Cocos2d-x and Cocos Creator vs BlitzMax

25% of iPhone games are made using Cocos2d-x.

This means you will not be alone in development, and will have access to a large community. You'll know you are developing for an engine that works.

Documentation includes a programming guide, API reference, video tutorials and massive reference test code project showing all functions and giving working code to the user.

A new feature since Cocos2d-x v3.1 is support for 3D models (in your 2D game), not only this but support for skeleton animations is included too! This awesome feature allows for impressive characters in your game along with easier, more fluid and realistic animations.

It supports Lua and Javascript with full feature support.
Especially with Cocos2d-JS you can develop games cross web and native, and the native solution have great performance with JS Bindings, much better than hybrid solution.

Cocos2d-x forums are active.

Cocos2d-x is not only open source but also supported by Chukong Technologies of China and USA.

Regularly updated and adding support for the latest technologies. 2014 has already seen the release of Version 3, a new Cocos Studio development toolkit (optional) and support for new technologies like skeleton animation systems Spine and Adobe DragonBone.

Cocos2d-x is C++ based engine and it has CPU advantages for most platforms because of that. It uses polygonal mesh methods for sprite rendering for using GPU advantages. (You also use quad methods for benefit CPU).

Because it is based on Pyglet.

On top of supporting pretty much all existing platforms (except consoles), Cocos Creator (Cocos's IDE) allows you to write 1 code that runs on Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS and HTML5 (not Linux though).

Through the use of SDKBox you can easily integrate 3rd party SDKs and plugins for each version of Cocos2D (Lua, C++ or JavaScript), you just choose the SDKs to integrate and SDKBox will do the rest.

For example, if you want to add a rating plugin, you use sdkbox::PluginReview::init(); and if you want to add the Vundle Ad Network SDK, you use the one packaged in SDKBox SDKBOX sdkbox::PluginVungle::init();.

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

Cocos Creator (Cocos' IDE) comes with scene editing, UI editor, animations & particle editors and whatnot. It's also easy to use and pretty intuitive if you read the official documentation & tutorials. Way way better than the old CocoStudio.

Hundreds of video tutorials available.

You can compile on Windows, Mac and Linux. Nothing to change. There are solutions to compile on the same machine for 2 targets.

There are many modules to extend the features of the language: you can create PDF (via a Cairo module), or just download/upload files (via LibCurl), playing streaming sound (via BASS) and so on (databases, xml, xls...) User can create their own module (they could be written in plain BlitzMax)

Based on BASIC syntax. Supports OOP, collections (array, list and map)

After many years the language it self is very stable. The packages contains the source code of ALL modules (excluding the source of the compiler).

BlitzMax is just ready after the installation. Open the IDE, write your code and just press F5 to see the results. You don't need to install other things to use the language. Of course if you want to change the language itself - or modules - you need to install MinGW or other libs, but guidelines are provided and easy to follow.

With comparison to the some of the other languages Blitzmax compiles source files fast enough.

Good performance thanks to native code on each of the target platforms.

The language is garbage collected in two modes: reference counting or using the Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative garbage collector.

BlitzMax provides the MaxGUI modules that allow to build GUI desktop applications for Windows, Mac and Linux (FLTK or GTK via a module). You also could create your own 'gadgets'.

the forum is plenty of examples and solutions! Community is strong and still working, available for getting an hand

BLIde is an integrated development environment for Blitz Max, designed to work very close to the project file management performed by BlitzMax engine.
It’s inspired by the .NET IDE and some other great tools, It’s been designed for hobbyist and professional coders.