6 ms·

I wish it had better 2D support - the choice between Unity and Gamemaker could use with another solid option.

meir_yanovich 11y ago
Cocos2d-x is very solid choice
Impossible 11y ago
Defold (http://www.defold.com/ http://www.defold.com/) is potentially a solid option for 2D. I always find it interesting that some of the biggest requests for primarily 3D engines (Unity, UE4) are better 2D tools, and that no one, outside of Gamemaker, has built a 2D engine that has gained as much adoption or has as strong of a toolset.
- Namrog84 11y ago
  I think it's because people want the option to move to 3d later if they want. Without having to learn more tools and language. I never liked gamemaker because its game maker language not being useful in other areas. I like making 2d and 3d games and having it be in the same place makes it much easier. I do realize how awesome game maker is and what it does. But it has a few limitations that killed it for me
  - Kiro 11y ago
    I'm a 2D developer and have no interest in making 3D games so I prefer an engine focusing exclusively on 2D.
- talmand 11y ago
  Have you built anything with it? I see that it's invite only at the moment. I signed up just to eventually tinker with it, as that's all I really do, but I like to try things out to see how they feel.
  - Impossible 11y ago
    I haven't so I can't really vouch for it. I suggested it because it seems like an interesting new player in the space and looks powerful.
- andrewmcwatters 11y ago
  I don't like "engines" like Defold. Because to me that's not an engine. That's a framework. You have few methods exposed like draw/update, some convenience classes and that's about it. It's so comparable to LÖVE (https://love2d.org/ https://love2d.org/) that literally the only difference seems to be a GUI to work with. Meaning you have to write everything else, yourself. I wonder if there are other actual 2D engines out there like Grid (http://www.planimeter.org/grid/ http://www.planimeter.org/grid/), or Polycode (http://polycode.org/ http://polycode.org/). Engines that actually take care of networking, predefined game callbacks, resource management, and multiplayer, like the big boys (Unreal, Unity, Source).
  - Kiro 11y ago
    Have you used Defold?
ousta 11y ago
when i was using unity 2D the downside was that you cant really leverage the engine basics such as gravity for 2D top down games. is it still the case?
- rje 11y ago
  Unity has integrated a 2d physics solution that is very similar to their 3d solution. It has different strengths/weaknesses relative to the 3d solution. Another option is simply using 3d physics volumes with your 2d sprites if you need features of the 3d physics systems. This works fine and you can constrain objects to a plane/rotation axis as needed.
keyle 11y ago
I'm using it for 2D. It's very good... Not sure what you mean by better support?
Daiz 11y ago
Seeing as you listed Game Maker there, I would throw in a recommendation for Construct 2 by Scirra: https://scirra.com https://scirra.com They have an excellent 2D HTML5 game engine and a very nice IDE to go with it. The event programming system they use is at least powerful as Game Maker's GML (if not more so) and you can also write your own plugins with JavaScript. Out of three mentioned programs, C2 is definitely my favorite for a couple reasons: - It's built from ground up with 2D development in mind. Unity in comparison is primarily for 3D development, and while its 2D tools have improved over the years the difference is still really obvious. - The overall user interface design of C2 is actually from this decade and makes good use of big screens of today. In comparison, you can still very much see the relatively ancient roots in Game Maker's UI when programs were designed with 640x480 screens in mind, not to mention how tons of features added over the years have just been slapped haphazardly into wherever there was room in the UI at the time. Game Maker's drag & drop coding is also just terrible, it's really either GML or go home with it. - Pricing. You don't have to pay any extra for additional exporters or such with C2. Of course, there is the caveat of having to pay extra attention to mobile performance with C2 games being HTML5-powered on everything it exports to, but on actual computers you can cover the Windows/OSX/Linux combo very nicely. Now, I mostly do game development as a hobby (which I've been doing on and off ever since I was ~9 years old), but if I wanted to do a commercial 2D indie game project for release on Steam (or similar) today, I'd definitely use Construct 2 for it. If I wanted to do same except for mobile, I'd probably evaluate C2 for it too (simply because I like it so much), but I might end up using something like Unity instead if performance proved to be too much of a headache with C2.
Nr7 11y ago
Here's a couple (FOSS) options: http://polycode.org/ http://polycode.org/ http://godotengine.org http://godotengine.org

Cocos2d-x is very solid choice

Defold (http://www.defold.com/ http://www.defold.com/) is potentially a solid option for 2D. I always find it interesting that some of the biggest requests for primarily 3D engines (Unity, UE4) are better 2D tools, and that no one, outside of Gamemaker, has built a 2D engine that has gained as much adoption or has as strong of a toolset.

Namrog84 11y ago
I think it's because people want the option to move to 3d later if they want. Without having to learn more tools and language. I never liked gamemaker because its game maker language not being useful in other areas. I like making 2d and 3d games and having it be in the same place makes it much easier. I do realize how awesome game maker is and what it does. But it has a few limitations that killed it for me
- Kiro 11y ago
  I'm a 2D developer and have no interest in making 3D games so I prefer an engine focusing exclusively on 2D.
talmand 11y ago
Have you built anything with it? I see that it's invite only at the moment. I signed up just to eventually tinker with it, as that's all I really do, but I like to try things out to see how they feel.
- Impossible 11y ago
  I haven't so I can't really vouch for it. I suggested it because it seems like an interesting new player in the space and looks powerful.
andrewmcwatters 11y ago
I don't like "engines" like Defold. Because to me that's not an engine. That's a framework. You have few methods exposed like draw/update, some convenience classes and that's about it. It's so comparable to LÖVE (https://love2d.org/ https://love2d.org/) that literally the only difference seems to be a GUI to work with. Meaning you have to write everything else, yourself. I wonder if there are other actual 2D engines out there like Grid (http://www.planimeter.org/grid/ http://www.planimeter.org/grid/), or Polycode (http://polycode.org/ http://polycode.org/). Engines that actually take care of networking, predefined game callbacks, resource management, and multiplayer, like the big boys (Unreal, Unity, Source).
- Kiro 11y ago
  Have you used Defold?

ousta 11y ago

when i was using unity 2D the downside was that you cant really leverage the engine basics such as gravity for 2D top down games. is it still the case?

rje 11y ago
Unity has integrated a 2d physics solution that is very similar to their 3d solution. It has different strengths/weaknesses relative to the 3d solution. Another option is simply using 3d physics volumes with your 2d sprites if you need features of the 3d physics systems. This works fine and you can constrain objects to a plane/rotation axis as needed.

keyle 11y ago

I'm using it for 2D. It's very good... Not sure what you mean by better support?

Daiz 11y ago

Seeing as you listed Game Maker there, I would throw in a recommendation for Construct 2 by Scirra: https://scirra.com https://scirra.com They have an excellent 2D HTML5 game engine and a very nice IDE to go with it. The event programming system they use is at least powerful as Game Maker's GML (if not more so) and you can also write your own plugins with JavaScript. Out of three mentioned programs, C2 is definitely my favorite for a couple reasons: - It's built from ground up with 2D development in mind. Unity in comparison is primarily for 3D development, and while its 2D tools have improved over the years the difference is still really obvious. - The overall user interface design of C2 is actually from this decade and makes good use of big screens of today. In comparison, you can still very much see the relatively ancient roots in Game Maker's UI when programs were designed with 640x480 screens in mind, not to mention how tons of features added over the years have just been slapped haphazardly into wherever there was room in the UI at the time. Game Maker's drag & drop coding is also just terrible, it's really either GML or go home with it. - Pricing. You don't have to pay any extra for additional exporters or such with C2. Of course, there is the caveat of having to pay extra attention to mobile performance with C2 games being HTML5-powered on everything it exports to, but on actual computers you can cover the Windows/OSX/Linux combo very nicely. Now, I mostly do game development as a hobby (which I've been doing on and off ever since I was ~9 years old), but if I wanted to do a commercial 2D indie game project for release on Steam (or similar) today, I'd definitely use Construct 2 for it. If I wanted to do same except for mobile, I'd probably evaluate C2 for it too (simply because I like it so much), but I might end up using something like Unity instead if performance proved to be too much of a headache with C2.

Nr7 11y ago

Here's a couple (FOSS) options: http://polycode.org/ http://polycode.org/ http://godotengine.org http://godotengine.org