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[harshat30]

Hi,

I have been trying several D&D game design engines such as Construct 2, GameSalad, Game maker, Stencyl and MMF2, to develop games . But I am planning to get license and put more effort in this game design, earn some cash outta it and I can't decide which one to go for.  WAIT I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING, "THERE ARE LOTS OF PEOPLE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT THIS".

I know there lot of threads taking about gamesalad vs gamemaker vs stencyl but one thread says one is good and another site says it is bad. So here is what I am looking forward to happen. I am gonna put my exact requirement and you are gonna help me to pick on D&D Game design tool. Thanks in advance.

My Requirements
Gonna develop an average level game with decent graphics
No particles or special effects (just sprite animation with multiple levels)
planning to add facebook integration (yepp)
Most importantly this is for ANDROID OR IPHONE not for windows computers or any game servers(flash, no). So I don't want to get a license and then realize that android or Iphone publish sucks on that engine. (Some engine provides android but it sucks or need to get cocoonJS support or something else).

I am design artist and not good with programming language. I am starting a new career here and need to earn outta it mobile games & Apps.

So Please Help me with this. Thanks a lot in advance

[Player 3]

I am design artist and not good with programming language. I am starting a new career here and need to earn outta it mobile games & Apps.

This is a key signal that you should be starting out with general programming instead of rushing into game development. And even then, not everyone is cut out for making games (such as your's truly). Even mobile applications are a tricky subject for the novice programmer. If you bother with Game Maker, there's going to be programming via GML (Game Maker Language) in the long run for anything worth its salt. But if you're still going forth with it, it does export to Android and iOS though I don't know of how much quality these exports have.

[moi]

Personally I'd pick stencyl because I hate the other choices

If you want to go full programming, give monkey a look

Also: Unity (with 2D module) if you can get around the component aspect
also: gamedevelop : free but not really tested on a large project yet

[s0]

stencyl's interface is awful for anything decently complex and game maker is only useful if you're willing to learn gml, the drag & drop functionality is really bad

haven't seriously tried the others

[Ant]

note GML is infinitely easier to grasp than 'proper' coding languages so even if you don't consider yourself a coder you might still want to give it a try

[harshat30]

I am design artist and not good with programming language. I am starting a new career here and need to earn outta it mobile games & Apps.

This is a key signal that you should be starting out with general programming instead of rushing into game development. And even then, not everyone is cut out for making games (such as your's truly). Even mobile applications are a tricky subject for the novice programmer. If you bother with Game Maker, there's going to be programming via GML (Game Maker Language) in the long run for anything worth its salt. But if you're still going forth with it, it does export to Android and iOS though I don't know of how much quality these exports have.

I have tried few programming crash courses including eclipse and dedicated some time truly for that. But the end of the day, programming is not for me. My strength is designing and I have got loads of interests for mobile gaming and got plenty of game ideas.

So please help me here to find out athe D&D tool for working and exporting to Android and iOS.

[SundownKid]

I'm not really sure there are any other Drag n' Drop game makers besides the ones you already tried out. Those are really the major ones. Construct 2 and Stencyl's site says it can go to iOS and Android.

If you hate programming that badly, then pony up the cash and hire a programmer. Otherwise you will have to learn some bit of programming to make a game.

Though really, it's becoming harder and harder to release a mobile only game these days. There's no reason to release it only for mobile, since it will probably get less sales by virtue of the fact that mobile discoverability is abysmal.

[harshat30]

Okie. Which D&D tool would you refer from yhe above list for me based on my game requirements.

[Keops]

Hey there!

I'd say that I pretty much agree with what the others have said: Some basic/intermediate programming skills are a MUST. I haven't found a pure Drag and Drop development suite that is powerful/versatile enough without any kind of programming/scripting. So unfortunately I'm of the ones who will tell you: Buckle up, and learn some coding.

I'm myself working (VERY slowly) on a small game using GameMaker: Studio (DevLog here) but I'm taking a small break to continue/focus on my coding studies. I will resume active work on the game later on, but coding is of utmost importance for me atm.

I'm also a graphic designer by trade and I tried to learn programming many times before. It's not going to be extremely easy, it's going to be demanding and require a lot of discipline/commitment from you, especially if you're self-learning (like I'm doing). Just you, the book/tutorial of choice, the language documentation and patience.

As for your original question, I'd recommend you GameMaker: Studio. It's a very mature tool (many years going now), works for Android (one of your requisites) and features lots of D&D functionality (albeit, as others pointed out, pretty limited. No escape from GML on the long run). Not sure if it allows Facebook integration (I assume yes, but I'm not 100% sure).

Good luck!

[SundownKid]

Another thing to consider, Construct 2 costs $100+ less in licensing fees than Stencyl or Game Maker Studio to export to iOS.

No idea which one is better since I've hardly used them for a real project though.

[harshat30]

Thanks for all ur posts...Damnn GM is freakin high license rates. Anyways does anyone could give me a picture about the facebook integration. ...

[Irock]

stencyl's interface is awful for anything decently complex

Yeah, the Stencyl team's pretty aware of this. It gets pretty messy when you have a decent number of game attributes, and organization of resources isn't that great. If you've got any other gripes I could pass them along.

[Conker534]

game maker d&d is really just okay, but GML is what you're going to want to use later on. GML is not hard either, I consider myself much more an artist than a coder and I don't have to many issues with GML.

[harshat30]

game maker d&d is really just okay, but GML is what you're going to want to use later on. GML is not hard either, I consider myself much more an artist than a coder and I don't have to many issues with GML.

How abt facebook integration is GM?

[Jondog]

I've mainly been using Construct 2, it's cheaper than game maker for a business license (and doesn't require you to buy expensive addons to publish for lots of platforms) and it's pretty easy to publish games made in it to Android and iOS.

Unfortunately you can't get direct coding access in it so Construct 2 can be rather limited. I think it makes up for that by being really easy to learn. Also it does have functions that allow you to add Facebook API to a game.

I've also used Stencyl but I stopped using it after I realised how much time I was wasting with the effort that went into setting up new scenes. For some reason you behaviours aren't global so every time you create a new level or scene they need to be added again.