When comparing Flixel vs Gideros, the Slant community recommends Flixel for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” Flixel is ranked 20th while Gideros is ranked 26th. The most important reason people chose Flixel is:
Ports are available for Objective C, C# (XNA), HaXe and [Monkey X](https://github.com/devolonter/flixel-monkey).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Many ports available
Ports are available for Objective C, C# (XNA), HaXe and Monkey X.
Pro Built-in pathfinding and following
Pathfinding just means figuring out how to (or if you can) get from A to B. FlxTilemap has a function FlxTilemap.findPath() which returns a FlxPath object, which is just a collection of "nodes", or FlxPoint objects.
Pro Camera system for split screen
Create effects like "split screen" views, or "picture in picture" style displays, or even mini-maps with FlxCamera. Each camera is an independent display object, with its own zoom, color tint, rotation, and scaling values.
Pro Record and play back replays
Replays are essentially a list of what keyboard keys were pressed, and what mouse inputs were given, during a specific time frame. Because Flixel is largely deterministic, you can use that information to recreate a gameplay session that someone else recorded, as long as you have the same SWF.
Pro Basic features provide a solid foundation
- Display thousands of moving objects
- Basic collisions between objects
- Group objects together for simplicity
- Easily generate and emit particles
- Create game levels using tilemaps
- Text display, save games, scrolling
- Mouse & keyboard input
- Math & color utilities
Pro Flixel Power Tools extend the functionality
Flixel Power Tools provide a set of classes and APIs that provide more functionality.
Pro Used to create Canabalt, game that started endless runner genre
Pro Instant on device testing
Gideros provides on device players for iOS and Android that can be used to instantly try out your code directly from the Gideros IDE.
Pro Auto scaling and image resolutions
Gideros provides an easy way to target various screen sizes by providing automatic scaling options and choosing the best image resolution based on device screen automatically
Pro Local builds
You can build apps without an online dependency.
Pro Friendly & helpful community
Gideros has an active forum where you can find friendly and helpful advice.
Pro New features and improvements are released regularly
Gideros is being constantly updated and improved by the main developers.
Pro All in one studio, no complicated setup
Gideros Studio is incredibly easy to set up. Once installed it is very easy to create a new project or open one of the many example projects. Trying out an example on the desktop is two clicks away.
Pro Easy plugin architecture
Gideros Studio has a very powerful feature which enables developers to use a C/C++/Java/ObjC library next to Lua. This way it's possible to call the library functions under Lua, get the results and interpret them directly under Gideros Studio.
Pro Supports many platforms
Gideros supports iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, WindowsRT, Windows Phone and HTML5 platforms.
Pro Amazing 2D performance
2D performance is amazing.
Pro Very easy to learn
Gideros uses the Lua programming language which is very easy to learn (and very powerful). There are some excellent video tutorials too, to help you get started. The Gideros forum community are also very friendly and helpful if you any any problems.
Cons
Con It is now obsolete
With Adobe Flash dead, Flixel is now unworkable.
Con Development has stopped
Seems like development for Flixel has stopped. The last commit on all of the branches of it's Github repository are from 2011.
Con Poor performance on mobile
Con Few resources, but growing
Gideros has a small community, and therefore do not have as many "How to make a game" tutorials. However, there are a couple of excellent books available that can take you through the fundamentals.
Con The Gideros IDE is not as fully featured as other IDEs
The Gideros IDE is not as fully featured as other IDEs, but you can easily use the very powerful and compatible ZeroBrane Studio IDE.
