When comparing ShiVa vs uScript + Unity3D, the Slant community recommends ShiVa for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D game engines?” ShiVa is ranked 92nd while uScript + Unity3D is ranked 97th. The most important reason people chose ShiVa is:
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.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Automatically generates nodes for third-party script assets
uScript's nodes are a visual representation of actual code blocks, and it takes advantage of C#'s reflection capabilities to automatically create nodes for any scripts it finds in your project, regardless of the source. This makes it inherently compatible with pretty much everything.
Custom nodes can also be created by hand, for cases where the automatically created ones contain more elements than they actually need.
Pro Versatile flow diagram script model
Modeled after UDK's Kismet (the predecessor to UE4's Blueprint), uScript's scripts resemble flowcharts where each box represents a function or value, with connections between them representing program flow. This provides a better at-a-glance indication of game logic than a simple list of events, and makes complex behaviors easier to accomplish.
Pro Generates C# source code
Nodes are translated directly to C# files in your project. This is great for learning to code, and also for advanced users who can use uScript for fast prototyping and then further optimize the scripts if necessary.
Cons
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
Con Not that easy to use
It's a lot more complicated compared to something like Playmaker. Same tasks take a lot more time.