Here’s the Deal

SpriteKit vs GameMaker Studio 2

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When comparing SpriteKit vs GameMaker Studio 2, the Slant community recommends SpriteKit for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” SpriteKit is ranked 54th while GameMaker Studio 2 is ranked 67th. The most important reason people chose SpriteKit is:

Easy to access in Xcode.

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Common Questions

What are the best 2D game engines?

Pros

Pro
Built-in in Xcode

Easy to access in Xcode.

Pro
Awesome performance

One of the most efficient frameworks. If you need to build an iOS game, this is the best solutions.

Pro
Quick prototyping

Pro
Good user interface

Pro
Well-optimized engine

Pro
Has a trial version (but limited functions, can't export)

Pro
Many unofficial tutorials

Most GMS1 tutorials are fine for GMS2

Pro
Highly customizable IDE

Although users must work within the IDE and editor, GMS2 has many options to customize the look and feel

Pro
Good documentation

Pro
Huge, generous community

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Cons

Con
Restricted in apple ecosystem

This is an Apple technology and its use is restricted to iOS and OSX systems.

Con
Not the best scripting language out there

GML is just weird; if you want to learn programming, it is not the best because it teaches bad habits and has many odd shortcuts and shortcomings that won't transfer to a real language

Con
HTML5 export is buggy, doesn't "just work"

Con
Quite expensive

Windows ($100) + HTML5 ($140) + Mobile ($400) + UWP ($400) is $1,050, plus $800 anually for each console export separately. But doesn't do anything any of the free engines can't do, and the stability and tech support aren't great.

Con
Unstable

Users frequently report crashes and hangs, particularly when working with assets, and the software uses a complicated underlying meta-file structure that may become corrupted and cannot be rebuilt

Con
Limited support for OOP

Con
Small development team

The core programming team is only 5-10 people, with about 30 employees total, so bug fixes can take a long time to be addressed, and there aren't many official tutorials