When comparing Defold vs GameFlow + Unity, the Slant community recommends Defold for most people. In the question“What are the best game engines for beginners and non-programmers?” Defold is ranked 19th while GameFlow + Unity is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose Defold is:
Defold uses Lua, which is regarded as an easy to learn language by most.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to learn
Defold uses Lua, which is regarded as an easy to learn language by most.
Pro Completely free of charge
Software and online dashboard are free of charge.
Pro Good combination of visual editing + code (Lua)
You can do a lot with drag and drop, but you're not limited -- the code (Lua, which is easy to learn) allows you more power than just visual editing usually gives you.
Pro Fast results
Going from idea to result is very important for the creative process.
Pro Very performant
Being crossplatform it is important to work on low end devices.
Pro Visual editor
Pro Easy and fast export for various platforms
Pro Source code available
You can download and modify the source code of the Editor and the engine for free.
Pro Great community
A very active and friendly community in forums.
Pro Collaborative
You can invite friends from the dashboard and create games together.
Pro Hot reload
It allows you to change scripts in a game while it is running live. Common use-cases is to tweak gameplay parameters or to perform debugging on a running game.
Pro Adds an abstraction layer that helps create the game logic
It is almost like talking with Unity naturally. Actions in Unity can be coded using regular English more-so than with other game engines, which makes it much easier for beginners.
Pro None of boxes and arrows, perfectly integrated into the workflow of Unity
Almost all visual scripting solutions for Unity are based on nodes, boxes and arrows, GameFlow changes this way of working incorporating actions blocks and actions using drag and drop.
Pro Excellent product
The developer supports the users quickly and with detailed responses. He is knowledgeable on the Unity API as well as developing videogames.
Pro Integrated in the Unity inspector
No windows apart, work with GameFlow from the own Unity inspector
Pro Can achieve in minutes what would take hours with classical scripting
Due to its innovative block system and without follow tutorials or look documentation will be able to create actions within five minutes in Unity.
Pro An effective advanced prototyping and scripting tool
GameFlow allows to complete a videogame in half an hour.
Cons
Con The documentation is not very extensive
The documentation for GameFlow could use some work. It's not very extensive and it hardly covers everything needed to know to build a game.
Con Performance could be better for 2D
Performance can be a real issue with 2D games. Unity 3D is actually a 3D game engine, and drags a lot of overhead with it.
For mobile, one could never achieve the performance of more specialized 2D engines with Unity3D.
