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FlatRedBall
All
6
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Continually improving and open source
Just check the commit frequency on github :) https://github.com/vchelaru/FlatRedBall/commits/master Plus Victor takes community input seriously and is known to shift around priorities based on the pressing needs of the community
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Con
The editor's UI looks dated
Although functional, doesn't look as flashy as Unity for example, which may put some people off.
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Pro
Very easy to use
Simplifies routine tasks such as adding entities and files to the game, or tuning parameters, via the FRB Editor called Glue
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Pro
Great community
Very active chat on gitter: https://gitter.im/vchelaru/FlatRedBall Victor (the creator of the engine) is available throughout the day to answer questions and solve any problems that may arise, along with the rest of the community members who are ready to assist in any way they can.
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Pro
Extensive documentation
http://flatredball.com/documentation/ Very good documentation not only regarding the API details, but also lots of tutorials covering different aspects of using FRB, either on the code-side or on using any of its tools.
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Specs
License:
MIT
Price:
Free
Languages:
c#
Dev platforms:
Windows
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2
MonoGame
All
9
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
2
Specs
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.
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Top
Con
Slow rate of updates
Versions 3.9 is overdue by a year, and version 4.0 is set to release in 2040.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Pro
Managed code
By leveraging C# and other .NET languages on Microsoft and Mono platforms you can write modern, fast, and reliable game code.
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Pro
Good community
The community MonoGame has to offer is helpful and mature.
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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.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Languages:
C#
Mobile targets:
Android, IOS, Windows phone
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Experiences
Free
135
27
Stride
All
19
Experiences
Pros
12
Cons
6
Specs
Top
Pro
Good looking and fast
Looking nearly as good as Unreal Engine 4, but rendering significantly faster.
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Con
No terrain editor
Unless you like working on planes, there is no terrain support.
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Pro
No royalties or licensing fees
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Top
Con
Editor is Windows only
Since version 1.7, Linux can be targeted for runtime. The editor for the engine is available only to Windows though.
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Pro
Projects are normal Visual Studio solutions
No proprietary project format, so it works with all the official .NET tooling.
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Con
Small user community
Unity and UE have a vast amount of user community.
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Pro
Supports Visual Studio
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Con
Does not currently support Playstation or Switch games
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Pro
Very modern render engine
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Top
Con
Iteration may be slower than with other engines due to longer "build" times when certain changes are made
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Pro
Powerful 3D Rendering Engine
Supports Vulkan. You can achieve good quality as in Unity3d and Unreal Engine
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Con
Shader system require's overhaul
Shader's are not easy to get to grips with and Stride's shader system. Needs overhauling for easier use.
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Pro
Straightforward editor
Stride provides a simple and clean working environment for designing games.
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Pro
Community seems friendly and is growing
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Pro
Engine AND Scripting are both C#
Since the engine is written in the same language as the scripting, there is no weird mix of technologies as other engines have.
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Pro
Supports Vulkan
Currently the only well known open-source game engine that supports Vulkan, and probably one of the only.
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Pro
Easy to learn and use C#
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Pro
Multiple Starter Templates
The engine comes packed with multiole example projects to help you get started.
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Specs
License:
MIT
Languages:
C#
API:
Vulkan, DirectX 11, DirectX 12, OpenGL
Dev platforms:
Windows
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170
39
Godot
All
45
Experiences
Pros
30
Cons
14
Specs
Top
Pro
Fully dedicated 2D engine, no hacks
Godot has a mature 2D engine with many features used by modern 2D games.
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Con
Primarily supports own language (GD Script)
Although C# is also supported by Godot, it is only supported by a separate version, and Mono must be downloaded separately. While GDScript is 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.
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Pro
Lightweight
The executable is portable and less than 40 MB in size.
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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.
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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.
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Con
Annoying minor bugs
Minor bugs can go unaddressed for some time, due to it being a free program.
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Pro
User friendly UI for all your team
Non-programmers (musicians, artists, etc) can join the development easily.
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Con
GDScript is quite immature language
GDScript is copy of python and the real problem is, it is not python. Which means it cannot have all the power and new features that is available in Python or other programming language. It does have some good features but it is not good enough for what you need if you want to deep dive into game development. You can just feel that by the godot team is solving that matter by supporting mono version. Because C# is popular in other game engine and it contains all the new features that is available from new programming language. If i give you very simple example for why GDScript is immature, GDScript does not support asynchronous programming. Which is very efficient for performance of your game. You may mention about multi-threading because asynchronous programming is one way of multi-threading. However If you try that in Godot, you cannot multi-threading where you want to implement asynchronous system. For example, Autoload (Fake singleton) where you want to manage data in real time. Autoload is not real singleton. It is not a separated thread that manage data. Therefore everything is synchronous in autoload. Even though you create new thread from Autoload script, your game will just stop and wait for your thread to finish its task...
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Pro
Free and open source
Godot is licensed under MIT license. Anyone can grab the source from here, and compile the engine themselves.
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Top
Con
Godot 3/4 split
The recent release of Godot 4 brings new features, but isn't yet fully documented, and performance may not be as optimized.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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Top
Con
It's hard to learn
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Pro
Drag & drop interface
Many parts of the editor allow you to drag & drop, which makes working with assets and scene trees a joy.
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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.
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Top
Pro
The list of supported languages is growing
Officially, Godot supported languages for now will be GDScript, C#(Mono), VisualScript and C++.
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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.
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Top
Pro
Integrated animation editor
Every property can be animated.
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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.
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Top
Pro
Built-in physics
Add physics to 2D and 3D scenes, through rigid and static bodies, characters, raycasts, vehicles and more.
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Top
Con
2DPhysics is weak compared to Box2d
Box2d has much more features.
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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.
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Con
NoAdmob or other AdNetwork support
Godot has no native support for implementing advertisements into your game.
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Pro
Instancing and node concept makes sense
The node and the instancing concept work very well and helps developers to structure content efficiently.
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Con
Many buggy and half-finished features
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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.
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Con
Hard for a Unity user
Coming from a Unity background, Godot engine is hard.
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Pro
Internationalization of the editor
You can change the language shown in menus. Godot translations can be found here.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Pro
Engine is yours
There is no royalty and the game you made + engine itself is yours.
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Pro
Can be installed on Steam
You can easily install Godot via the Steam store.
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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.
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Pro
It has a visual scripting tool (Godot 3)
It has a great visual scripting tool. It's a great choice if you don't like to code. This was however removed in Godot 4, so you will need to use the (still supported) Godot 3 branch for visual scripting.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, Android
Popular Language Bindings:
GDScript, C#, C++
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Experiences
Free
2148
325
Unity 2D
All
7
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
2
Specs
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac
Languages:
C#
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Experiences
Free+
660
172
Wave
All
8
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Con
Mandatory splash screen
Games and applications made with Wave Engine must display a splash screen advertising it. No splash-free license option is available.
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Top
Pro
Extensive learning material
In addition to online API documentation, the Wave Engine team provides tutorials via IndieDB, plus sample projects and "QuickStarters" via GitHub.
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Top
Con
Not many tutorials available
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Top
Pro
Supports coding in C#, F# and Visual Basic
Wave Engine explicitly supports all three core .Net Platform languages.
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Con
Outdated UI
The UI looks like it is from Windows XP days. A refresh is much needed.
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Top
Pro
Oculus Rift support
The Wave Engine team provides an official, open-source Oculus Rift extension via GitHub.
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Pro
Many components are open source
Several core components and official extensions of the Wave Engine are publicly hosted on GitHub.
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Specs
Languages:
C#; VB; F#
Dev platforms:
Windows; OSX; Linux
Desktop targets:
Windows; OSX; Linux
Mobile targets:
iOS; Android
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79
35
Duality
All
10
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
Open source
The full source code is available on GitHub, where the framework is actively developed. All of the editor, core and plugin code is written in C#.
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Top
Con
Visual Studio required
To have possibility for scripting you have to download entire Visual Studio and spend 10 GB of free space
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Pro
Great editor
Duality includes a powerful visual editing system that can be used for previewing, integrating, editing and testing game content.
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Con
Requires windows for development
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Pro
Live reload of code and assets
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Pro
Very extensible
Because both Core and Editor are completely plugin-based, Duality not only incorporates a clean and modular design, but is also very extensible - even if it wasn't Open Source. In fact, most of the standard editing capabilities comes in form of Editor plugins.
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Pro
Built-in physics and lighting
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Pro
Friendly to version control systems
It can be configured to serialize all data in a text-based format, which has been structurally optimized for version control systems.
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Pro
Used in commercial projects
It has been used in a production environment without burning the place to the ground. Supposedly artist-proof editor workflow with an API for tailoring the system to fit your team.
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Specs
License:
MIT
Languages:
C#
Dev platforms:
Windows
Desktop targets:
Windows
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55
26
UDK
All
6
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Con
Superseded by Unreal Engine 4
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Pro
Large toolset
UDK has an extremely large toolset that allows creating almost anything without having to use a 3rd party tool or plugin.
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Con
DevKit only runs on Windows
Even though UDK can deploy games to run on multiple platforms, including Mac, it does not feature support for development on Mac.
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Pro
Triple A track record
UDK is an engine used by many big name companies for popular games such as the Gears of War series.
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Con
Limits games to FPS
UDK was originally developed for the FPS, "Unreal Tournament", and it certainly shows. While UDK is a very powerful engine, it takes quite a bit of work to make it do something other than an FPS.
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Specs
Languages:
C++; C#; UnrealScript; Cg
Dev platforms:
Windows
Desktop targets:
Windows; OSX
Mobile targets:
iOS
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4.7 star rating
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