What is the best alternative to&#x20;Oxygine?

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

257 18

score 222 · Answer 2

AppGameKit 2.0

Top Pro

You only need to to pay for the license only

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

Top Pro

HTML5 support

The AppGameKit Basic can now export to HTML5. See More

Top Con

BASIC language

Even though it supports C++, it's mostly C++ mapped to BASIC without OOP. See More

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

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

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

Top Con

$80 even if your game doesn't fly

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

Top Con

No builtin game mechanics, events, inventory.

Top Pro

Cross platform

Supports developing games for Android, iOS, PC, Mac, Linux and now HTML5. See More

Top Con

Editor code completion is pretty bad

Top Pro

Easy basic programming

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

Top Con

Pros on Slant are written by AGK marketing guys

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

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

Top Pro

Support

Informed, timely and intelligent feedback from the AGK forum. See More

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

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Performance

Specs

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Desktop targets:Windows, Mac, Linux, HTML5

Mobile targets:iOS, Android

3D:Yes

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

222 69

score 1691 · Answer 3

Godot

Top Pro

Built-in physics

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

Top Pro

Integrated animation editor

Every property can be animated. See More

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

Top Pro

Fully dedicated 2D engine, no hacks

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

Top Con

Annoying minor bugs

Minor bugs can go unaddressed for some time, due to it being a free program. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top Con

2DPhysics is weak compared to Box2d

Box2d has much more features. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Godot is licensed under MIT license. Anyone can grab the source from https://github.com/godotengine/godot, and compile the engine themselves. See More

Top Con

NoAdmob or other AdNetwork support

Godot has no native support for implementing advertisements into your game. See More

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

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

Top Pro

User friendly UI for all your team

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

Top Con

Many buggy and half-finished features

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

Top Con

Hard for a Unity user

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Internationalization of the editor

You can change the language shown in menus. Godot translations can be found here. See More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Engine is yours

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

Top Pro

Can be installed on Steam

You can easily install Godot via the Steam store. See More

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

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

Dev platforms:Windows 7+, macOS 10.12+, Linux, *BSD, web editor

Languages:C++03

Desktop targets:Windows 7+, UWP, macOS 10.12+, Linux, *BSD

Corona SDK is completely free. That includes pro-tier plugins. See More

1691 268

score 329 · Answer 4

Solar 2D (formerly Corona SDK)

Top Pro

Very simple to use

Top Con

Closed source

Top Pro

Free

Top Con

Free, but not completely

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

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

Top Pro

Lua syntax

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

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

Top Pro

Good documentation and lots of tutorials

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

Top Pro

Cross-platform desktop and mobile

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

Top Pro

Content scaling

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

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

Top Pro

Great community

Top Pro

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

Top Pro

Marketplace for 3rd party plug-ins

Top Pro

Open Source

Since Corona SDK became Solar2D, it's completely open source under MIT license. See More

Top Pro

Completely free

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

Top Pro

Well supported

Specs

Price:Free

Languages:Lua

Dev platforms:Windows; Macintosh

Desktop targets:Windows; Macintosh

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

329 49

score 94 · Answer 5

MonoGame

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Top Con

Slow Rate of Updates

Versions 3.8 and 3.9 are both overdue by a year, and version 4.0 is set to release in 2040. See More

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

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

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

Top Pro

Good community

The community MonoGame has to offer is helpful and mature. See More

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

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, Mac OS X, Linux, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Supported platforms:Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, PS Vita, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch

Mobile targets:Android, IOS, Windows phone

Languages español:C#

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

94 19

score 306 · Answer 6

Cocos2d-x and Cocos Creator

Top Pro

A proven engine for mobile development

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

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

Top Con

No Graphics user interface

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

Top Con

Modest functionality

Almost all free alternatives are more convenient, faster, and more functional. See More

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

Top Pro

Highly active community for questions and support

Cocos2d-x forums are active. See More

Top Pro

OpenGL hardware acceleration

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

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

Top Pro

No external dependencies

Because it is based on Pyglet. See More

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

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

Top Pro

Allows for easy debugging

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

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

Top Pro

Great video tutorials

Hundreds of video tutorials available. See More

Specs

Languages:C++; Lua; JavaScript; TypeScript (Creator only)

Dev platforms:Windows; macOS

Desktop targets:Windows; macOS; Linux; HTML5 (Creator only)

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

306 60

score 8 · Answer 7

Construct 3

Top Pro

No installation required

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

Top Pro

Timeline

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

Top Pro

Fast and small

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

Top Pro

Runs in the browser

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

Top Pro

Works on Chromebooks

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

8 3

score 408 · Answer 8

GameMaker: Studio

Top Pro

Extremely easy to learn

GameMaker: Studio is incredibly easy to learn. It requires almost no programming knowledge which means that those without the technical experience, such as designers or artists, can create their projects without the help of a programmer. See More

Top Con

Exporting to some formats costs extra

You need to buy extra modules to be able to export to platforms like Android, iOS, HTML5 and others. See More

Top Pro

Gives developers access to a more fine-grained controle over the logic through the Game Maker Language

Game Maker Language (GML) is the primary scripting language that is interpreted similarly to Java's Just-In-Time compilation used in GameMaker. It is used to further enhance and control the design of a game through more conventional programming, as opposed to the drag and drop system. See More

Top Con

No built-in refactoring tools

There are no built-in refactoring tools. For example, you can rename a resource, but GM:S will not automatically change the mentions of it across the code to the new name. Furthermore, because all file formats are text-based, basic refactoring could be achieved by simply doing "find & replace in all files" -- which is a feature offered by pretty much every external code editor nowadays -- but no such feature here. Hitting Ctrl-F will pull up a rather odd Find/Replace box but selecting a word before hitting Ctrl-F will not autofill the Find field for you like it will in most tools. Even that you have to cut and paste yourself. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find resources/tutorials/assistance

GameMaker: Studio has a huge following, tons of people put up tutorial videos, and it's just generally easy to find help. It has a huge community. See More

Top Con

No GUI editor

The GUI must be hard-coded, leaving a lot of tricky calculations and jumping through hoops to accommodate different devices and displays; it's probably the least developed and hardest thing about GMS2 compared to comparable engines See More

Top Pro

Easy cross-platform shader support

Write your own shaders in one shader language and have it automatically ported to all platforms. You can even choose a specific shader language to wield the full power of the target device. See More

Top Con

The cost to buy for development is outrageous

The cost for this tool is hindering for indie developers who have little money to work with. See More

Top Pro

It has an IDE used for loading all of the assets

It is very easy to manage all the resources you want to put in your game, the UI widgets for each assets (sprites, sounds, backgrounds, rooms, objects and shaders) are intuitive enough for when adding or even editing the properties of each your assets. The included editors are also good and easy to use (sprite/image editors, shader editor and room editor). See More

Top Con

Bad history of ignoring critical bugs

In the past, the developer failed to update the software for iOS and Android when game-breaking updates were made to those platforms. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform multiplayer support

There is the possibility of creating games that interact with different platforms and is not that hard. See More

Top Con

The scripting language used is quite limited

Language does not support actual objects, structs, real data types, functions, overloading, even argument naming. Developers generally have to code around the lack of these features in very tricky ways. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

GameMaker: Studio projects can be deployed to: HTML5, Linux, Windows, OS X, Windows Phone, Android, iOS and PS3/4/Vita. See More

Top Con

Development has been and will be cosmetic

The change from 1.x to 2.x was cosmetic, the engine and language stayed the same. The roadmap for future development is also cosmetic and includes updating the sprite editor, adding an audio editor, and adding a "mini map" for the IDE. See More

Top Pro

Built-in support for pixel-perfect collisions

Enabling pixel-perfect collisions on 2D sprites is so easy many will likely turn it on when maybe they might be better off without it. Regardless, it simplifies small and/or retro console-like game work. This is a feature fairly unique in this class of game engines. See More

Top Con

Poor level editor

No marquee select, no layers, can be glitchy, no grouping, etc. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Game Maker Studios simple interface allows for rapid prototyping, and easy development. See More

Top Con

Can't embed videos in game

Doesn't support embedding videos in a game. See More

Top Pro

Assets can easily be found in the official marketplace

Yoyogames website has a marketplace which opens up an opportunity for people to sell or giveaway created assets and resources (sprites, scripts, sounds, extensions, full source codes, etc.) for use in GameMaker. This benefits people who needs quality assets for their games, and for creative people to provide these assets for extra income. The Marketplace has a rating system so it can eventually increase the quality and competitiveness of the assets submitted. See More

Top Con

Expensive for what it offers

There are several options with more flexibility, better learning resources, and a lower price point. See More

Top Pro

Extremely stable

GameMaker: Studio has been around since 1999 and has been used and maintained during all this time. This makes it an extremely stable game engine. See More

Top Con

Destructive DRM

In late 2012/early 2013, YoYo Games released a version of their new Studio IDE for cross-platform development that would import games and destroy all of the image type resources for some legitimate purchasers of the software by superimposing a pirate symbol on top of the image. This was due to a fault in their digital rights management software implementation which they use as a method of combating pirated copies of the software. Though the false positives bug is reported to be fixed, the DRM is still in place and may affect placeholder graphics, etc. YoYoGames publicly stated they would remove the DRM at a later point in time, but that other less-invasive DRM techniques would remain. See More

Top Pro

Supports 3D

There is also 3D support that doesn't interfere with the primary 2D focus. See More

Top Con

Proprietary language forces expensive "lock in"

Because it uses GML, a very non-standard custom language, new users do not learn a transferrable language and become locked in. See More

Top Pro

Easy to add native code to GMS

Good extension support. You can do anything with gms! You just need to know how to code natively in the respectively export (like Android). See More

Top Con

Tends to crash or not compile games properly

Top Con

Poor accessibility and integration

Documentation and resources largely focus on proprietary scripting language, which is necessary for achieving full potential of the software due to poor drag and drop integration. See More

Top Con

No way to activate or use existing modules

Support entirely focused on new iteration depriving even basic functionality of this version with any purchase that hasn't already been activated. It is still possible, thought not intuitive, to download this version on the trail screen for GM S 2. But no purchased (wildly expensive) module can be added any longer. See More

Top Con

Code editor not friendly to indented code

While the editor of course has features for intending code such as auto indent and smart tabs that can be turned on or off, these features work in unusual ways and, overall, the editor is not very adaptable to various typing styles. Also, Home always takes you to position 0 and never to the beginning of the text no matter how many times you hit it. Thus, if you hit Home and then Enter a new line, with auto indent on, it will always mess up the indentation on the line following the new line leaving you to fudge around to fix it manually. If you prefer tabs over spaces, forget it. Finally, if you leave the GameMaker app and try to click back into the code editor, the code editor will not fully get the focus sometimes leaving you with the ability to type but not tab. It usually takes two clicks to fully focus the code editor from outside the GM app. See More

Top Con

This is very flat for games

They are not beautiful - for example, Undertale. See More

Top Con

Owned by a gambling company, Playtech

As opposed to other engines, which are open source or owned by game companies, GameMaker is developed by YoYoGames, which is owned by Playtech, a gambling software company. See More

Specs

Languages:GML (JavaScript-like)

Dev platforms:Windows, Linux, macOS, ARM

Desktop targets:Windows, Linux, macOS, Windows UWP, HTML5

Mobile targets:Android, iOS, (deprecated: Windows Phone, Tizen)

Lots of references, tutorials and open source code to learn from. See More

408 116

score 583 · Answer 9

libGDX

Top Pro

Lots of resources to learn from

Top Con

Not starter friendly

Even default applications fail to load in Android. It doesn't have any documentation on errors either. See More

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

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

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

Top Con

The project slowed down in development

The number of active developers has decreased, many open issues and pull requests. See More

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

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

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

Top Con

Does not create compiled code

LibGDX runs entirely on Java and does not create executable binaries. See More

Top Pro

Uses Box2D

A Java port of the Box2D physics engine is included in libGDX. See More

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Very easy to customize

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Excellent font rendering support

Very good tools for rendering fonts. See More

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

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

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

583 163

score 508 · Answer 10

Construct 2

Top Pro

Quick to pick up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top Con

Clickteam Fusion Clone

This is a copy of the Clickteam softwares See More

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Built in behaviors make development workflows very efficient

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

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

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

Top Con

Buggy

Experience regular crashes and inexplicable project file corruption. See More

Top Pro

Available on Steam

You can also download Construct 2 on Steam. See More

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Runs great on mobile

Performs well on most devices and browsers. See More

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

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

Top Pro

Supportive devs

The developers are always available to help. See More

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

Top Pro

Built-in pathfinding

Has built-in solutions for pathfinding. See More

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

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

Top Pro

Cordova support

You can use Cordova plugins from the community See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Languages:C++ (editor), JavaScript (engine)

Dev platforms:Windows XP+

Desktop targets:Windows XP+, UWP, Mac OS X 10.6+, Linux

Unity3D provides an exhaustive documentation where everything is given a full description supplied by a number of examples as well as video and text tutorials and live training sessions to understand the ins and outs of the engine. In addition there's an ever-growing community that can offer advice to help resolve any situations that may arise. Along with the official Unity resources, there are many high quality (and often free) third party tutorials available. See More

508 147

score 806 · Answer 11

Unity3D

Top Pro

Lots of resources to learn from

Top Con

Hard to maintain projects due to vendor lock

Unity3D is proprietary, closed source game engine. Unity asks money for features like basic version control support, etc. It is impossible to migrate a game from Unity3D in case performance does not satisfy growing requirements of a project. See More

Top Pro

Easy learning curve

The way the editor is structured, by setting scripts on objects, and the use of a high-level language, C#, makes it easy to learn. See More

Top Con

Very bad terrain

Native terrain creates a lot of draw calls which is bad for performance. See More

Top Pro

Lots of assets can be found in the Asset Store

For those developers who can't afford an artist, or aren't skilled enough to create their own art, Unity features an Asset Store full of a wide variety of free and paid assets that can be easily added to a game. The Asset Store has more than just music and art. It also has code and modules that can be added to games including unique lighting or GUI systems. It also has powerful asset management and attribute inspection. See More

Top Con

Adds too many features without fixing earlier issues, rapidly increasing number of bugs that will never get fixed

Unity continues to add many new features without fixing earlier issues. Unity is either understaffed, overambitious, or both, resulting in a continual increase of problems and degraded experience across a number of platforms. Many bugs are reported daily and never get addressed, and there are many bugs from previous versions that are never looked at or fixed. See More

Top Pro

Allows for rapid prototyping

Unity's modular system and usability allows for quickly developing a prototype of an idea. It has features like drag & drop editing, shaders, animation and other systems already in place to allow diving right into developing a game. See More

Top Con

Asset store is required to replace engine functionality

You will need to, for example, buy an input manager asset off their asset store in order to replace their own terrible inaccessible input manager. See More

Top Pro

Very popular

Unity is a proven game engine. It is used by a wide range of developers - from small indies to triple-A companies such as Microsoft, Paradox, Square Enix and Sega. See More

Top Con

Moderators on forums are sometimes arrogant

Top Pro

Great community

Great Community support through the Forums and Unity Answers. See More

Top Con

Weak memory management

.Net libraries are slowing it down, memory safety is compromised, classes have to be implemented to manage objects in memory, like object pooling. See More

Top Pro

Great editor

The editor GUI is very powerful and intuitive. It allows pausing gameplay and manipulating the scene at any time as well as progress gameplay frame by frame. It also has powerful asset management and attribute inspection. See More

Top Con

Garbage collection can't be turned off

Given the use of C#, the memory control is out of the developers control, this can be good, but not controlling memory means that the garbage collector can trigger at any time and ruin performance. See More

Top Pro

Can be used for free

As long as the development company makes $100k or less, it can use the free version of Unity to release games. See More

Top Con

Bad batching support

Draw Call Batching is done automatically and does not include Skinned Renderers (eg. characters). Also for dynamic batching, meshes need to have less than 900 vertices. See More

Top Pro

Works with 3rd party IDEs

You can use any C# IDE for it, but the ones tested which have Unity integration are: Microsoft Visual Studio MonoDevelop Visual Studio Code (much faster than VS, but a bit harder to set up for Unity development) JetBrains Rider (very fast, has lots of functionality and best Unity integration, but it is not free) See More

Top Con

Encourages bad coding practices

A lot of Unity code feels like a hacked blur of arguable coding practices. C# and .Net usage in Unity is questionable. A lot of the API is done in "C Style" (public static methods, available at all times), encouraging the use of public fields for everything, a lot of questionable implicit casting. The list goes on. See More

Top Pro

Over 20 platforms

Unity offers over 20 platforms for publishing including mobile, console, web, VR, and more. See More

Top Con

Very self-centered engine

Unity3D uses very unique approach for doing things. Most of the knowledge acquired while using it, would be completely non transferable to other engines. Advanced Unity3D programming is really dealing with Unity3D bugs, and finding loopholes around engine issues - nothing to do with graphics, etc. Skills which would be valuable with other engines. See More

Top Pro

Has a great animation system

Unity provides a great state machine animation system called Mechanim allowing to separate animation from the model and assign the same animoations to different models. See More

Top Con

Dark UI theme not available in the free version

Dark theme, which is a must for prolonged work without eye strain, is only available with one of the paid monthly plans. See More

Top Pro

Versatile

Not tailored for specific types of games (like Unreal...), so it won't get in your way if you want to make something unique. See More

Top Con

Increasing number of bugs

With each new version things may stop working ,for example with Android, some bugs are never getting fixed, like the freeze bug with adb. See More

Top Pro

Very optimized

Unity runs very smoothly even on systems that are considered "weak" by today's standards. See More

Top Con

Mobile builds (Android, iOS) take about 18MB at least

Even a Blank Project, Needs 18MB for the APK file (on Android). See More

Top Pro

Powerful standard shaders

The built in standard shader in Unity 5 is incredibly optimized and supports PBS/PBR. See More

Top Con

Bad UI tools

Way of creating UI is uncomfortable and inconvenient. See More

Top Pro

Can create custom forms and tools

Top Con

Asset bundles can be cumbersome

Asset bundles are a way to load external resources that are not packed with the game or application and offered as a separate, optional package. However, they may not be compatible between versions or even platforms (you have to create them separately). Asset bundles need to be loaded and unloaded, avoid concurrent loads from web or cache or a naming collision can happen. You can find workarounds with static objects (load obj files and textures by code), but for animated game objects you are pretty much stuck with this. See More

Top Pro

Well structured

Overall, a coherent engine with a rational approach. People who complain a lot about being forced to hack around it usually dont read the docs, like the one that describe orders of execution (https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ExecutionOrder.html), or specific functions hooks and such. Some like to say it lacks raw power where people who are used to standard optimizations have no problem. For exemple It is not uncomon to encounter users who complain about low FPS but forgot to activate occlusion, flag static elements, activate animations culling, and so on. As for complaints about C#, people who are transitioning from C++ were already bad at C++ before being bad at C#. They often come from the PC world where the sheer power of today's machines is very forgiving compared to the platforms we had to develop for in the 80s~90s. One of their errors is for exemple to never read this doc: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/BestPracticeGuides.html. See More

Top Con

Price is very high

Cost is based on Revenue: less than $100K = Free between $100K and 200K = $35 a month per seat greater thank 200K = $125 a month per seat See More

Top Pro

Flexibility is provided by a strong component programming model

Top Con

New il2cpp script backend is show stopper to some iOS projects

Il2cpp script backend is required to build arm64 app, but it's still very buggy and not production ready. See More

Top Pro

OUYA support

Top Con

Waisted resources

Slow, buggy, expensive and 1000 other problems. See More

Top Pro

Has awesome plugins

Top Con

Comparatively high learning curve is putting it nicely. Expect to spend days upon days researching basic functionality.

Although C#, JS, and Boo have documentation available online, it can still be difficult to understand the library and Unity's component based system. See More

Top Pro

Free for mobile development

Unity allows free mobile development. There are some limitations. See More

Top Con

Bad model importing

Top Con

Bad input

Their input manager cannot be accessed via code. If you want to update controls at runtime (which any PC game should be able to do), you'll have to roll your own. Except joysticks are also not available via code. See More

Top Con

Bad raycasts

Specs

Dev platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux

API:DirectX 10, DirectX 11, DirectX 12

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux;

Mobile targets:Windows Phone; iOS; Android; BlackBerry 10; Tizen

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

806 267

score 566 · Answer 12

GDevelop

Top Pro

Free and open-source

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

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Open source plugin SDK

The plugin SDK is open source, so if you want to extend it, you can. See More

Top Con

Behaviours 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

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

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

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

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

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

Top Pro

Multilanguage support

GDevelop is available in many languages and even community can help in translations. See More

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

Languages:C++, JavaScript

Dev platforms:Windows 7+, macOS 10.11+, Linux, Web

Desktop targets:Windows 7+, macOS 10.11+, Linux

Easy to access in Xcode. See More

566 50

score 26 · Answer 13

SpriteKit

Top Pro

Built-in in Xcode

Top Con

Restricted in apple ecosystem

This is an Apple technology and its use is restricted to iOS and OSX systems. See More

Top Pro

Awesome performance

One of the most efficient frameworks. If you need to build an iOS game, this is the best solutions. See More

26 5

score 123 · Answer 14

RPGMaker

Top Pro

Easy to jump into using an intuitive WYSIWYG editor

It's possible to create a game with absolutely no art or coding skills, so even complete beginners can make something. See More

Top Con

You have to code when you want something didn't built in

You know,RM series' default walk animation only has three frames.If you want to enhance,you have to code by yourself——especially majority of it's user are newbies. See More

Top Pro

Large and active community

The engine has seen multiple iterations since 1995, so a large online community exists that is always willing to help each other out. See More

Top Con

No Hardware accelerate

You'll get a bad performance when you have big animations,especially in MV,which can easily change into higher resolution. See More

Top Pro

Ruby / Javascript support provides depth to more experienced developers

With a script editor that uses a modified version of Ruby, it's possible to go well beyond the traditional RPG with this engine. Note: XP and VX use Ruby, the latest version "MV" uses Javascript for scripting. See More

Top Con

No 3D support

None of them have 3D support, it is possible only with manual scripting which could be difficult for beginners. See More

Top Pro

It's an open engine

It's possible to use custom editors from the community, edit libraries,include libraries,etc (MV Only) See More

Top Con

MV Does not have a "REAL" Android export.

MV has an export to HTML5 - which can run on any browser including android. It is however not a "native" app export. See More

Top Pro

Multi-platform

MV supports HTML5 exports, so it is easier than ever to make your game work on iOS, android, OSX,Linux or Windows. See More

Top Con

Inconsistent included visual assets

Included visual assets within MV have inconsistent presentation. Though RPMMV does contain enough to make a small basic title, the visual assets don't often look like they should be mixed on-screen. See More

Top Pro

Inbuilt database and multplayer plugins, providing you the scalfolding to customising your projects with ease

The inbuilt database which binds to game saves or can be made persist allows great power within your logic. Also a plugin called 'Alpha.net' provides multiplayer. This combination can allow great customisation of the engine, allowing a powerful 2D game to be made with little to no coding experience. See More

Top Con

No built-in realtime battle system

RPG Maker series has only turn based battle systems, unless scripts/Plugins made by the community are used. See More

Top Pro

Greater Map layers

MV Mapping uses an additional layer to create better depth. See More

Top Con

Conversion to MV difficult

Older iterations of RPG Maker use smaller sprite sizes that require manual conversion to use older RTP assets and older assets are more robust. See More

Top Pro

MV has HTML5 export

You can now HTML5 export your projects, so you could theoretically host your game on your webserver, and have your friends play the game without ever having to install a single thing. See More

Top Pro

A cheap license that allows using the software commercially

There are several versions of RPG maker, with MV being the latest and most fully featured: MV ($79.99), VX Ace ($69.99), VX ($59.99) and XP ($24.99), 2003 ($19.99). See More

Specs

Languages:JavaScript

Dev platforms:Windows, macOS

Desktop targets:Windows, macOS, Web

Mobile targets:Android, iOS

Qt-Creator IDE with Code Completion, Debugging and Profiling, integrated Quick Help, Version Control and more. See More

123 21

score 48 · Answer 15

Felgo (formerly V-Play)

Top Pro

Mature cross platform IDE

Top Con

No 3rd party tutorials

There are little to none amount of tutorials for Felgo other than what was made by the engine developers themselves. See More

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Felgo is among the easiest cross-platform tools to use according to a survey done by research2guidance. See More

Top Pro

In-game level editor

With the Level Editor components, you can let your players share their levels with the whole game community which is cool because you don't need to create new levels on your own, but the community helps you with it. There are other community features like rewards for good level creators that helps getting more downloads. See More

Top Pro

Felgo game network

Leaderboards, Achievements, Challenges are available across platform, even on Desktop. You can also use Cloud Syncinc of your game data that makes it easy to start a game for example on iPhone and then continue on a Nexus Tablet or the other way around. It is also convenient because sharing to all kind of game services & networks like Facebook & Game Center is possible with a single API call. Custom hosting of Game Network servers is also possible if you want to keep the player data. See More

Top Pro

Native performance

Although game logic is provided in JavaScript by you, performance-critical parts of the engine like OpenGL ES rendering or particle effects are implemented in rock-solid C++, providing the ultimate performance your game deserves. See More

Top Pro

Advanced gaming components

Advanced Gaming Components for handling multiple display resolutions & aspect ratios, animations, particles, physics, multi-touch, gestures, path finding and more. See More

Top Pro

Felgo build server

No need for native SDKs, Build in and Install from Cloud with the Felgo Build Server. See More

Top Pro

Rapid development

Cut your development time in half. Using the QML language allows for some powerful features that cut code lines and time. Another helpful feature that can help in this area is that there are more than 50 game demos of all genres that come with full source code, meaning one can easily check to see how something was done. See More

Top Pro

Support can be found in forums and via e-mail

Felgo has friendly forums where core developers participate as well as fast & helpful email support. See More

Top Pro

Based on Qt framework

The Qt framework is a great and mature framework on its own. Using Qt as a game engine base is a smart idea. See More

Top Pro

Runtime-balancing

You can use ready-made components to balance any of your game properties at runtime, so also on mobile devices which is great for adjusting forces or input parameters. See More

Top Pro

Lots of learning resources

Helps get started and improve with lots of tutorials, demo games, examples. See More

Top Pro

Social services and monetization

In-app purchases, game and social network integration (such as Game Center and Facebook), ads (with Chartboost and AdMob) and analytics (such as Flurry) are all available across platforms. See More

Top Pro

Frequent updates

Every 2-4 weeks new updates provide additional features and fixes based on what users wanted the most. See More

Top Pro

Level store

You can even monetize these user-generated levels with in-app purchases with the Felgo Level Store component if you like. See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Languages:HTML

Dev platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux

Gideros provides on device players for iOS and Android that can be used to instantly try out your code directly from the Gideros IDE. See More

48 11

score 96 · Answer 16

Gideros

Top Pro

Instant on device testing

Top Con

Few resources, but growing

Gideros has a small community, and therefore do not have as many "How to make a game" tutorials. However, there are a couple of excellent books available that can take you through the fundamentals. See More

Top Pro

Auto scaling and image resolutions

Gideros provides an easy way to target various screen sizes by providing automatic scaling options and choosing the best image resolution based on device screen automatically See More

Top Con

The Gideros IDE is not as fully featured as other IDEs

The Gideros IDE is not as fully featured as other IDEs, but you can easily use the very powerful and compatible ZeroBrane Studio IDE. See More

Top Pro

Local builds

You can build apps without an online dependency. See More

Top Pro

Friendly & helpful community

Gideros has an active forum where you can find friendly and helpful advice. See More

Top Pro

New features and improvements are released regularly

Gideros is being constantly updated and improved by the main developers. See More

Top Pro

All in one studio, no complicated setup

Gideros Studio is incredibly easy to set up. Once installed it is very easy to create a new project or open one of the many example projects. Trying out an example on the desktop is two clicks away. See More

Top Pro

Easy plugin architecture

Gideros Studio has a very powerful feature which enables developers to use a C/C++/Java/ObjC library next to Lua. This way it's possible to call the library functions under Lua, get the results and interpret them directly under Gideros Studio. See More

Top Pro

Supports many platforms

Gideros supports iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, WindowsRT, Windows Phone and HTML5 platforms. See More

Top Pro

Amazing 2D performance

2D performance is amazing. See More

Top Pro

Very easy to learn

Gideros uses the Lua programming language which is very easy to learn (and very powerful). There are some excellent video tutorials too, to help you get started. The Gideros forum community are also very friendly and helpful if you any any problems. See More

Specs

Dev platforms:Windows; OSX

Languages:Lua

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX