When comparing MonoGame vs BlitzMax, the Slant community recommends MonoGame for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” MonoGame is ranked 9th while BlitzMax is ranked 52nd. 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 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.
Pro Multi target
You can compile on Windows, Mac and Linux. Nothing to change. There are solutions to compile on the same machine for 2 targets.
Pro Modular
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)
Pro Easy syntax
Based on BASIC syntax. Supports OOP, collections (array, list and map)
Pro Stable language and source code
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).
Pro Easy to start, high productivity
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.
Pro Fast compiler
With comparison to the some of the other languages Blitzmax compiles source files fast enough.
Pro Compiles to native code
Good performance thanks to native code on each of the target platforms.
Pro Garbage collected language
The language is garbage collected in two modes: reference counting or using the Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative garbage collector.
Pro GUI for apps
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'.
Pro Great community support
the forum is plenty of examples and solutions! Community is strong and still working, available for getting an hand
Pro BLIde
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.
Cons
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.
Con Outdated and abandoned
The author neglected BlitzMax and works on Monkey2.
Con No mobile targets
Only desktop targets available: Windows, MacOS, Linux.