the strongest advantage. See More
Raghu Ranganathan
Top Pro

Scene Based editing

Godot gives you the ability to create scenes to make your life easier, with reusable objects and things you want to incorporate in your games. This makes the game making processvery streamlined and organized. See More
Monika
Glucksritter
Top Pro

Doesn't need to be installed into the system

Godot is very portable, you can download the file from a website then put it on a USB and run it on your other computer without any troublesome errors. See More
teadan
DaringSkythes
Top Pro

Easy to get involved

No need to learn anything with node, you can build a game without typing a line of code + has visual scripting. See More
Will Nations
Top Pro

Simple and readable codebase

The engine's source code is easy to read and understand with a self-documenting approach to code design. You don't have to wait months or years for other people to fix an engine bug that is important to your game. Often times, you can spend an hour or two of your own time to fix whatever problems you encounter yourself. See More
Monika
DaringSkythes
Top Pro

Engine is yours

There is no royalty and the game you made + engine itself is yours. See More
Monika
PrinceKael
Top Pro

Can be installed on Steam

You can easily install Godot via the Steam store. See More
Monika
RespectfulIxpiyacoc
Top Pro

It has a visual scripting tool

It has a great visual scripting tool. It's a great choice if you don't like to code. See More
KnowledgeableCirce
Top Pro

Comprehensive tooling

In addition to the scene editor and the script editor (with debugger), the engine also provides a tile map editor, an animation editor (not just for rigs), a performance monitor, a network profiler, and an audio bus console. See More
Specs
License:MIT
Languages:C++03
Dev platforms:Windows 7+, macOS 10.12+, Linux, *BSD, Web Editor, Android
Desktop targets:Windows 7+, UWP, macOS 10.12+, Linux, *BSD
See All Specs
HideSee All Experiences
1897 294

Orx

All
26
Experiences
Pros
23
Cons
2
Specs
Slimothy
Top Pro

Powerful config system

Powerful config system that makes orx data-driven and provides an easy to use load/save system. See More
KnowledgeableCirce
Top Con

Feature discovery and explanation could be better

Some features are not well explained / highlighted: for example, unless you use the interactive project initialization, you have to go over the tutorials and examples in the wiki to learn that there is an optional C++ layer, Scroll, developed on top of the C API. Similarly, some major information are missing from the website, wiki and Doxygen documention, and are left for the users to discover in source headers and INI template files, or by searching the forum (e.g. the 0,0 coordinate being the center of the screen and not top left, the list of all Orx scalar types and their use, etc). See More
sausage
Top Pro

Friendly community

Good friendly development community ready to help each other with tips and advice for setting up and best practices. See More
CapableNotus
Top Con

No network support

See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Automatic hot-loading of resources

Automatic hot-loading of resources upon modification on disk, shortens drastically iteration times. See More
Laura Kyle
Enis BAYRAMOĞLU
Top Pro

High performance

Written in C with high emphasis on memory and CPU efficiency. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Supports desktop and mobile

Supports Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android. See More
WhiteLilac
ReceptiveCaishen
Top Pro

Data Configuration

Orx is a Data Driven engine that greatly reduces required code. You can configure object definitions, bodies, cameras, sound, animation, event tracks, etc. See More
sausage
HumbleWaramurungundi
Dream Sandman
Top Pro

Custom shader support

GLSL code can be added straight into data configuration files and can be applied to any texture: background or objects whivh allows for some amazing effects. All GLSL versions are supported, again by providing the shader language version in your configuration file. Parameters are supported and values over time for shader animation. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Flexible clock system

Clock system that provides time consistency and allows time stretching + high precision timers See More
WhiteLilac
ReceptiveCaishen
Top Pro

Flexible and simple FX

Color and translation FX are simple to configure and apply to objects. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Good animation engine

Includes a chaining graph & custom animation events for synchronization. See More
Yoshiyuki
sausage
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Free and open source

Uses the zlib license. Lets you use Orx for free for any kind of projects, even for commercial ones. See More
sausage
Top Pro

Input controls and binding

All input devices are fully supported: Joysticks, Mouse, Gamepad, Keyboard and Touchscreen. Multiple physical devices and be mapped the same binding. See More
Monika
Fully Bugged
Top Pro

Excellent results on performance benchmark

Rated the fastest engine in the OpenFL’s BunnyMark since October 2015. See More
sausage
Top Pro

Great audio support

Samples for sound effects, or streams for music. All sounds can be groups via audio buses just like in a typical DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). All sounds can be spatial relative to the camera. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Viewport scheme allowing multiple views

Camera/viewport scheme allowing multiple views displayed with camera translation, zoom and rotation. See More
sausage
Slimothy
Top Pro

Good render support

Fragment (pixel) shader support, render to texture, MRT, easy composition and custom rendering support. See More
Dream Sandman
Top Pro

Easy post-processing/compositing for complex visual effects

See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Integrated runtime profiler

Integrated runtime profiler (with graphical display) to easily spot which parts of your game need to be optimized. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Collision handling and rigid body physics

See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Screenshot capture tool

Supports .bmp, .png, .jpg, .tga and .dds See More
Charles Joseph Christie II
Top Pro

Multi-Threading

See More
sausage
Top Pro

Great IDE Support

Out of the box Windows support for: Visual Studio Codelite CodeBlocks gmake Out of the box Mac support for: XCode Codelite gmake Out of the box Linux support for: Codelite CodeBlocks gmake See More
sausage
Top Pro

Well-supported C++ wrapper

Orx provides a excellent c++ wrapper for object oriented design, called: orx/Scroll. You can, of course, roll your own. See More
Specs
License:zlib
Languages:C99
Dev platforms:Windows XP+, Mac OS X 10.6+, Linux
Desktop targets:Windows XP+, Mac OS X 10.6+, Linux
See All Specs
HideSee All Experiences
273 20

MonoGame

All
9
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
2
Specs
Tom Bebbington
thermoplastics
Slimothy
Top Pro

Cross-platform

Support for iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows (both OpenGL and DirectX), Windows 8 Store, Windows Phone 8, PlayStation Mobile, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and the OUYA console with even more platforms on the way. See More
RickZeeland
Simona
DecentTilla
Top Con

Slow rate of updates

Versions 3.9 is overdue by a year, and version 4.0 is set to release in 2040. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Open source

All the code is available to you ensuring you'll have the ability to make changes when you need to or even port to whole new platforms. See More
Tom Bebbington
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Non-Windows tools are a bit funky

Monogame support for Xamarin Studio or Monodevelop is a bit shaky especially for library references. Only good non-Windows IDE compatible with MonoGame is Rider and that costs money & isn't open-source. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Managed code

By leveraging C# and other .NET languages on Microsoft and Mono platforms you can write modern, fast, and reliable game code. See More
Surge Crafter
Ryan
danial abdl
Top Pro

Good community

The community MonoGame has to offer is helpful and mature. See More
Surge Crafter
Top Pro

Performance on desktop

The performance on desktop platforms matches that of C++, but you still get all the pleasant features that C# has to offer. See More
Tom Bebbington
Top Pro

Well-known and documented API

The framework implements the XNA 4 API, so games made in XNA can be ported to other platforms using this. This was the same API used by the Xbox Live Indie Games platform so there's lots of documentation online for it. See More
Specs
Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Languages:C#
Mobile targets:Android, IOS, Windows phone
HideSee All Experiences
113 20

TIC-80

All
7
Experiences
Pros
6
Specs
Simona
RealisticIkaRoa
RealisticBenthesikyme
Top Pro

Free

Free version already includes most features but a paid version is available. See More
Monika
João Paulo
Top Pro

All tools in one place

The app contains tools for coding, sprite editing, map editing, sfx and music editing. See More
Simona
RealisticIkaRoa
Top Pro

Export

Exports easily to Windows, Windows-XP, mac, Linux and HTML. See More
RealisticIkaRoa
Top Pro

Many Scripting languages' supported

Use awesome scripting languages like: Lua, Wren, Moonscript, JS, Ruby, etc. See More
Simona
RealisticIkaRoa
Monika
Top Pro

Retro-styled and restricted environment

Pixelated Software with a good retro style. See More
Monika
FascinatingCoatlicue
Top Pro

Noob underdog

You can imagine this engine Shiva Lua scripting language making 2d side scrolling Megaman style games a Bandai trademark. See More
Specs
Platforms:Web, Windows, Linux, Mac, Android
Genre:8-bit game editor
Languages:Lua, JavaScript, Moonscript, Fennel, Wren
3D:No
See All Specs
HideSee All Experiences
18 0

GDevelop

All
18
Experiences
Pros
10
Cons
7
Specs
4ian
Slimothy
Otto Robba
Top Pro

Free and open-source

GDevelop's runtime libraries are MIT licensed. It can be used freely for projects of any type and there are no royalties associated with publishing games developed with GDevelop. See More
CapableDamasen
Top Con

It's very slow

Although suggested otherwise, GDevelop doesn't compile the games - it just adds wrappers so each OS can run the HTML5 game it creates. That means it runs much, much slower than other engines that do compile games. See More
4ian
Top Pro

Easy to use

The whole interface is intuitive and easy to learn: each part of the game can be designed using visual editors. The objects editor is used to create the objects of the game, the scene editor help you to build the levels of your game and the events editor allows to give life to the whole game without programming. See More
Simona
ReverentProvidentia
Top Con

No 3d, not even fake 3d

This is a 100$ 2d-only game engine. You could of course use pre-rendered 3d graphics, but your games themselves will exist only in the x and y axes. See More
4ian
Top Pro

Powerful events system to create games without programming

No need for coding using this system which is clear and powerful: events are composed of conditions and actions. Actions are launched when conditions are fulfilled. This is a very friendly way of making games and is still efficient for advanced usage, contrary to most other "block"/"drag'n'drop" systems. See More
KnowledgeableCirce
Top Con

Optional subscription not mentioned on main site

While the engine is free and open source as stated on the main website, it does not mention that some optional features and services are actually activated through a paid subscription (two tiers: 2€ and 7€). Those features are: no nag screen shown when debugging, additional metrics available on games dashboard, access to more than 2 cloud exports per day (unlimited local export can be done without subscription, provided the right packaging tools are installed and configured), easy removal of GDevelop splash screen (can be done manually without subscription). See More
Slimothy
Todor Imreorov
Top Pro

Open source plugin SDK

The plugin SDK is open source, so if you want to extend it, you can. See More
S64-D46
Monika
Top Con

No support for atlas/tilemap and sprite sheet

At this point, you need to separate the tileset maps or character animation sprite sheet before importing it to the engine, but the developers are working on this feature. See More
4ian
Slimothy
Top Pro

Lots of features to build games

The engine includes pathfinding, physics engine, multitouch support, custom hitboxes, platformer engine, tiled maps, multiple layers and cameras out of the box. All of these features can be used without programming knowledge, using the visual editors. See More
Simona
Raghu Ranganathan
Top Con

Behaviors of Objects are rather generalized

Since it has a fully GUI editor, the objects you are allowed to add in your game are pretty generalized (PhysicsObject, TiledSprite, PlatformerObject, etc). This limits the freedom of a game developer while making a game, as the object msut follow the preset behaviours imposed on it. See More
4ian
Top Pro

Quickly add behaviors to objects

Prebuilt behaviors can be added to objects. This is a very efficient way to add a physics engine or make a platformer game. Lots of behaviors are included, from the most advanced (Physics, platformer, top-down movement) to really simple one (like the behavior to destroy objects when outside the screen or the one to drag objects with mouse or touch). And you still have full controls over your game as behaviors can be modified using the events! See More
Laura Kyle
Jaden T
Top Con

GUI is slow to load

This makes doing the simplest things, like looking at one of your maps, hard to do. In looking into this program, it can stall a PC while trying to load a sample map. See More
JM80
S64-D46
Top Pro

New documentation for gd5 is good for starting

A new doc is improving for gd5 that is nice for beginners and after that you can learn more from examples. Also, gd4 wiki is still there. See More
Monika
S64-D46
Slimothy
Top Con

No cross-compiler

The Windows and Linux versions of GDevelop can each compile a native application; but the Windows version cannot compile for Linux, nor vice versa. See More
SuccessfulSogbo
Top Pro

Constant updates

New releases and bug fixes are consistent. New updates are released anywhere within 2 weeks or 1 month from the last one. Its auto-updater also does it job very well making life a lot easier. See More
Jason
Top Pro

Multilanguage support

GDevelop is available in many languages and even community can help in translations. See More
DevotedTaraxippus
4ian
Top Pro

Online version available, compatible with iOS and Android

Thanks to its open source nature, GDevelop-App.com was built over the GDevelop engine. GDevelop-App.com is a complete game creator similar to GDevelop, available directly in your browser and compatible with iPad and most Android tablets and phone! The app is perfect for making games directly from your sofa and you can even start a game on GDevelop-App and export it to open it inside GDevelop. See More
Specs
License:MIT
Languages:C++, JavaScript
Dev platforms:Windows 7+, macOS 10.11+, Linux, Web
Desktop targets:Windows 7+, macOS 10.11+, Linux
See All Specs
HideSee All Experiences
649 54

Construct 3

All
6
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Alex
ZoeW
Top Pro

No installation required

As it runs in the browser you can load it on any computer and show your friends my work really quickly. See More
ZoeW
Top Con

Subscription based

It is subscription based pricing, I don't mind this at all as the prices are reasonable but might not be for everyone. See More
Alex
ZoeW
Top Pro

Timeline

It has a timeline feature which allows you to make amazing animations. See More
ZoeW
Top Pro

Fast and small

Construct 3 loads really fast, other software I use have a large download size See More
Alex
ZoeW
Top Pro

Runs in the browser

If I don't have my Chromebook, Construct 3 will run in the browser. See More
Alex
ZoeW
Top Pro

Works on Chromebooks

Construct 3 works on my Chromebook without any issues. See More
Hide
17 7

libGDX

All
26
Experiences
Pros
19
Cons
6
Specs
Slimothy
Stuart Kearney
Top Pro

Lots of resources to learn from

Lots of references, tutorials and open source code to learn from. See More
thermoplastics
Kemal Demir
Top Con

Not starter friendly

Even default applications fail to load in Android. It doesn't have any documentation on errors either. See More
Jordan83
Endi Sukaj
Theodore Lief Gannon
Top Pro

Great performance across devices

While it may not always have the best performance for a particular device or system, it's one of the few engines which consistently performs very well across different platforms. See More
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Documentation could be better

Other than a brief installation / getting started overview, libGDX's documentation consists of an official wiki with several incomplete pages, and automated Javadocs. The community recognizes these shortcomings, and new users are encouraged to ask for help. See More
Monika
Mike
T-R
Top Pro

Fantastic UI toolkit (scene2d)

scene2d is a 2D scene graph, scene2d.ui is a UI toolkit on top of that. It enables very complex mobile and desktop UIs. See More
Monika
mrResident
Top Con

The project slowed down in development

The number of active developers has decreased, many open issues and pull requests. See More
Jordan83
T-R
Top Pro

Can use any JVM language

Since it's built with Java and runs on the JVM, any language that compiles to Java bytecode can be used to develop games with libGDX. See More
Alex
Tom Bebbington
Top Con

Build system is clunky

LibGDX uses Gradle, which is very demanding of memory and makes IDEs freeze on anything if your computer is not powerful enough. See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
T-R
Top Pro

Uses Box2D

A Java port of the Box2D physics engine is included in libGDX. See More
Jonathan
Ryan N
Top Con

Does not create compiled code

LibGDX runs entirely on Java and does not create executable binaries. See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
Endi Sukaj
T-R
Top Pro

Allows you to migrate from 2D to 3D within same framework

LibGDX supports both 2D and 3D game development. Allowing developers to migrate from 2D to 3D with ease without having to switch the engine they are using or having to learn a new API. See More
Laura Kyle
Slimothy
NotApple
Top Con

A bit difficult to use

This engine is not well put together. Is made from various free modules each with their own peculiarities. At times it feels you need to learn a couple of libraries rather than just one. Is not an engine for beginners as it requires coding. Lots of coding. You need to be intermediate to advanced in Java to develop in LibGDX. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Doesn't force a specific design 

Unlike some engines, which only allow you to make your game in a few specific ways, libGDX allows you to design any type of game you wish as it is extremely customisable. See More
Endi Sukaj
Theodore Lief Gannon
Stuart Kearney
Top Pro

Active and helpful community

The libGDX community, in the official libGDX forum is extremely helpful and approachable for any kind of question regardless of the its quality or difficulty. The forums themselves are a very helpful resource for any issue or guide simply by searching past posts in there. In addition to the forums, there's also the official #libgdx IRC channel on Freenode. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Interfacing with platform specific code 

Sometimes it is necessary to access platform specific APIs, e.g., adding advertisement services or leaderboard functionality provided by frameworks. See More
Chloe Montanez
thermoplastics
NotApple
Top Pro

Free, open source & permissive license

libGDX uses the Apache License 2.0. Not only is libGDX free and open source but also it's license gives you a lot of power over the engine. As long as you provide a copy of the license, give credit, do not hold devs liable and do not use libGDX logo in any engine forks you can do pretty much anything you want. See More
Сергей Сергиенко
Top Pro

Kotlin support

It is written in Java so you can easily make games using Kotlin and Ktx project will help you get all advantages of this language. See More
T-R
Top Pro

Very easy to customize

See More
Сергей Сергиенко
T-R
Top Pro

Constantly improved

LibGDX itself is pretty mature, and get updates not quite frequently, but various libraries for it are actively updated. See More
Isaac Kube (MinusKube)
Paolo
Youssef Ab
Top Pro

Across platform support

You can write once and run anywhere (Android, IOS, Desktop, Browser) also lately came with lib to deal with VR. See More
thermoplastics
Surge Crafter
Top Pro

Support for 3rd party tools

libGDX has built in support for many 3rd party tools, including (but not limited to) Bullet Physics, Box2DLights and the well-praised Tiled Map Editor. See More
Chloe Montanez
thermoplastics
Surge Crafter
Top Pro

Lots of tutorials to get you going

Even though the official documentation might be lacking, there are many tutorials on YouTube for libGDX. See More
Izem Lavrenti
ProductiveNabia
Top Pro

Excellent font rendering support

Very good tools for rendering fonts. See More
thermoplastics
Surge Crafter
Top Pro

Similar to the Microsoft XNA framework

Old XNA users may like libGDX since it's API is actually very similar to XNA's. See More
Logger
Top Pro

Focusing on object pool patterns, to control memory without pointers

Unlike Unity or other engine, it allows to optimize a language that uses garbage collector when using patterns of objects you can control the use of memory without needing a language like C / C ++, getting the same speed in a more productive language. See More
Specs
License:Apache
Languages:Java
Dev platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux
Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux; HTML5
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595 168

Solar 2D (formerly Corona SDK)

All
20
Experiences
Pros
16
Cons
3
Specs
Slimothy
Top Pro

Very simple to use

See More
Niccolo Bartolacelli
Slimothy
Otto Robba
Top Con

Closed source

See More
Monika
Slimothy
guatedude2
Top Pro

Free

Corona SDK is completely free. That includes pro-tier plugins. See More
Niccolo Bartolacelli
Kirlovon
Top Con

Free, but not completely

See More
Aubrey
Svoka Vlad
Top Pro

Corona Simulator

Corona SDK ships with Corona Simulator, which runs your game/app directly on your PC/Mac and updates every time you make changes. It provides immediate feedback to your actions, you can see your changes right on the screen, without necessity to make build to device. Getting instant feedback really boosts tenfold prototyping and development speed. See More
Svoka Vlad
Slimothy
Top Con

Making a device build requires internet connection

To build your app for the device (iOS/Android/AppleTV) Corona requires to fetch resources from online. This would include base application template and plugins. This allows not to perform local build or use Xcode or Android Studio to do a build. Even Large games/apps would build very fast with good internet connection. Your code never leaves computed. Corona SDK would transfer some information to determine which plugins and pieces has to be transferred in order to make a final steps in build. As a bonus - you get basically one button press to get from your Corona Simulator game to game on a device. See More
Slimothy
Warren Fuller
Top Pro

Good documentation and lots of tutorials

See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Content scaling 

It's easy to create a game that looks good on many different sized mobile devices. See More
Kristaps
Michael Flad
Top Pro

Live builds - update builds running on a device automatically

With the live build feature, once you have created a build and installed on a device, you get lightning fast turnaround times because any change on the code or data is updated to the devices running the game (within the local WiFi) immediately. So changes can be tested on the real hardware within a very few seconds. What's even more impressive, this even works flawless with multiple devices running the game. You have to use it to learn how good of a feature this is while development and even more, while doing QA. Imagine fixing bugs and everyone of your QA team/friends/whoever helps to get your game done, has all changes on his device without doing anything but waiting 5 seconds - outstanding. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Top Pro

Lua syntax

Uses the great and easy-to-learn Lua programming language. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Very comprehensive API

It's very quick to get things up and running with Corona SDK. The API is extensive and while it's not 100% feature-complete with the iOS API, it's close enough that you could create tons of games and never run into a roadblock. The API docs can be found here. See More
Slimothy
Svoka Vlad
Top Pro

Amazing learning curve

Corona does not throw photoshop-like madness full of buttons editor. You can go as fast as you want, learning and building game from ground up. Eventually, you'll learn how much corona is doing for you. But to start you don't have to master complex editor software. It's a great tool to learn to start game development if you want to learn how to program and make games. Your experience will be 100% transferable to any other Pro game engine. See More
Slimothy
Warren Fuller
Top Pro

Cross-platform desktop and mobile

Corona works on OS X, Windows and Android (including Kindle Fire & Nook). See More
Jonathan Sharp
Top Pro

Marketplace for 3rd party plug-ins

See More
Slimothy
Warren Fuller
Top Pro

Great community

See More
Slimothy
Warren Fuller
Top Pro

Ability to call any native (C/C++/Obj-C/Java) library

See More
teadan
Niccolo Bartolacelli
Top Pro

Completely free

Since Corona SDK became Solar2D, it's completely free, as only some third-party plugins are paid. See More
teadan
Niccolo Bartolacelli
Top Pro

Open Source

Since Corona SDK became Solar2D, it's completely open source under MIT license. See More
Slimothy
Thomas Claburn
Top Pro

Well supported

See More
Specs
Price:Free
Languages:Lua
Dev platforms:Windows; Macintosh
Desktop targets:Windows; Macintosh
See All Specs
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357 49

Unity 2D

All
7
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
2
Specs
Paolo
Ryan Leonski
Top Pro

Sprite Sheet and Bone based animation supported

Both types of 2D animation for game development are supported in Unity’s system and can be used interchangeably in the timeline. See More
ReverentAristaeus
Top Con

Lacks critical features

Vertices can't be animated, so you can't have ANY organic feel (like... lungs breathing). Parent bone can't be animated without affecting the children. This is especially impeding for organic feel, again. No option to show & unshow assets (or it is hidden), like for switching weapon on your character for exemple. See More
Ryan Leonski
Top Pro

Integrates with Mecanim

Mecanim brings state machines and blending to 2D bone animation. The state machine editor allows for designers and programmers to visually create a Finite State Machine (FSM) to control when animations should play. Mecanim also allows for blending so an animation can transition smoothly between two states without the need of in between frames made by an animator. See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
Top Con

Poor script interface for texture atlases

Accessing individual sprites within an atlas texture is possible at runtime, but requires use of the Resources folder subsystem. See More
Ryan Leonski
Top Pro

Built into Unity 4.3+

2D game creation was a major feature request from the Unity community and was added with version 4.3. 2D is provided in both the Pro and Free distribution of Unity. See More
Paolo
Ryan Leonski
Top Pro

Easily change sprites dynamically

Usually used for character customization, programmers can change any sprite in a bone animation at runtime easily by referencing the bone and loading the new sprite from the resources folder. See More
Specs
Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac
Languages:C#
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599 163

ct.js

All
13
Experiences
Pros
10
Cons
2
Specs
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

ct.js is bundled with examples, docs, and easy to follow tutorials. Documentation and tutorials are available in a side panel on every screen. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Con

Tile editing is a chore

No live brushes with automatic corner drawing, no fills or rectangular/linear placement. All tiles should be placed by hand, with a "Shift" key to place multiple tiles at once. This will make you ragequit if you want to make sophisticated RPG scenes :D See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Skeletal animations with DragonBones support

You can import skeletal sprites and animations from DragonBones, which is also free. Skeletal animations are added to objects through code; developers can listen to marked events in animation, and ct.js automatically associates sounds in a DragonBones project with the game's assets. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Con

Slower than native games

JavaScript and WebGL are fast, but they will always lose in performance if compared to native games, so it may be a bad choice for graphics-heavy games. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Good code editor

The built-in code editor comes with error checking, type checks, code completions accompanied with docs, multiple cursors support, and other modern features. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Open source (MIT)

This means that no one will ever put any features behind a paywall and that you can reliably use ct.js in any projects without worrying about licensing. And you can hack on ct.js! The repo is at https://github.com/ct-js/ct-js See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Tileset support

ct.js supports tiles in rooms, including collision checks and some extra editor tools, like bulk migration to a new tile layer or shifting by an exact value. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

WebGL and WebGL2 support

Starting with v1.0.0-next-1, you can now write WebGL games. WebGL support is based on Pixi.js. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Modular approach

ct.js has a "Core" library that provides basic drawing functions, room and asset management, and mouse interactions. Any other functions are added to projects as "catmods", or simply modules. These modules can be enabled or disabled in one click, and can inject their code in different game loop stages, e.g. after drawing all the objects, leaving a room, or when a new object is created. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Applicable to most genres

ct.js aims to be a general game engine and provides tools in making games of any genre. See More
Monika
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Dialogue and visual novel system with support for Yarn

A module ct.yarn allows developers to import a YarnSpinner project to create branching, data-driven dialogues and visual novels. An example is also bundled with ct.js. The dialogue tree is made in a separate app, though. See More
Cosmo Myzrail Gorynych
Top Pro

Real-time particle system editor

v1.3 brings a particle system editor, which displays a preview sprite for proper attachment of emitter to visual elements, and allows combining more than one emitter with different particles into one effect. With these, even the creation of complex, multi-step effects becomes easy. The editor comes with dozens ready-made textures for faster prototyping. See More
Specs
License:MIT
Languages:JavaScript
Dev platforms:Windows, OSX, Linux
Desktop targets:Windows, OSX, Linux, HTML5
See All Specs
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18 0

Cocos2d-x and Cocos Creator

All
18
Experiences
Pros
14
Cons
3
Specs
Chaoz
Laura Kyle
Maksim Litvinov
Top Pro

A proven engine for mobile development

25% of iPhone games are made using Cocos2d-x. This means you will not be alone in development, and will have access to a large community. You'll know you are developing for an engine that works. See More
Chloe Montanez
Endi Sukaj
Dev Flasher
Top Con

Poor support and non-existent community

Up until 2013, this was one of the best engines around. However, since then it was bought by a Chinese company and began stagnating - it's virtually in a slow death. Most developers abandoned Cocos in favor of more modern solutions leaving the community weak and the forums with little or no traffic. Although the Cocos2d-x Forum seems to have a decent community going. See More
Izem Lavrenti
Gavin Thronton
Slimothy
Top Pro

Good documentation

Documentation includes a programming guide, API reference, video tutorials and massive reference test code project showing all functions and giving working code to the user. See More
Monika
DependablePholus
Top Con

No Graphics user interface

See More
Izem Lavrenti
GMT Dev Canada
Top Pro

Supports 3D models with skeleton animation

A new feature since Cocos2d-x v3.1 is support for 3D models (in your 2D game), not only this but support for skeleton animations is included too! This awesome feature allows for impressive characters in your game along with easier, more fluid and realistic animations. See More
Alex
Kirlovon
Top Con

Modest functionality

Almost all free alternatives are more convenient, faster, and more functional. See More
Laura Kyle
Huabin Ling
Top Pro

Great script language support

It supports Lua and Javascript with full feature support. Especially with Cocos2d-JS you can develop games cross web and native, and the native solution have great performance with JS Bindings, much better than hybrid solution. See More
Maksim Litvinov
Izem Lavrenti
Gavin Thronton
Top Pro

Highly active community for questions and support

Cocos2d-x forums are active. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

OpenGL hardware acceleration

See More
Maksim Litvinov
Izem Lavrenti
Gavin Thronton
Top Pro

Future-proof

Cocos2d-x is not only open source but also supported by Chukong Technologies of China and USA. Regularly updated and adding support for the latest technologies. 2014 has already seen the release of Version 3, a new Cocos Studio development toolkit (optional) and support for new technologies like skeleton animation systems Spine and Adobe DragonBone. See More
Endi Sukaj
Laura Kyle
Eray Dev
Top Pro

Greater performance than high level APIs

Cocos2d-x is C++ based engine and it has CPU advantages for most platforms because of that. It uses polygonal mesh methods for sprite rendering for using GPU advantages. (You also use quad methods for benefit CPU). See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

No external dependencies

Because it is based on Pyglet. See More
Chaoz
Top Pro

One code for all platforms

On top of supporting pretty much all existing platforms (except consoles), Cocos Creator (Cocos's IDE) allows you to write 1 code that runs on Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS and HTML5 (not Linux though). See More
Endi Sukaj
Eray Dev
Top Pro

Easy integration of 3rd party plugins

Through the use of SDKBox you can easily integrate 3rd party SDKs and plugins for each version of Cocos2D (Lua, C++ or JavaScript), you just choose the SDKs to integrate and SDKBox will do the rest. For example, if you want to add a rating plugin, you use sdkbox::PluginReview::init(); and if you want to add the Vundle Ad Network SDK, you use the one packaged in SDKBox SDKBOX sdkbox::PluginVungle::init();. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Allows for easy debugging

It has a built-in Python interpreter that allows for easy debugging. See More
Chaoz
Top Pro

Very good IDE

Cocos Creator (Cocos' IDE) comes with scene editing, UI editor, animations & particle editors and whatnot. It's also easy to use and pretty intuitive if you read the official documentation & tutorials. Way way better than the old CocoStudio. See More
Chloe Montanez
Frahaan Hussain
Top Pro

Great video tutorials

Hundreds of video tutorials available. See More
Specs
License:MIT
Languages:C++; Lua; JavaScript; TypeScript (Creator only)
Dev platforms:Windows; macOS
Desktop targets:Windows; macOS; Linux; HTML5 (Creator only)
See All Specs
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323 61

Unreal Engine 4

All
44
Experiences
Pros
17
Cons
26
Specs
Monika
Endi Sukaj
Theodore Lief Gannon
Top Pro

Free development license, including source code

The engine, including full access to source code, is free to use; a 5% royalty is due only when you monetize your game or other interactive off-the-shelf product and your gross revenues from that product exceed $1,000,000 USD. See More
Endi Sukaj
Noorudheen KM
Top Con

Very high build size

A blank project will build in to a minimum of 200 MB. See More
Endi Sukaj
Stuart Kearney
Tim Etler
Top Pro

Dynamic global illumination with voxel cone tracing decreases the computational power needed

Voxel cone tracing is a similar algorithm to ray tracing, but uses thick rays instead of pixel thin rays to be able vastly decrease the amount of computational power needed. See More
Slimothy
thermoplastics
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Slow

Compared to other engines, UE4 seems to perform various actions considerably slower. Actions like starting the engine, opening the editor, opening a project, rebuilding shaders, updating references, calculating lightmaps, saving projects, etc take long enough to get irritating and end up wasting precious development time. See More
Slimothy
Tim Etler
Samuel Batista
Top Pro

A visual scripting system for non-coders enables quick prototyping

Blueprints are authoring tools designed for non programmers so designers and other team members can help tweak and prototype. UE4's Blueprint scripts resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish and games a lot faster to prototype. See More
Magnus Sjöstrand
Top Con

Extremely long build times

Making a full rebuild, including engine can take a good 30minutes. If you plan to use Unreal professionally, you better get some licenses for Incredibuild as well. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Lots of resources to learn from

Epic provides multiple official video tutorials, lots of free example projects and content, an extensive wiki and regular streams showing how to use latest features. See More
Johnny guitar
Top Con

Hard engine for beginners

This engine not easy for beginners See More
Slimothy
Brian Ernst
Top Pro

Powerful material/shader system

Allows a texture/material artist or VFX artist to create amazing effects from the ground up. See More
Francisco
Ben Peterson
Top Con

Steep learning curve

Especially when compared to its primary competitor, Unity. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Spectacular lighting visuals

See More
thermoplastics
Amanjit Gill
Top Con

C++ - oriented development cycle: slow turn-around times

The Unreal Editor is the main place to do stuff (of course), so if someone wants to do a lot of C++ stuff, the compilation and linking turn-around times can be painful. Still they probably are quite fast in comparison to the provided featureset.. Still ,they are far from optimal. See More
Laura Kyle
Endi Sukaj
Ricardo Rodrigues
Top Pro

Cross-platform editor and export

This engine exports for a big range of platforms including Linux. The editor can be run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux (Early Access). See More
Endi Sukaj
Magnus Sjöstrand
Top Con

Poor documentation

Most of the "documentation" for code is actually just automatically generated from the source. If you're interested in knowing how things are supposed to work, you must either go to their answers site or pay for UDN. Often their examples won't even compile, since they were written for now outdated versions. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Active community

Forums have many active and friendly members that are quick to respond and help out. Even staff is very active on forums. See More
John Lee
Slimothy
David Erosa García
Top Con

Royalty based

5% of profits will go to Unreal after $3000 earned in a quarter. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Tim Etler
Top Pro

Developers have full control of the engine and source code

UE4 gives full access to the C++ source code allowing editing and upgrading anything in the system. See More
Magnus Sjöstrand
Top Con

They spend more time adding features than fixing existing ones

See More
J&S Studios
Top Pro

AAA Ready

This is ready to make the next AAA game. See More
Ray
Péter Szabó
Top Con

C# not natively supported

UE4 does not support C# natively, but this can be achieved through MonoUE, although it requires using the MonoUE fork instead of UE itself. See More
Tim Etler
Top Pro

Fast compilation for quick iteration

Recompiling an entire game to test a small change takes up a lot of time. UE4 quickly compiles in seconds instead of minutes improving iteration time by an order of magnitude. See More
Magnus Sjöstrand
Top Con

Poor quality assurance on their releases

After each release they almost immediately release a hotfix. And another one. And another one. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Quick release-cycle

New feature releases can be commonly expected about once a month. See More
Monika
HumbleSabazios
Top Con

Poor source control support

Merge tool is not working. See More
Johnny guitar
Top Pro

Realistic graphics

See More
Magnus Sjöstrand
Top Con

Extremely poorly designed

The code is a mess. Everything is connected, a single Actor is 1500 bytes, because it contains a million things that Epic once needed in a game. Inheritance for AActor: AActor > UObject > UObjectBaseUtility > UObjectBase See More
ReceptiveRadegast
Top Pro

Easy to use animation blueprints

Unreal Engine 4 is one of the best game engines. It is super easy. It dosent require any use of coding due to Animation Blueprints See More
Endi Sukaj
Elisha Knight
Top Con

Tutorials do not go in-depth enough

The blueprint tutorial just teaches how to turn on a light when you press f. See More
eob
Top Pro

Professional feature set for all aspects of game development

Almost everything a game developer wants has a deep and sophisticated tool waiting for them in UE4. No external plugins are needed to make powerful materials, FX, terrain, cinematics, gameplay logic, AI, animation graphs, post process effects, lighting etc. See More
Monika
Laura Kyle
Elisha Knight
Top Con

Difficult for Mac users

If you're installing it on Mac, you simply download Epic games launcher and watch it download nothing endlessly. See More
Slimothy
Top Pro

Proven track record

See More
Monika
ReceptiveRadegast
Top Con

Unreal Engine crashes a lot if you don't have the required system requirements

See More
J&S Studios
Top Pro

No coding experience needed

See More
Monika
Rempas
Top Con

Not available on Linux

See More
Monika
Rempas
Top Con

Proprietary

See More
SmartKukulkan
Top Con

No Terrain Editor included

See More
Endi Sukaj
Elisha Knight
Top Con

Bad support

The epic games team only assists with billing and account issues, not bugs. See More
Laura Kyle
IntuitiveTefnut
Endi Sukaj
Top Con

Terrible physics

See More
__
Top Con

Sparse Resources for C++

C++ happens to be the main suite for Unreal, yet the documentation is very, very sparse. See More
Morris Cox
Slimothy
Beyond01
Top Con

No drawcall batching, performance is very bad on mobile

There's no dynamic batching support to minimize drawcalls. There's InstancedStaticmesh concept in UE4, but it's 3d only, functionally limited and requires hardware support which rules out most mobile devices. See More
thermoplastics
Pier Luigi Fiorini
Top Con

Frequent crashes

Often the editor crashes interrupting your work. See More
Magnus Sjöstrand
Top Con

Poor error messages

See More
Bryan
Elisha Knight
Top Con

Rarely works

See More
Specs
Languages:C++, Blueprints (Visual Scripting)
Dev platforms:Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Desktop targets:Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, SteamOs, HTML5
Mobile targets:iOS, Android
See All Specs
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747 174

Construct 2

All
37
Experiences
Pros
24
Cons
12
Specs
Slimothy
Tadd Mencer
Top Pro

Quick to pick up

Construct 2 is fast to pick up, get into, and belt out some pretty impressive games in a relatively small amount of time. Seems to be built for people who don't have a lot of programming skills, but want to make great games. See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
Slimothy
Callixtus
Top Con

Free version is severely limited

Although a free version of the engine is available, it lacks features that are essential to creating a high quality product. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Theodore Lief Gannon
Top Pro

Little programming knowledge needed

Using Construct 2 requires very little programming knowledge because it's all drag'n'drop, intuitive, visual and event-driven instead of code-only. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Summit69351
Top Con

The editor is Windows only

Although Construct 2 is able to export projects to Windows, OS X and Linux, the program itself currently only runs on Windows. See More
Slimothy
Wahid Sabari
ZoeW
Top Pro

Built-in physics system

Thanks to the great power of Erin Catto's Box2D, Construct 2 is able to make physics games which are similar to Cut the Rope and Angry Birds. See More
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Poor mobile performance

Construct 2 is focused on Javascript. Javascript isn't as fast as native code, which results in poor performance on mobile. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Adam Prack
Top Pro

In-depth event system

Construct 2's event system allows for deep, detailed control over all aspects of your game. You aren't limited to just a few options. Rather, Scirra has thought of nearly everything in advance with access to any desired parameter of any object all paired with simple and intuitive ways to interact with them. Your events can be organized with event sheets (that can be included in other sheets), event groups, sub-events, loops, and functions that make the coding portion of your game as efficient as possible. You don't need any programming knowledge, but if you do have some, you'll feel right at home with the freedom C2 offers. See More
Slimothy
Pedro Rocha
Top Con

HTML5 is very dependent on browser performance

Theoretically all browsers should run HTML5 pretty much the same way, but thats not always the case. Something that worked fine on Chrome, for instance, might malfunction on Firefox (or vice versa). And there's nothing the devs of Construct 2 can really do about it, but to hope next Firefox update might fix it. Internet Explorer is not even recommended. Add to that the fact that exporting to mobile or desktops rely on these sort of stripped down versions of web browsers (Node webkit, Crosswalk, Ejecta) that you pack with your game, and you can have a real headache if you're trying to make your game work properly through multiple platforms. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
DuckfaceNinja
Top Pro

Supportive community

Construct 2 has a supportive community. Their forums have tens of thousands of topics with ten times more posts. The core maintainers are very helpful and friendly and often reply to questions or issues that may be discussed in the forums. See More
Endi Sukaj
Theodore Lief Gannon
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Does not export to native mobile code

Construct 2 builds to HTML 5 only, which can cause performance issues on mobile devices depending on the HTML5 engine that the OS is using since that will be the biggest bottleneck. Even though it's not really the engine's fault, it still is at a disadvantage compared to native game engines. See More
Slimothy
ZoeW
Carlo Andrei Mercado
Top Pro

Easy to create particles and animations

With spriter file implementation and internal animation editor Construct 2 provides an easy way of creating particles and animations. See More
Monika
KnowledgeableCirce
Top Con

Discontinued as of July 2021, in favor of Construct 3

Construct 2 licenses cannot be bought anymore since July 2020, and support has ended on July 1st 2021 with the release of the final r280 version (see here). Existing customers can still use the game engine, but it will no longer be updated. See More
Slimothy
DuckfaceNinja
ZoeW
Top Pro

Free (feature limited) version available

A free version of Construct 2 is available. It's not time restricted in any way, but is feature limited. See More
Loïc Ovigne
Top Con

Clickteam Fusion Clone

This is a copy of the Clickteam softwares See More
ZoeW
Slimothy
Aubrey
Top Pro

Active plugin ecosystem

Construct 2 has an active plugin ecosystem providing behaviors and features that smooth the workflow for certain game types. See More
James Redmond
Top Con

Dependency on 3rd parties for all exports

Unless you are creating a game strictly for browser/HTML5 usage, exporting to desktop or mobile is risky, as Scirra have no control over your final export quality. Since desktop uses NodeWebkit and mobile is Crosswalk, Phonegap or CocoonJS there is no guarantee that your final export performance and quality will be up to scratch for pro level 2d games. These 3rd party "browser wrappers" are very prone to breaking and introducing lag and bugs that can't be controlled from Scirra's side. See More
Slimothy
Callixtus
James V. Olson
Top Pro

Export control for all major platforms

All platform exporters are part of the subscription. There are no additional fees and new exporters are added quickly and maintained well. Currently, 15 platforms are supported, including HMTL 5, iOS, Android, Windows, Chrome Store, PhoneGap and Scirra. See More
Konidia s
Top Con

HTML5 Only is extremely limiting

If the software could export natively to mobile devices and PC/Mac/Linux it would be extremely powerful. The developer's choice of sticking to only HTML5 has created a bottleneck for anyone wanting to develop with this software. See More
Slimothy
Valdeir Santos
Stuart Kearney
Top Pro

Built in behaviors make development workflows very efficient

Behaviors add pre-packaged functionality to object types. See More
Slimothy
Top Con

Tilemap object could be better

C2 requires that there's a tilemap objects for each tilemap layer meaning each tilemap object has to be updated when modifying any layer. This could be simplified by adding layer support for tilemap objects. See More
Michel Fessard
Top Pro

Very fast preview

In Construct 2 you can preview your games instantly at any time. There’s no need to wait for compiling or other time consuming processes. See More
Noble Valerian
Top Con

Buggy

Experience regular crashes and inexplicable project file corruption. See More
Slimothy
ZoeW
Aubrey
Top Pro

Available on Steam

You can also download Construct 2 on Steam. See More
Paolo
Noble Valerian
Top Con

Unreliable access to online resources

Unreliable access to online resources such as online tutorials and forums, plus extremely outdated offline manual. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
ZoeW
Top Pro

One-off cost

It's a one off cost for Construct 2 and all updates to the Construct 2 editor are free for life. See More
ZoeW
Popyui Ricalde
Top Pro

Supports camera, microphone, speech recognition and synthesis

Can use cameras in PCs and on mobiles. You can use the synthesis that can recognize your speech or you can write something and it can talk for you. See More
Slimothy
DuckfaceNinja
Aubrey
Top Pro

Interface similar to that of MS office

This engine provides an intuitive workflow for people that are used to the Windows environment. See More
Slimothy
William Theodore Grabiec
Top Pro

Runs great on mobile

Performs well on most devices and browsers. See More
Laura Kyle
Endi Sukaj
Michael Porter
Top Pro

Rapid development

After using a few quick tutorials you can quickly catch on to the event system this program uses and quickly be able to build any type of 2D game you want. You can download a few sprites from google and put together a working level of Mega Man with character movement / animation / enemies / collision detection / scoring / Tile map and AI within about 2 hours. The built in behaviors are incredible. It's amazing how Construct can simplify the most redundant tasks in game development. See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
DuckfaceNinja
Top Pro

Allow server-less multiplayer game creation

Construct 2 uses WebRTC technology to support it's multiplayer functionality. The nature of the technology allows peer-to-peer connection which does not require game developer to create server side architecture to allow communication between games. See More
Slimothy
frn2000
Top Pro

Supportive devs

The developers are always available to help. See More
Slimothy
ZoeW
Valdeir Santos
Top Pro

Built-in animation/image editor

Basic sprites and tiles of 2D games can be made with engine's built-in tools. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
Callixtus
Top Pro

Built-in pathfinding

Has built-in solutions for pathfinding. See More
Slimothy
Valdeir Santos
Top Pro

Built-in tilemap object

The tilemap object allows tile-based games to be designed more easily. The object's tilemap can also be edited in the layout view using the tilemap bar. See More
Zaharia Zga
Glerikud
Top Pro

Simplicity - it is made for everybody to use and love

Construct 2 is a tool for not just programmers, but artists as well. You can create a game with only visual coding, which is easy to learn and doesn't require any previous programming knowledge. You can focus on making your game better instead of just coding. It has some limitations of course, but it's definitely worth it. See More
Endi Sukaj
Zaharia Zga
Ryan
Top Pro

Cordova support

You can use Cordova plugins from the community See More
Specs
License:Proprietary
Languages:JavaScript (engine)
Desktop targets:Windows XP+, UWP, Mac OS X 10.6+, Linux
Mobile targets:Android 4.0+, iOS 8.0+
See All Specs
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525 149

Defold

All
12
Experiences
Pros
11
Specs
Izem Lavrenti
Ulrich Zatapov
Top Pro

Easy to learn

Defold uses Lua, which is regarded as an easy to learn language by most. See More
Endi Sukaj
Rémy Tauziac (crazyrems)
Top Pro

Completely free of charge

Software and online dashboard are free of charge. See More
Laura Kyle
Jay Jennings
Top Pro

Good combination of visual editing + code (Lua)

You can do a lot with drag and drop, but you're not limited -- the code (Lua, which is easy to learn) allows you more power than just visual editing usually gives you. See More
thermoplastics
Andreas Jirenius
Top Pro

Fast results

Going from idea to result is very important for the creative process. See More
Andreas Jirenius
Top Pro

Very performant

Being crossplatform it is important to work on low end devices. See More
Laura Kyle
danial abdl
Top Pro

Visual editor

See More
Laura Kyle
danial abdl
Top Pro

Easy and fast export for various platforms

See More
Nedas Kuzas
Paweł Jarosz
Top Pro

Source code available

You can download and modify the source code of the Editor and the engine for free. See More
Chloe Montanez
Luis Cruz
Top Pro

Great community

A very active and friendly community in forums. See More
Rémy Tauziac (crazyrems)
Top Pro

Collaborative

You can invite friends from the dashboard and create games together. See More
Alexey Gulev
Top Pro

Hot reload

It allows you to change scripts in a game while it is running live. Common use-cases is to tweak gameplay parameters or to perform debugging on a running game. See More
Specs
Languages:Lua
Dev platforms:Windows; Linux; OSX
Desktop targets:Windows; Linux; HTML5; OSX
Mobile targets:iOS; Android; FB Instant Games
See All Specs
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161 63

BYOND

All
7
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
2
Specs
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Helpful community

BYOND's community is relatively large and extremely helpful. Any question a beginner or an experienced user may have is quickly answered. See More
AdventurousXolotl
Belle
lempamo
Top Con

Highly supports multiplayer, but can make solo games ready for download.

See More
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Easy to use

The software itself is very easy to learn and use for beginners. See More
thermoplastics
Tyruswoo
lempamo
Top Con

Exclusive programming language

The language is known as DM, and is modified using Dream Maker. It is an object oriented, interpreted language, which closely resembles C++, Java and PHP. More information available in the DM Guide. See More
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

In active development

BYOND is in active development and updates are released constantly. See More
AdventurousXolotl
Top Pro

Large Community

Fairly large player base and multiple games to play. See More
Specs
License:Proprietary
Price:Free to use. Free to publish your games.
Languages:DM
Dev platforms:Windows
See All Specs
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37 2

Clickteam Fusion 2.5

All
42
Experiences
Pros
25
Cons
16
Specs
Theodore Lief Gannon
James Marshall
Top Pro

Permissive runtime license agreement

With the Developer edition of the product, there are absolutely no limits or requirements when selling your creations. You are free to make as much money as you want (this applies to the Standard edition too), and you don't have to include any logos or credits in your creations. See More
Endi Sukaj
Slimothy
T-R
Top Con

Some features are really outdated and major updates are few and rare

There are some features that could make the software a lot more powerful but Clickteam does not have the staff resources to handle updating the software to be competitive with similar software. See More
Izem Lavrenti
Matt Lucas
Top Pro

Upgrade discounts

If you buy Fusion 2.5, and later decide you want to upgrade to the Developer version, or in the case of moving from MMF2 to F2.5, the company offers upgrade discounts. See More
Endi Sukaj
vinth
Top Con

Its Event Editor can be cumbersome if you are working on complex projects

While Fusion's visual programming event system is great to simplify things, it can be much more cumbersome to work with it than reading lines of code when you are working on a complex project. Especially if your events involve many nested conditions and lots of objects on the frame. You are able to group events and objects, but it doesn't help at all if there's lots of conditions on an event and it becomes pretty hard to read. See More
Slimothy
Callixtus
Stuart Kearney
Top Pro

Export native runtime for all platforms

Be it Windows EXE, Android APK, iOS, HTML5 and Flash SWF, Fusion 2.5 is able to export your game to fast, truly native runtime for specified platform with a click. See More
Mathias Kaerlev
Jeff Vance
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Many extensions not available on non-Windows platforms

A lot of community-made extensions are only written for Windows, making it hard to port your game to other platforms. See More
Slimothy
Stuart Kearney
Callixtus
Top Pro

Intuitive drag & drop interface & visual event editor

CF2.5 uses a straightforward drag & drop editor that allows for easy level, animation and event creation without having to write a single line of code. See More
teadan
MightyTishpak
Top Con

It is very expensive

100$ to $400. See More
Ross Dawson
Dot122
Thomas Kennedy
Top Pro

Developers work so closely with the user base

Dedicated Bug tracking system linked to user forum for ease of access. See More
Endi Sukaj
Mathias Kaerlev
Jeff Vance
Top Con

Many event 'gotchas', especially with object selection

Many events have very unpredictable selection behavior, e.g. the 'Create' action (where the selection depends on whether a selection list already exists). There is also a lot of subtle selection behavior, e.g. implicit object pairs for actions when an object is used in an expression. See More
pmnastga .
Izem Lavrenti
Top Pro

Free version

A free version is available for download here. See More
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

No native animator with curves, etc

See More
Callixtus
Ran_TH
Top Pro

Can also create Windows applications

CF allows creating Windows applications. Additionally, due to hundreds of available extensions, the process is quick. See More
Mathias Kaerlev
Jeff Vance
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Poor native movements

The native non-physical movements are practically unusable if you don't want to use Box2D physics in your game. See More
Callixtus
Simon Timothy Pittock
pmnastga .
Top Pro

Box2D physics engine included on all platforms

Clickteam Fusion 2.5 brings to you the box2D physics engine. See More
teadan
Mathias Kaerlev
Jeff Vance
Top Con

Need to write C++ extensions when existing extensions don't cut it

If you need e.g. a Steamworks extension or 3D display extension, you need to move out from the event system and create extensions in C++ with a cumbersome API. Fusion does not have FFI calls like other programming languages. See More
Callixtus
Izem Lavrenti
Ethan Hughes
Top Pro

Community-driven extensive object repository

Click Fusion has a great selection of extensions submitted by the community. The extensions cover a variety of game-building tasks including parsing of strings using up to two alternating delimiters using the "Tokenizer Object", generating random numbers without reusing them from multiple lists which can be refilled and distinctively replenished with the "Random Multipool Object" among others. See More
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

No animation/object hierarchy

You need to position/rotate objects manually. See More
James Marshall
Dot122
Top Pro

Not only is it the best, it is the original

This software has been around since 1994 (then called Klik & Play) and is still going very strong. Also, one of the founders of Clickteam was the developer of STOS BASIC and AMOS BASIC for the Atari ST and Amiga computers. See More
Mathias Kaerlev
Jeff Vance
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Cannot script editor

You cannot script the IDE or editor with e.g. macros or custom functionality, like you can in other popular game engines. See More
Slimothy
Callixtus
Andre D.
Top Pro

A great unofficial community for Spanish-speaking users

A great community in Spanish where you will receive all the help you need to solve your doubts and problems. You'll also find all kinds of resources and materials in Spanish. Una gran comunidad en español en donde recibirás toda la ayuda que necesites para solucionar tus dudas y problemas. También encontrarás todo tipo de recursos, tutoriales y ejemplos en español. See More
Mathias Kaerlev
Jeff Vance
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

Slow event system

Since the event system is interpreted, complex frames will start to slow down. This is also caused by poor code reuse, as usually, you need to copy+paste events with new conditions, making it impossible to cache intermediate results. See More
Slimothy
Elpupas7
Top Pro

Balanced feature set

An excellent compromise between ease of use, power, flexibility and ability to export to different platforms. Easy to learn for beginners with the ability to make complex things, of course, at the expense of a larger effort. Good rapid application development tool for making 2D games. See More
Monika
Majed
Top Con

Lack of native network multiplayer system, built-in database support, social media support

See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
Slimothy
Ryan
Top Pro

Supportive, passionate community

Any time you have a question or a problem, the community and the software developers are there to help you out either on forums or steam. The devs repond quickly to private messages or instantly on ClickConverse (chat). Additionally, many users have support sites with open source examples and tutorials. See More
Monika
Majed
Top Con

Exporters are separate purchases, and they are not cheap

See More
Theodore Lief Gannon
Callixtus
Stuart Kearney
Top Pro

Well-optimized

Runs well under high object numbers, particularly on PC and iOS thanks to hardware acceleration. See More
Alejandro Arciniegas
Andy Defisym
Stuart Kearney
Top Con

No console/Linux exporters

Up to now, Clickteam has a console convert service. See More
Slimothy
Izem Lavrenti
Simon Timothy Pittock
Top Pro

Great IRL user events

Clickteam holds user conventions for customers to come along, meet the staff and hang out with people who they've met online. This furthers the community spirit which is so prevalent around Clickteam's products and it's a fantastic weekend. See More
PositiveApoLaki
Top Con

Simpler than Scratch

Fusion 2.5 is more Simpler than MIT'S Scratch! See More
Matthew
ToughHapi
Top Pro

It is very powerful for making 2D games, yet requires no traditional programming experience and very little to no higher math

There is no 'easy button' program that will make a good game for you with no hard work, and this software is no exception to that, but it does make the process easier. With the option of coding in either a spreadsheet style editor or a list style editor, the event based programming language reads more like English than traditional programming languages. This has made it ideal for me as I have a very hard time understanding traditional programming. I would say this is the perfect solution for people that want to make 2D games but who don't have a very mathematically oriented mind, and think more visually. Just like anything it can take some getting used to, but after following some tutorials and tinkering with it, you'll be able to create practically any kind of 2D game with it so long as you have the determination. See More
Slimothy
Summit
Taufik Purnomosidi
Top Con

The free edition is severely limited

See More
Majed
Top Pro

Exports native mobile code, making great performance games

See More
teadan
thermoplastics
Majed
Top Pro

Great for non-game apps

Such as tools, utilities, multimedia projects, etc. See More
Majed
Top Pro

Great online store to get free and paid assets

See More
thermoplastics
Женя Людчик
Top Pro

Can create custom extensions

See More
thermoplastics
Женя Людчик
Top Pro

Visual (HLSL) effects

See More
thermoplastics
Majed
Top Pro

Great formula editor, which allows you to create complex maths and events with ease

See More
Majed
Top Pro

Box2D physics engine

See More
jrag1000
Top Pro

Stable

Have used fusion 2.5 through all of its iterations, even when it was owned by imsi as CNC ( click n create ) it has been very stable and projects have been known to run on almost any Windows based computer. The projects you create even run on future versions of Windows with never many issues. See More
ResponsiveAnuket
Top Pro

3D powerful solution

See More
Specs
License:Proprietary
Languages:c
Dev platforms:Windows, Mac
Desktop targets:Windows, Mac
See All Specs
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354 90

GameMaker Studio 2

All
14
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
6
Sunshine Lollipop
Martin Enderleit
Top Con

Not the best scripting language out there

GML is just weird; if you want to learn programming, it is not the best because it teaches bad habits and has many odd shortcuts and shortcomings that won't transfer to a real language See More
Martin Enderleit
Top Pro

Quick prototyping

See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Con

HTML5 export is buggy, doesn't "just work"

See More
Chloe Montanez
Martin Enderleit
Top Pro

Good user interface

See More
Solon
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Con

Quite expensive

Windows ($100) + HTML5 ($140) + Mobile ($400) + UWP ($400) is $1,050, plus $800 anually for each console export separately. But doesn't do anything any of the free engines can't do, and the stability and tech support aren't great. See More
Chloe Montanez
Martin Enderleit
Top Pro

Well-optimized engine

See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Con

Unstable

Users frequently report crashes and hangs, particularly when working with assets, and the software uses a complicated underlying meta-file structure that may become corrupted and cannot be rebuilt See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Pro

Has a trial version (but limited functions, can't export)

See More
Martin Enderleit
Top Con

Limited support for OOP

See More
Solon
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Pro

Many unofficial tutorials

Most GMS1 tutorials are fine for GMS2 See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Con

Small development team

The core programming team is only 5-10 people, with about 30 employees total, so bug fixes can take a long time to be addressed, and there aren't many official tutorials See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Pro

Highly customizable IDE

Although users must work within the IDE and editor, GMS2 has many options to customize the look and feel See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Pro

Good documentation

See More
Sunshine Lollipop
Top Pro

Huge, generous community

See More
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16 7

AppGameKit 2.0

All
25
Experiences
Pros
16
Cons
8
Specs
thermoplastics
Richard Vanner
Top Pro

HTML5 support

The AppGameKit Basic can now export to HTML5. See More
Jason
Top Con

Restrictive virtual buttons

"AppGameKit" does not grant editing the very basic parameters of virtual buttons such as font and text size. The only method some people suggest is to use an image for every single "button". See More
Endi Sukaj
Parker Eli Bidigare
Top Pro

Cross platform

Supports developing games for Android, iOS, PC, Mac, Linux and now HTML5. See More
Paolo
Belle
ResoluteGeryon
Top Con

Terrible scripting language

MS Basic from the 70's has more features. Procedural, no OO, inheritance, basic user defined types with overloading. Nothing. It even has GOSUB. See More
Endi Sukaj
Jonathan
Paul Robson
Top Pro

You only need to to pay for the license only

There is no charge for upgrades, or for extra platforms (the HTML5 version just appeared in the latest version), there are no subscription fees or other usage charges. If you publish onto either Apple or Google's stores you will have to pay their costs, of course, but the makers of AGK do not take a cut of this themselves. See More
Wernight
Top Con

BASIC language

Even though it supports C++, it's mostly C++ mapped to BASIC without OOP. See More
Laura Kyle
Richard Vanner
Top Pro

Plugin support for Windows

Plug-ins can now be added to the Windows platform. Create your own Tier BASIC commands and call them using the AppGameKit Basic script language style. See More
Wernight
Top Con

Can almost only do trivial games

The editor is rather limited, not fully polished, and 3D is missing some key functionalities (3D is work in progress). See More
Endi Sukaj
Tony Blinco
Top Pro

Instant testing on multiple devices at once

AppGameKit supports instant testing on all connected devices. With the push of a button you can run your game on any device connected to the development machine. See More
Gerhard Eichhorn
Top Con

No builtin game mechanics, events, inventory.

See More
Gerhard Eichhorn
Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Every function is fully documented with examples and exercises. The Tutorial PDF is a full Introduction to 3D game programming with integrated references to every functionality and its most important usecases. The documentation is regulary updated. See More
VivaciousZaoJun
Top Con

$80 even if your game doesn't fly

See More
Parker Eli Bidigare
Top Pro

Easy basic programming

Program in tier 1 BASIC programming for every 3D game need. See More
ResoluteGeryon
Top Con

Editor code completion is pretty bad

See More
thermoplastics
Endi Sukaj
Richard Vanner
Top Pro

Raspberry Pi free version available

A Raspberry Pi version is available and free. Users just need to register with the developer and then they can download. See More
VivaciousZaoJun
Top Con

Pros on Slant are written by AGK marketing guys

See More
ResoluteGeryon
Endi Sukaj
Paul Robson
Top Pro

Very fast compilation

It is a compilation based language, but the compilation is very fast. A project of about 1800 lines of code, for example, can compile almost instantly. (That's because it does not compile, it's an interpreter) See More
Tony Blinco
Top Pro

Support

Informed, timely and intelligent feedback from the AGK forum. See More
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Fast development

There are plenty of functions which facilitate development and deployment. For example, the AGK player immediately plays the updated bytecode on Android devices then the online site helps with building an APK file for Google Play Store in minutes. See More
Endi Sukaj
Daniel Foreman
Top Pro

Uses a powerful scripting language built for game development

Software produced with the App Game Kit is written in a language called AGK Script. This language has powerful inbuild commands including commands for 2D graphics, physics and networking. The commands make use of the platforms' native functions to improve performance. They are also designed to enhance code readability. The AGK Script commands have extensive online documentation. See More
DiligentLevana
Top Pro

C++ and Basic, you have the choice.

It runs fast with BASIC but if you want more you can use C++, it's also easy to use. See More
Paul Robson
Top Pro

Can be used for advanced games programming in C++

Libraries which provide the same functionality are available for the five platforms, so you can code in C++ See More
Endi Sukaj
Top Pro

Comes with an Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

AGK comes with an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) based on the Code::Blocks IDE for writing AGK scripts. A key feature of the IDE is its ability to broadcast compiled programs to other devices for testing. See More
Nieb
Top Pro

Performance

See More
Specs
Dev platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux
Desktop targets:Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5
Mobile targets:iOS, Android
3D:Yes
See All Specs
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228 73

Adventure Game Studio

All
15
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
8
Specs
Slimothy
Top Pro

Easy to learn tool

Good for newbie g