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Game Development
What are the best 2D code only game engines?
6
Options
Considered
17
User
Recs.
Feb 4, 2023
Last
Updated
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5
Options
Considered
Best 2D code only game engines
Price
Languages
License
--
Allegro
-
C, C++
zlib
--
MonoGame
Free
C#
-
--
LÖVE
Free
C++, Lua 5.1
zlib
--
GameMaker Studio 2
$100-1500
-
-
--
libGDX
free
-
-
See Full List
--
Allegro
My Rec
ommendation
for
Allegro
My Recommendation for
Allegro
All
3
Pros
2
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Good documentation and lots of tutorials
Since it has been in development since mid-90s with hundreds of people contributing to both the engine and documentation, it has all of its bases covered when it comes to standard support.
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Specs
Languages:
C, C++
License:
zlib
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, OSX, Android, IOS
Top
Pro
•••
Good engine architecture
Allegro is well designed, easy to use and has many useful features.
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Hide
See All
Get it
here
Recommend
3
1
--
MonoGame
My Rec
ommendation
for
MonoGame
My Recommendation for
MonoGame
All
8
Pros
6
Cons
1
Specs
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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Top
Con
•••
Slow Rate of Updates
Version 3.9 is overdue by a year, and version 4.0 is set to be released in 2040.
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Specs
Languages:
C#
Mobile targets:
Android, IOS, Windows phone
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Top
Pro
•••
Good community
The community MonoGame has to offer is helpful and mature.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Free
Recommend
1
1
--
LÖVE
My Rec
ommendation
for
LÖVE
My Recommendation for
LÖVE
All
6
Pros
4
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Many examples and libraries with source code
There are plenty of open source examples of games or components built by the community that are ready to use or learn from.
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Top
Con
•••
Absolutely no GUI (no graphical interface)
This has no graphical interface at all, you have to know how to read script in order to know what you're looking at. After you've written the script for everything, you compile it to see the result. It's a very poor way to create a game, given how even most professional tools out there give you a GUI to work with and debug on the go. The lack of a GUI slows down the work by ten-fold, and it's just an inefficient use of your time.
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Specs
Languages:
C++, Lua 5.1
License:
zlib
Mobile targets:
Android 4.0+, iOS 8+
Dev platforms:
Windows Vista+ , macOS 10.7+, Linux, Android 4.0+
See All Specs
Top
Pro
•••
Very good documentation
The LÖVE wiki provides full documentation of its easy to use Modules, which are conveniently located on the side bar of the wiki. It only takes seconds to find the module for love.keyboard, which provided a list of all functions along with arguments and examples where the function could be used.
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Top
Pro
•••
Open source and free
The LÖVE engine is licensed under The zlib/libpng License (which is very short and human readable) which allows you to use the source code and even modify it as long as you do not claim that the original source code is yours. You can obtain the code at this bitbucket repository and even help fix bugs and participate in the development of LÖVE.
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Top
Pro
•••
Uses the fantastic Lua for scripting
Lua is an embeddable scripting language designed to be lightweight, fast yet powerful. It is used in major titles such as Civilization as well as a lot of indie games. Lua is very popular because it provides "meta language" features. You can implement object-oriented structures, or pure procedural functions, etc. It has a very simple C interface, and gives the engine developer a lot of flexibility in the language itself. Artists tend to love Lua too because it's very approachable, with plain and forgiving syntax. Lua is free open-source software, distributed under a very liberal license (the well-known MIT license).
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See All
Free
Recommend
1
1
--
GameMaker Studio 2
My Rec
ommendation
for
GameMaker Studio 2
My Recommendation for
GameMaker Studio 2
All
14
Pros
8
Cons
6
Top
Pro
•••
Huge, generous community
See More
Top
Con
•••
Quite expensive
Windows ($100) + HTML5 ($140) + Mobile ($400) + UWP ($400) is $1,050, plus $800 anually for each console export separately. But doesn't do anything any of the free engines can't do, and the stability and tech support aren't great.
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Top
Pro
•••
Well-optimized engine
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Top
Con
•••
HTML5 export is buggy, doesn't "just work"
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Top
Pro
•••
Quick prototyping
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Top
Con
•••
Unstable
Users frequently report crashes and hangs, particularly when working with assets, and the software uses a complicated underlying meta-file structure that may become corrupted and cannot be rebuilt.
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Top
Pro
•••
Highly customizable IDE
Although users must work within the IDE and editor, GMS2 has many options to customize the look and feel
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Top
Con
•••
Small development team
The core programming team is only 5-10 people, with about 30 employees total, so bug fixes can take a long time to be addressed, and there aren't many official tutorials.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Good documentation
See More
Top
Con
•••
Limited support for OOP
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Cheap subscription model
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Top
Con
•••
Not the best scripting language out there
GML is just weird; if you want to learn programming, it is not the best because it teaches bad habits and has many odd shortcuts and shortcomings that won't transfer to a real language.
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Top
Pro
•••
Many unofficial tutorials
Most GMS1 tutorials are fine for GMS2.
See More
Top
Pro
•••
Good user interface
See More
Hide
See All
$100-1500
Recommend
2
2
--
libGDX
My Rec
ommendation
for
libGDX
My Recommendation for
libGDX
Hide
free
Recommend
1
Don't see your favorite option? Add it.
--
Stencyl
My Rec
ommendation
for
Stencyl
My Recommendation for
Stencyl
Get it
here
Recommend
1
3
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