HaxeFlixel vs ShiVa
When comparing HaxeFlixel vs ShiVa, the Slant community recommends HaxeFlixel for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” HaxeFlixel is ranked 24th while ShiVa is ranked 92nd. The most important reason people chose HaxeFlixel is:
[Haxe](http://www.haxe.org) is a powerful, cross-platform and open source language.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Powerful language
Haxe is a powerful, cross-platform and open source language.
Pro 75+ demos
All demos have included GitHub link, so you can learn from the examples
Pro Getting started guide
Has a starting guide for people who are completely new to HaxeFlixel; from installing Haxe to a beginner-friendly HaxeFlixel tutorial.
Pro Uses Haxe
(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
Pro Fully free
HaxeFlixel is fully free and open source.
Pro Hardware accelerated rendering on native platforms
Pro Active development community
(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
Pro Powerful debugger overlay
You can watch variables, log (trace) messages, and check for memory/frame rate performance.
Pro Modelled after Flixel
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team are constantly working improving and fixing the HaxeFlixel API, as compared to the original Flixel which is no longer updated.
Pro Easy 2D game development
(Haxe)Flixel does a lot of things for you like tilemaps and collision detection, which makes it super easy to create 2D games.
Pro Outstanding community
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.
Pro Similar syntax to Actionscript 3
Haxe's syntax is similar to AS3, so Flash developers can transition to HaxeFlixel if they are familiar with AS3/Flixel.
Pro Excellent, robust API
The API has all of the features that you'd expect from a powerful engine without sacrificing organization and flexibility
Pro Cross Platform
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).
Pro Cross-platform IDE environment
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.
Pro Straightforward pricing with capable free option
The free ShiVa Web version is limited to web publication, but otherwise has the same capabilities as the $200 ShiVa Basic. Upgrading to the $1000 ShiVa Advanced brings tools geared toward team development and professional releases, such as integrated SVN support and profiling tools. All versions are royalty-free.
Pro Lua can be used for fast coding and C++ for optimization
All game logic can be scripted in Lua. ShiVa also provides a cross-compiler from Lua to C++, allowing Lua scripts to be further optimized and compiled to native code for performance.
Pro Great support
In addition to the help forum, Basic and Advanced licensees have chat and direct email access to the developers.
Pro Native c++ export
Pro C++ plugin development options
Pro Great performance on mobile
Smaller platform specific executables, native code export, good FPS even for complex scenes. ShiVa has great advanced optimization features, including PVS and LOD, decreasing number of drawcalls even in complex level. Platform specific profiles allow developers to customize size and compression level for textures and test those settings directly in editor. Other engine features, like lightning baking, mesh combining and GPU skinning will boost performance too.
Cons
Con Small community
HaxeFlixel devs are not as large as (example) Unity devs, so the amount of support and exposure is limited.
Con ShiVa 2.0 has been worked on for nearly 4 years!
After 4 years of development and promises ShiVa 2.0 has JUST gotten into beta access.
Con Outdated
The current version 1.9.2 of ShiVa was released in December 2013. While there is active development on version 2.0, its beta is available only to paid licensees of the current version.
Con High Cost
Costs $200 for the basic version alone, which allows you to publish to any format other than web. The Team/Pro version costs $1000