When comparing Loom SDK vs MonoGame, the Slant community recommends MonoGame for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” MonoGame is ranked 9th while Loom SDK is ranked 45th. The most important reason people chose MonoGame is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Live reload of code and assets across multiple platforms
Loom can live update changes in realtime, allowing you to see them on multiple devices immediately.
Pro Powerful command line workflow
Loom Turbo ($5/mo) gives access to powerful command line tools. For example, "loom new" to make a new project, "loom run" to run it. Packaging, deploy, and live reload are done automatically for you.
Pro Open source
The Loom runtime and LoomScript compiler are open source, with code available on GitHub, allowing you to have the freedom to fix the bugs and add the features your game needs.
Pro Examples
Loom includes over 30 examples ranging from complete sample games to demos of single features.
Pro Familiar and powerful scripting
Loom's scripting language is immediately familiar if you know JavaScript, ActionScript, TypeScript, C#, or Java. Internally, it uses a proven VM technology with over 10 years of heavy use in games.
Pro Good support
Loom devs are helpful.
Pro Cross-platform
Loom can deploy to Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, Android (including Nook, Kindle Fire and Ouya). There are also custom port available for WP8, Blackberry and consoles.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Managed code
By leveraging C# and other .NET languages on Microsoft and Mono platforms you can write modern, fast, and reliable game code.
Pro Good community
The community MonoGame has to offer is helpful and mature.
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.
Cons
Con Documentation is lacking
Con No visual tools support
There's no level editor, asset viewer or any other visual tools in Loom SDK. Everything has to go through command line. I think it's fine if you really like typing.
Con Slow rate of updates
Versions 3.9 is overdue by a year, and version 4.0 is set to release in 2040.
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.
