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Add to SafariWhen comparing Unity 2D vs FNA, the Slant community recommends Unity 2D for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D C# game engines?” Unity 2D is ranked 2nd while FNA is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Unity 2D is:
2D game creation was a major feature request from the Unity community and was added with version 4.3. 2D is provided in both the Pro and Free distribution of Unity.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Built into Unity 4.3+
2D game creation was a major feature request from the Unity community and was added with version 4.3. 2D is provided in both the Pro and Free distribution of Unity.
Pro Integrates with Mecanim
Mecanim brings state machines and blending to 2D bone animation. The state machine editor allows for designers and programmers to visually create a Finite State Machine (FSM) to control when animations should play. Mecanim also allows for blending so an animation can transition smoothly between two states without the need of in between frames made by an animator.
Pro Sprite Sheet and Bone based animation supported
Both types of 2D animation for game development are supported in Unity’s system and can be used interchangeably in the timeline.
Pro Easily change sprites dynamically
Usually used for character customization, programmers can change any sprite in a bone animation at runtime easily by referencing the bone and loading the new sprite from the resources folder.
Pro Performance
FNA is incredibly performant on desktop platforms.
Pro Near-exact reimplementation of XNA 4
Pro Rapidly evolving
With a very active development team, FNA has support for OpenGL and Metal, with Direct3D 11 and Vulkan support on the way, as well as more platform support.
Pro Barely contains bugs
Pro Proven tool
FNA has been used in a multitude of titles, ranging from Mercenary Kings: Reloaded, Terraria and Escape Goat, all the way to Celeste, Streets of Rage 4 and Fez.
Pro MonoGame-compatible
FNA projects are very compatible with MonoGame.
Cons
Con Lacks critical features
- Vertices can't be animated, so you can't have ANY organic feel (like... lungs breathing).
- Parent bone can't be animated without affecting the children. This is especially impeding for organic feel, again.
- No option to show & unshow assets (or it is hidden), like for switching weapon on your character for exemple.
Con Poor script interface for texture atlases
Accessing individual sprites within an atlas texture is possible at runtime, but requires use of the Resources folder subsystem.
Con Not exactly a "game engine" by definition
It provides you with everything you need to make a game engine, but isn't one in itself.
