ENIGMA Development Environment vs HaxeFlixel

Almost full support for GML,
The ability to create and access C++ types, templates, and functions, compile DLLs and other C/C++ scripts

Support for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Enigma can support over 90% of gamemaker's GML language

besides the powerful combination between GML and C++, beginners can also use drag and dropping.

Written in C++, many features have been demonstrated running much faster than interpreted equivalents in GameMaker (up to 10-20 times faster than GM 8.1).

Changes are made daily to add new functions/fixing bugs.

A full stack trace with available cores and memory information as well as operating system and Java version including file names and number is generated whenever an exception is encountered, with a handy link to submit the issue to GitHub.

Haxe is a powerful, cross-platform and open source language.

All demos have included GitHub link, so you can learn from the examples

Has a starting guide for people who are completely new to HaxeFlixel; from installing Haxe to a beginner-friendly HaxeFlixel tutorial.

(excerpt from source): To help you do this, the (Haxe) toolkit contains three main components:

the Haxe Language - a modern high-level, strictly typed programming language

the Haxe Standard Library - a complete cross-platform standard library

the Haxe Compiler - an incredibly fast cross-compiler

HaxeFlixel is fully free and open source.

(excerpt from source):

There is a multitude of channels to interact with the community:

• Our google groups forums

• #haxeflixel on IRC (freenode.net)

• @HaxeFlixel on Twitter

• The HaxeFlixel organization on GitHub

• The HaxeFlixel page on IndieDB

• Join our development chat on Slack[1]

• HaxeFlixel group on Steam

You can watch variables, log (trace) messages, and check for memory/frame rate performance.

But with considerable improvements -- the HaxeFlixel team are constantly working improving and fixing the HaxeFlixel API, as compared to the original Flixel which is no longer updated.

(Haxe)Flixel does a lot of things for you like tilemaps and collision detection, which makes it super easy to create 2D games.

The HaxeFlixel team and contributors are very active on Github and other community places (like Slack), and are usually able to respond to your questions within a day or two.

Haxe's syntax is similar to AS3, so Flash developers can transition to HaxeFlixel if they are familiar with AS3/Flixel.

The API has all of the features that you'd expect from a powerful engine without sacrificing organization and flexibility

The open source Flash API is powered by OpenFL, which allows you to compile to Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and even major consoles (coming soon).

On Windows, the IDE of choice is FlashDevelop, but if you're looking for cross-platform IDE (Windows/Mac/Linux), there's Sublime Text which includes a package for Haxe syntax highlighting, as well as auto-completion.