What is the best alternative to&#x20;Urho3D?

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

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score 650 · Answer 2

Unreal Engine 4

Top Pro

Free development license, including source code

Top Con

Very high build size

A blank project will build in to a minimum of 200 MB. See More

Top Pro

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

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

Top Con

Slow

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

Top Pro

A visual scripting system for non-coders enables quick prototyping

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

Top Con

Hard engine for beginners

This engine not easy for beginners See More

Top Pro

Developers have full control of the engine and source code

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

Top Con

Royalty based

5% of profits will go to Unreal after $3000 earned in a quarter. See More

Top Pro

Lots of resources to learn from

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

Top Con

Extremely long build times

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

Top Pro

Powerful material/shader system

Allows a texture/material artist or VFX artist to create amazing effects from the ground up. See More

Top Con

C# not natively supported

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

Top Pro

Spectacular lighting visuals

Top Con

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

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

Top Pro

Cross-platform editor and export

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

Top Con

Difficult for mac users

If you're installing it on mac, you simply download epic games launcher and watch it download nothing endlessly. See More

Top Pro

Active community

Forums have many active and friendly members that are quick to respond and help out. Even staff is very active on forums. See More

Top Con

Poor documentation

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

Top Pro

AAA Ready

This is ready to make the next AAA game. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

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

Top Pro

Fast compilation for quick iteration

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

Top Con

They spend more time adding features than fixing existing ones

Top Pro

Quick release-cycle

New feature releases can be commonly expected about once a month. See More

Top Con

Extremely poorly designed

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

Top Pro

Realistic graphics

Top Con

Sparse Resources for C++

C++ happens to be the main suite for Unreal, yet the documentation is very, very sparse. See More

Top Pro

Professional feature set for all aspects of game development

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

Top Con

Tutorials do not go in-depth enough

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

Top Pro

Easy to use animation blueprints

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

Top Con

Poor source control support

Merge tool is not working. See More

Top Pro

Proven track record

Top Con

Unreal Engine crashes a lot if you dont have the required system requirements.

Top Pro

No coding experience needed

Top Con

No Terrain Editor included

Top Con

Unreal Engine crashes a lot if you dont have the required system requirements.

Top Con

No drawcall batching, performance is very bad on mobile

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

Top Con

Poor quality assurance on their releases

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

Top Con

Bad support

The epic games team only assists with billing and account issues, not bugs. See More

Top Con

Terrible physics

Top Con

Frequent crashes

Often the editor crashes interrupting your work. See More

Top Con

Poor error messages

Top Con

Rarely works

Specs

Languages:C++, Blueprints (Visual Scripting)

Dev platforms:Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Desktop targets:Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, SteamOs, HTML5

Mobile targets:iOS, Android

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

650 165

score 559 · Answer 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Specs

License:Apache

Languages:Java

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux; HTML5

Since you don't have access to the code, you can't make changes to the SDK. You even have to implement workarounds on issues that have long been reported, but never fixed. See More

559 159

score 296 · Answer 4

Corona SDK

Top Pro

Very simple to use

Top Con

Closed source

Top Pro

Free

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

Top Con

Free, but not completely

Such important plugins like AdMob cost $300 per year! See More

Top Pro

Lua syntax

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

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 Pro

Good documentation and lots of tutorials

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

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

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

Content scaling

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

Top Pro

Marketplace for 3rd party plug-ins

Top Pro

Great community

Top Pro

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

Top Pro

Well supported

Specs

Price:Free; $99/yr to remove splash screen

Languages:Lua

Dev platforms:Windows; Macintosh

Desktop targets:Windows; Macintosh

Although it's got very nice features as is, and the team does respond to issues at a pretty good rate, the engine itself takes a little while to get updates. It's a 3-4 person team, and they need to work jobs on the side in order to bring in income. Even though the updates come out a little slower than other engines, the team is still very much committed to the project and still support it well. See More

296 46

score 21 · Answer 5

Superpowers

Top Con

Not frequently updated

Top Pro

Collaborative

You can spin up a server and work with other people at the same time. See More

Top Pro

Supports both 2D and 3D

This isn't a 3D with 2D on the side type of engine. The scene-editor supports both 3D and 2D views, allowing ease of use no matter what type of game your making. See More

Top Pro

Plugin based

The community can develop and release their own plugins to add additional features making game development easier. All of these plugins can be easily downloaded in the app. See More

Top Pro

Lots of handy built-in editors

It's got a scene-editor, cubic-model creator, text-editor, 2D image / animation importer, and a very useful tile-map editor. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use programming language

Games can be published to the web with good performance, and the game-framework utilizes TypeScript to make programming games a little bit nicer. See More

21 6

score 146 · Answer 6

Panda3D

Top Pro

Free, open-source, and permissive license

The liberal license allows use of the engine for any purpose without restrictions or royalties. See More

Top Con

Limited tutorial

Step by step tutorial is limited. Manual is too general and short without examples. Samples are too complex for beginners. See More

Top Pro

Will be very easy for developers already familiar with Python

Although it's possible to use only C++ to program in Panda3D, all its power is available to the Python scripting language, while not trading in performance since the performance-critical parts are implemented in C++. It has a powerful binding layer that exposes the vast majority of the API via Python-based interfaces. See More

Top Con

No unified editing program

Unlike Unity and Unreal, Panda3D doesn't currently offer a single, unified editing program in which objects can simply be dragged in and assigned properties (although third-party solutions are available). Developers are expected to design their scenes in a modelling program like Maya or Blender instead, and import them into Panda3D using Python code. See More

Top Pro

Supports most popular physics engines

Panda3D has in-depth integration with industry standard physics engines such as Bullet, NVIDIA PhysX and ODE, but also offers a simpler built-in physics engines that will cover more basic needs. See More

Top Con

Direct3D support is behind

Direct3D support not up to par with OpenGL support, only version 9 is supported See More

Top Pro

Flexible scene and object hierarchy system

Creating weird world constructs is generally a breeze. The node system the engine runs with allows to build self-looping worlds and, on large scale, non-Euclidean scenes without having to introduce a huge amount of custom code. See More

Top Con

Developer isn't very competent

Panda3D only has one developer and he utterly fails to fix problems with his engine, instead focuses on style guidelines and breaking code. See More

Top Pro

Powerful profiling and debugging tools

Panda3D has a suite of powerful tools to help track down performance bottlenecks, memory leaks and examine internal state. See More

Top Con

Loading Pandas3d will change your builtins to contain non explicit references to non-standard helper functions

A lot of the pollution comes from storing global state. Instead, you can store and update the global state of a namespace instead. As for the built-in pollution, you can make a wrapper that backs up builtins, imports pandas and then restores builtins, though this may not work as pandas almost certainly uses it's extra builtins to work. The best thing to do would be to explicitly import the same objects that are in the builtins over the top of the modified builtin namespace, although it doesn't remove the code smell, it helps to make things look less (if not at all) magic. See More

Top Pro

Supports browser deployment

Panda3D offers web plug-ins that allow deployment of an application to all major browsers. A WebGL port is in the works as well. See More

Specs

License:BSD-3-Clause

Dev platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux; FreeBSD

Mobile targets:-

Java is a well-optimized just-in-time compiled language. It's faster than languages without an effective native-code compiler such as Python or Ruby, similar in speed to other just-in-time compiled languages such as C#, while slightly slower than compiled languages such as C or C++ (with some low-level and numeric benchmarks being similar to C++). Java also has a wide variety of high-class IDEs available. See More

146 34

score 50 · Answer 7

jMonkey3

Top Pro

Java is a great development platform

Top Con

Not an engine for total beginners

While it's clear that you need to know Java first before using this engine, it is recommended that you have some programming experience as well. Most performance issues and memory leaks are more due to bad programming practices than the engine itself. See More

Top Pro

Multiplatform support

Code can be ported to mobile (iOS is in the works) and other Android supported devices with minor changes to the code (just change some implementations that vary on the platform such as inputs and user interface). It can even run on certain Raspberry Pi devices. See More

Top Con

Terrible API reference

The methods are not defined. See More

Top Pro

Free and open-source

jMonkey is completely free, meaning it's possible to develop and release a game with no fees or royalties. Because it is open-source, jMonkey has plenty of people fixing bugs and, adding to the engine as well as creating a variety of plugins that can be used in the engine. See More

Top Con

Slow release cycle

jMonkey3 lacks manpower to have a fast and decent release cycle. See More

Top Pro

Not limited to using its own IDE

Unlike some engines, jMonkey doesn't force its own IDE. You can use its Netbeans-based IDE, but you can also set up a project to work in another IDE such as Eclipse. You can still use the special tools from jMonkey's IDE in such projects. See More

Top Con

Relies on archaic tool chain

jMonkey Engine uses Apache Ant for build automation, which is archaic and backwards, even by Java standards. See More

Top Pro

Engine modifications can be made using Java

Because jMonkey is implemented in Java, the same language its apps are typically developed in, developers will have an easier time modifying the engine to their needs. See More

Top Pro

Has everything

jMonkey3 handles input from computers and mobile devices. It handles networking, physics, rendering, terrain, and cinematics. See More

Top Pro

Ease of extensibility

Engine is modifiable. See More

Top Pro

Freedom of choice for architecture

The user is not compelled to use any programming architecture nor standard in order to make a project working. JME allows the freedom to use what is best for a game. See More

Top Pro

Offers both low-level and high-level ways of editing shaders

Modifying shaders can be done either via a visual tool called Shader Nodes or via GLSL that allow you to make your own shaders without the engine getting in the way or having to hack around to do so. See More

Specs

Mobile targets:Android; iOS

Supported languages:Java

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

50 24

score 246 · Answer 8

Orx

Top Pro

Friendly community

Top Con

No network support

Top Pro

High performance

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

Top Pro

Powerful config system

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

Top Pro

Automatic hot-loading of resources

Automatic hot-loading of resources upon modification on disk, shortens drastically iteration times. See More

Top Pro

Good animation engine

Includes a chaining graph & custom animation events for synchronization. See More

Top Pro

Viewport scheme allowing multiple views

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

Top Pro

Supports desktop and mobile

Supports Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS and Android. See More

Top Pro

Data Configuration

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

Top Pro

Custom shader support

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

Top Pro

Good render support

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

Top Pro

Flexible clock system

Clock system that provides time consistency and allows time stretching + high precision timers See More

Top Pro

Integrated runtime profiler

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

Top Pro

Flexible and simple FX

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

Top Pro

Easy post-processing/compositing for complex visual effects

Top Pro

Collision handling and rigid body physics

Top Pro

Free and open source

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

Top Pro

Excellent results on performance benchmark

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

Top Pro

Input controls and binding

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

Top Pro

Screenshot capture tool

Supports .bmp, .png, .jpg, .tga and .dds See More

Top Pro

Great audio support

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

Top Pro

Multi-Threading

Top Pro

Great IDE Support

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

Top Pro

Well-supported C++ wrapper

Orx provides a excellent c++ wrapper for object oriented design, called: orx/Scroll. You can, of course, roll your own. See More

Specs

License:zlib

Price:Free

Languages:C, C++, Objective C

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

246 17

score 14 · Answer 9

ct.js

Top Pro

Beginner-friendly

Top Con

Tile editing is a chore

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

Top Pro

Skeletal animations with DragonBones support

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

Top Con

Slower than native games

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

Top Pro

Good code editor

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

Top Pro

Open source (MIT)

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

Top Pro

Tileset support

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

Top Pro

WebGL and WebGL2 support

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

Top Pro

Modular approach

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

Top Pro

Applicable to most genres

ct.js aims to be a general game engine and provides tools in making games of any genre. See More

Top Pro

Dialogue and visual novel system with support for Yarn

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

Top Pro

Real-time particle system editor

v1.3 brings a particle system editor, which displays a preview sprite for proper attachment of emitter to visual elements, and allows combining more than one emitter with different particles into one effect. With these, even the creation of complex, multi-step effects becomes easy. The editor comes with dozens ready-made textures for faster prototyping. See More

Specs

License:MIT

Languages:JavaScript

Dev platforms:Windows, OSX, Linux

Desktop targets:Windows, OSX, Linux, HTML5

Polycode uses Lua and C++ to create native applications for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mobile platforms are planned for the future. See More

14 0

score 12 · Answer 10

Polycode

Top Pro

Can create portable native applications

Top Con

No mobile support

Doesn't have support for Android or iOS. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Polycode is free and open source (released under the MIT license). The source code is freely available on GitHub. See More

Top Pro

IDE for 3D editing

Recently, the editor and its integrated tools have been released in compiled form. Features coding and scene editing in one application. See More

Top Pro

C++/Lua

Polycode is distributed in a C++ form as well as with IDE. And there's an additional LUA-based scripting system. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

12 2

score 26 · Answer 11

Torque3D

Top Pro

Free and open source

Torque3D is a free game engine licensed under MIT with source code available on GitHub. See More

Top Con

Aging

If you are planing on using some of the latest graphical options, pick another engine. See More

Top Pro

Incredible Performance on low-end PCs

Even on low-end-PCs the Engine and its games run perfect. See More

Top Con

Weak AI

Movement AI is limited to moving in a straight line. See More

Top Pro

Many stock features for a FPS but flexible enough for other Genres

Top Con

Limited platforms

Torque3D only publishes to desktop and mobile. See More

Top Pro

Continually updated by a dedicated and skilled community

Top Pro

Easy to implement 32 to 64 multi-player networking

Torque's approach to networking makes this one of the best performing and easiest to implement multiplayer game engines available. See More

Top Pro

Redistributable tools

Specs

License:MIT

Supported languages:C++;TorqueScript

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

26 20

score 85 · Answer 12

MonoGame

Top Pro

Cross-platform

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

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

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

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#

The AppGameKit Basic can now export to HTML5. See More

85 19

score 218 · Answer 13

AppGameKit 2.0

Top Pro

HTML5 support

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

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

BASIC language

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

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

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

$80 even if your game doesn't fly

Top Pro

Cross platform

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

Top Con

No builtin game mechanics, events, inventory.

Top Pro

Easy basic programming

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

Top Con

Editor code completion is pretty bad

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 Con

Pros on Slant are written by AGK marketing guys

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

You only need to to pay for the license only

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

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

Except for basic FPS games getting anything done will require solid knowledge of C++, Flash, ActionScript and Lua. See More

218 68

score 102 · Answer 14

CryEngine

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Top Pro

C# integration

CryEngine has some C#template and also C# based system to write your function/ideas in to your game. See More

Top Con

Hard to develop games other than FPS

Cryengine is a great engine to be used for developing an FPS (and it's relatively easy to do so). But if you want to develop another type of game, it requires at least advanced knowledge of C++ and Visual Studio. See More

Top Pro

DX12, Vulkan support

CryEngine 5.4 now supports DX12 and Vulkan See More

Top Con

No GNU/Linux support

Top Pro

Dynamic water rendering

Cry Engine has realistic water effects that even simulate ocean physics. Features such as waves that respond to global wind, and dynamic water volume tessellation allow for some of the most realistic water effects available to a game developer. The engine also takes into account LOD (level of detail) on water geometry to allow it to stay performant for water at a distance. See More

Top Con

No Mac OS X support

Top Pro

Features allowing for realistic weather effects

Cry Engine has volumetric fog rendering which allows for realistic cloud shadows that actually render shadows onto the fog itself. Combined with their time of day system, it's possible to create incredibly realistic weather effects. On top of this, color grading allows user to post process pallets allowing them to change the color tone for different type weather, such as using a deep dark blue for rain. See More

Top Con

Restrictive license

Cryengine is not restrictive anymore just more personalized. The model is Pay what you want and if you want more you get a membership with them. Or private support, help and lessons directly from the CryEngine team. See More

Top Pro

VR support

Cryengine (starting on Cryengine V) has Virtual Reality support. Developers can create games with VR support for multiple platforms: PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. See More

Top Pro

Realistic rendering of vegetation and landscapes

Where Cry Engine really shines is with rendering scenes of nature. The Crysis games feature incredibly detailed vegetation and weather effects and it's the Cry Engine that enables that. The engine has many features to create a cohesive realistic looking world. Dynamic water effects allow users to have beautiful oceans, fog and cloud effects allow for realistic weather, and a plethora of lighting effects optimized for natural looking scenes make Cry Engine one of the best engines for creating vast beautiful landscapes. By having all these features built together from the ground up, Cry Engine is capable of doing more complex effects more efficiently, than other engines that didn't have these effects planned from their inception. See More

Top Pro

All platforms, including next-gen consoles, are supported

Supports miltiple platforms including: Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, Wii U, PC, iOS, and Android. See More

Top Pro

Versatile flow diagram script model

Flow graphs resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish. See More

Top Pro

There is already a built-in AI

It can shoot, walk on patrol points, can see the player and so on. See More

Top Pro

Dedicated channel for Q&A

Crytek has launched a dedicated Q&A forum for everything Cryengine related. It's called Cryengine Answers and it's a community dedicated to sharing and answering any question related to Cryengine. See More

Top Pro

Online marketplace available

The Cryengine marketplace is an online marketplace which enables developers to access and use individual assets from thousands of materials, sounds and 3D objects created by the community. Even Crytek's own library assets are available there. See More

Top Pro

Terrain tools are great

Top Pro

Advanced volumetric cloud system

Cryengine has an optimized volumetric cloud system for Virtual Reality to give clouds full 3D spatial rendering. This ensures a high rendering quality with a minimal performance hit. See More

Top Pro

Disallows bad practices in asset creation

Simply by looking at the RC log when exporting can greatly improve your work. Cryengine doesn't handhold you constantly and helps greatly with avoiding bad practices in asset creation. See More

Specs

Desktop targets:Windows, Linux

Mobile targets:iOS, Android

Supported languages:C++, C#, Lua

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

102 36

score 761 · Answer 15

Unity3D

Top Pro

Lots of resources to learn from

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great community

Great Community support through the Forums and Unity Answers. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over 20 platforms

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

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

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

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

Moderators on forums are sometimes arrogant

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

Flexibility is provided by a strong component programming model

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

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

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

Free for mobile development

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

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

Has awesome plugins

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

API:DirectX 10, DirectX 11, DirectX 12

Desktop targets:Windows; OSX; Linux;

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

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

761 258

score 29 · Answer 16

BYOND

Top Pro

Helpful community

Top Con

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

Top Pro

Easy to use

The software itself is very easy to learn and use for beginners. See More

Top Con

Exclusive programming language

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

Top Pro

In active development

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

Top Pro

Large Community

Fairly large player base and multiple games to play. See More

Specs

License:Proprietary

Price:Free to use. Free to publish your games.

Languages:DM

After 4 years of development and promises ShiVa 2.0 has JUST gotten into beta access. See More

29 2

score 32 · Answer 17

ShiVa

Top Con

ShiVa 2.0 has been worked on for nearly 4 years!

Top Pro

Straightforward pricing with capable free option

The free ShiVa Web version is limited to web publication, but otherwise has the same capabilities as the $200 ShiVa Basic. Upgrading to the $1000 ShiVa Advanced brings tools geared toward team development and professional releases, such as integrated SVN support and profiling tools. All versions are royalty-free. See More

Top Con

Outdated

The current version 1.9.2 of ShiVa was released in December 2013. While there is active development on version 2.0, its beta is available only to paid licensees of the current version. See More

Top Pro

Lua can be used for fast coding and C++ for optimization

All game logic can be scripted in Lua. ShiVa also provides a cross-compiler from Lua to C++, allowing Lua scripts to be further optimized and compiled to native code for performance. See More

Top Con

High Cost

Costs $200 for the basic version alone, which allows you to publish to any format other than web. The Team/Pro version costs $1000 See More

Top Pro

Great support

In addition to the help forum, Basic and Advanced licensees have chat and direct email access to the developers. See More

Top Pro

Native c++ export

Top Pro

C++ plugin development options

Top Pro

Great performance on mobile

Smaller platform specific executables, native code export, good FPS even for complex scenes. ShiVa has great advanced optimization features, including PVS and LOD, decreasing number of drawcalls even in complex level. Platform specific profiles allow developers to customize size and compression level for textures and test those settings directly in editor. Other engine features, like lightning baking, mesh combining and GPU skinning will boost performance too. See More

Specs

Mobile targets:Windows Phone; iOS; Android; BlackBerry 10; BlackBerry Tablet OS; Marmalade; WebOS

Supported languages:Lua-based

Tombstone gives full access to the clean and professional C++ source code allowing editing and upgrading anything in the system. See More

32 18

score 12 · Answer 18

Tombstone Engine

Top Con

Only available to big studios

Top Pro

Complete access to high quality C++ source code

Top Con

Small community

Top Pro

Reliable, fast and well optimized

Top Con

Lacks D3D support

Top Pro

No royalties

Top Pro

Lots of learning resources

Including extensive documentation both in code as well as online along with a wiki, tutorials and a demo game. See More

Top Pro

Extending engine's functionality is straightforward

Due to the well-organized, highly modular design of the engine adding custom functionality is easy. See More

Top Pro

Full-featured and modern

Comes integrated with support for physics, audio, networking, input devices, resource management as well as modern features such as real-time shadows, horizontal mapping, voxel-based terrain, dynamic lighting, post-processing effects and much, much more. See More

Top Pro

Lifetime engine updates

Top Pro

Supportive community

Tombstone has a small, tight-knit community that's well educated and professional. Eric Lengyel, the main developer, can often be found giving thorough advice to users on the forums. See More

Top Pro

Proven to be a capable engine

Specs

Mobile targets are planned. See More

12 8

score 21 · Answer 19

Skyline

Top Con

Currently limited to targeting PC

Top Pro

Great tech support and friendly community

A growing community that is always helpful with dev response times averaging less then 24 hours. Often less than 12. See More

Top Con

Free Version currently not available/severely limited when available.

The free version has massive amounts of features functionality removed, including the ability to compile anything standalone. The free version is currently (as of November 2017) not available until the next major release. Note: some of what is below is open to change, this is the coming set of changes. The price will be jumping from $40 to £99.99 ($132.32) for the lowest tier able to build a standalone. This tier will not be able to remove the engine splash screen. The next tier will be £199.99 ($264.66). See More

Top Pro

Comprehensive WYSIWYG editor

Skyline provides a straightforward drag and drop development environment that can be customized to suit individual preferences. Playing the game and animating the scene can be done from within the editor at any time. Future versions will allow extending editor's functionality with plugins and offer an official way of trading custom plugins. See More

Top Con

No C++ SDK

Top Pro

Highly affordable licensing

Skyline's commercial edition costs just £40, has no royalties or earning limitations and includes 2 activations per license purchase and a year of free updates. See More

Top Con

Small community

There is a small but helpful community that are constantly creating video tutorials and one member is creating a FREE ebook to make the transition to the engine simpler. See More

Top Pro

Runs well on lower end machines

Skyline can be run on a machine with 2GHz Dual Core CPU, 2GB of RAM and Nvidia's 9800 GT (or equivalent) GPU. While, obviously, higher specs are recommended, it's reasonable to expect around 60fps on small scenes with these specs. See More

Top Con

Still in beta

Not all features are fully implemented yet. See More

Top Pro

Excellent terrain editor

The Terrain editor is easy to use and will include features such as hole cutting. There is a differed lighting render for internal scenes, which makes creating multi light and beautiful/atmospheric scenes so much easier. All the tools for the terrain are in one place such as placing road/paths, vegetation, billboards, and the settings are easy to locate and change. Planned features include: Hole cutting in terrain and Terrain paging. See More

Top Con

Lacks occlusion culling and lightmapping

This is been added in a future update, however a date of this update hasn't been given yet. See More

Top Pro

Low learning curve

Making a game in the current top engines is hard work, making something small and basic in Skyline is not. Easy to learn drag an drop model placement and editing supplemented with easy to follow video's on forum make the process straightforward. See More

Top Pro

Full global illumination

Including image based lighting. See More

Top Pro

Has a free version

A free version that's limited to non-commercial usage and lacks a few features is available. See More

Top Pro

Impressive water render

Rendering of a water plane looks fantastic and is easily edited for different effects. See More

Top Pro

Artist-friendly

The schematic editor is designed to make it easier for non-programmers to create games. See More

Top Pro

Asset store

Not much in it at the moment but is starting to grow and will continue to grow with an increase of users. See More

Top Pro

Constant development and regular updates

There are many additions to the engine that are on the road map such as multi threading and tree physics. The feature list is constantly evolving with each user request and idea put forth. See More

Top Pro

Support for custom editors

Skyline has a custom editor that gives the user of making their own tools for use directly in the editor to develop their games. All the editors are made using the Qt Designer and programmed in lua inside the engine itself. See More

Top Pro

OSVR support announced

Open-Source Virtual Reality support is in development. See More

Top Pro

More editor's

Shadow editor. Weapon Class Editor. Mesh Editor. Advanced Mesh Editor. GUI Editor. Script Editor. Environment Editor (volumetric clouds and day night cycle, lightening, ocean settings, height fog). Particle Editor. Path editor. Schematic editor. Navmesh editor. Material editor. See More

Top Pro

Lots of learning resources

The documentation is been rewritten and follows a structure like a course. Introduction to > Level designer with examples > Artists There is also video tutorials, video examples and video tutorial series been produced. There are user created demo scenes, examples and more. See More

Top Pro

Visual GUI/HUD Dditor

Making HUDs and GUIs has never been easier See More

Top Pro

PBR Workflow

Full PBR workflow, your not stuck to Secular or Metallic it has both See More

Top Pro

One on one private support with engine developers

Can contact the Skyline developers and they will always respond and help as fast as they can. See More

Specs

Supported languages:C++; C#; Lua

Desktop targets:Windows

Mobile targets:-

Good for newbie game creators. Can be used for prototyping: on several occasions was used to make a demo/experimental version before creating a final commercial product on different engine. See More

21 14

score 70 · Answer 20

Adventure Game Studio

Top Pro

Easy to learn tool

Top Con

Development is slow

Further development of the engine is currently slow, done by only few people in their free time. See More

Top Pro

Completely free and open source

AGS is licensed under Artistic License 2.0 and is completely free for use for creating both freeware and commercial games. See More

Top Con

Assets cover almost exclusively adventure/quest genre

The features, script functions and game templates are very biased towards adventure/quest genre. The non-adventure games were made in AGS (2D shooters, platformers, turn-based strategies), but their development usually requires to write everything from scratch. See More

Top Pro

Relatively well documented

Besides the manual there are multiple text and video tutorials and code samples written by community. See More

Top Con

No visual editor for scripts

You have to actually write all scripts yourself. See More

Top Pro

Used for a number of high-profile commercial releases

Adventure Game Studio has been used to develop games such as "Resonance", "Blackwell" series, "Gemini Rue", "Primordia". See More

Top Con

AGS Script isn't as full-featured as other scripting languages

Its own scripting language has lower syntax capabilities compared to modern script languages. See More

Top Pro

Lots of assets available

An extensive library of game templates and script modules accumulated over years. You can construct a simple game in hours (if you know what you are doing). See More

Top Con

Workflow is closely coupled with the editor

Workflow is very tied to the editor and custom file formats, which can cause problems for bigger, more professional projects (interfering with source control, parallel development, automated builds, etc) See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

An old, big and active community which would support newcomers not only in learning basics of the engine, but can help with every aspect of game making (including art, voice acting, moral support, etc). See More

Top Con

Graphics renderer is a bit dated

Graphics renderer is not well optimized for high-resolution games and complex effects. See More

Top Con

Uses dated tech

Engine is based on the old technologies, which impose number of limitations and may cause problems on latest systems (level of annoyance varies depending on your priorities). See More

Top Con

Natively supports only 2D

2D only native support, 3D could be supported with plugins though. See More

Specs

License:Artistic License 2.0

Languages:AGS Script

Desktop targets:Windows; Linux