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[InfiniteStateMachine]

@tanis You work in haxe sometimes right? Be interested to know which is your favorite engine to work in so far.

What I would love to see is something like a small C engine that exposes LUA bindings or something like that and that has good cross platform support and a good debugger, but that's probably asking too much.

It sounds like you are describing Love2d.

Love2d has no iOS or Android support, nor it works on gaming consoles.
And AFAIK there isn't much of a debugger for LUA, but I haven't searched much about it so I might be completely wrong.

It sounds like they do from their docs. https://love2d.org/wiki/Game_Distribution#iOS

As for a debugger, it's lua so you shouldnt expect too much. That said I have been able to debug using zerobrane. It's nowhere near the quality of .net but that should be expected considering the circumstances.

[tanis]

Yes it looks like LOVE2D has an Android fork and some iOS support but you're basically on your own to get it working. It would be nice to see everything in the same repo and working out of the box. I have never used Zerobrane, so I have no idea how good it is for real debugging. I checked a ew videos and it looks like it might be very good for quick iterations though.

I wonder if there's anyone apart the guys of Siege and the Sandfox using Unreal for 2D indie production.

[sufimaster]

Have you looked into libgdx at all? It has android, desktop, and iOS support, though I've heard the iOS roboVM stuff is very difficult to get working. 

You can embed LUA: http://hemantasapkota.github.io/posts/tutorial-embed-lua-in-java-w-libgdx-and-box2d/

And you can debug via your IDE.

[tanis]

Have you looked into libgdx at all? It has android, desktop, and iOS support, though I've heard the iOS roboVM stuff is very difficult to get working. 

You can embed LUA: http://hemantasapkota.github.io/posts/tutorial-embed-lua-in-java-w-libgdx-and-box2d/

And you can debug via your IDE.

libGDX is one of the best performance-wise on mobile. But robovm is dead and compiling java is kinda slow. It's still an option, especially with LUA bindings. Cheers!

[fullweeb]

haxeflixel - This is probably more what you want. You can have a pixel perfect animated sprite in 2 lines of code. The only thing is that you inherit from FlxSprite which isn't really a big deal but something you might care about. Also runs on everything. Probably moreso than monogame.

Any good resources to learn Haxeflixel? I've been having a hard time learning from the Demos/Docs. Also seen a few tutorials but don't really explain much, just kinda copy paste type deal. I've been looking at the book 'Discovering Haxeflixel', not sure if it's worth the $20 though.

[pelle]

Sounds like just c or c++ with something like sdl really would do. No need to complicate things.

[Kakapio]

Sounds like just c or c++ with something like SDL really would do. No need to complicate things.

Then you'll end up spending more time on making tools than an actual game.

If you want to make games, it's better to use an engine. Otherwise, it'll end up taking several years for any serious project.

[Nelvin]

I suggest to watch a few of Casey Muratoris Handmade Hero videos

https://hero.handmade.network/episodes

might be surprising to many "Engine" users what you can do in what's literally a few days of fulltime work.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

haxeflixel - This is probably more what you want. You can have a pixel perfect animated sprite in 2 lines of code. The only thing is that you inherit from FlxSprite which isn't really a big deal but something you might care about. Also runs on everything. Probably moreso than monogame.

Any good resources to learn Haxeflixel? I've been having a hard time learning from the Demos/Docs. Also seen a few tutorials but don't really explain much, just kinda copy paste type deal. I've been looking at the book 'Discovering Haxeflixel', not sure if it's worth the $20 though.

hmm I'm not sure about walkthroughs these days. are you stuck anywhere in particular? I might be able to help.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

I suggest to watch a few of Casey Muratoris Handmade Hero videos

https://hero.handmade.network/episodes

might be surprising to many "Engine" users what you can do in what's literally a few days of fulltime work.

Often a few days is more than a working person can spare. I'm sure that would not cover smooth cross-target builds too.

[JWki]

I suggest to watch a few of Casey Muratoris Handmade Hero videos

https://hero.handmade.network/episodes

might be surprising to many "Engine" users what you can do in what's literally a few days of fulltime work.

Often a few days is more than a working person can spare. I'm sure that would not cover smooth cross-target builds too.

While that's both valid points I'd still recommend watching the videos, if only for educational purposes.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Can't argue there those are some great videos.

[boomlaz]

Is Monogame good as a beginner framework for someone that knows how to program?

[Kyuugatsu]

Is Monogame good as a beginner framework for someone that knows how to program?

Depends on your goals. E.g. if OP wanted to make and ship a game in one week on multiple different platforms and cried against using Unity that would make zero sense. On the other hand if they want specific things from their framework, such as making a 200 KB mobile game on Android, that would be a different story.

If you just want to learn new things almost any framework you've heard of is good - there's a reason you've heard of it, after all.

[boomlaz]

Personally I just get so overwhelmed at all the options and out of fear of making the "wrong" choice, I keep delaying my inevitable start to game development. I'll just spend this last night making a decision. Monogame is cool but I think I should stick to a game engine like Unity or Duality (which I just found) because of my inexperience since I've never made a game before. Seeing that picture really helped too btw as childish as it is, it helped me in a way. Thanks for the advice, Kyuugatsu!

[DragonDePlatino]

As someone who has felt the same and switched tools like 3 times I give you this advice: Just pick something and roll with it. You won't know how good a tool is until you sit down and make something with it. Technically both SFML and SDL have shader support but while the former is incredibly easy, the latter is an exercise in frustration. But you won't know judging by the feature lists alone. Especially if you don't know what shaders are going in.

For now, pick Unity and make your game. If have difficulty doing something or Unity doesn't support it, look up how you would do it in another engine. If that engine is better, then switch. Repeat until you find the engine that's best for you.

[boomlaz]

As someone who has felt the same and switched tools like 3 times I give you this advice: Just pick something and roll with it. You won't know how good a tool is until you sit down and make something with it. Technically both SFML and SDL have shader support but while the former is incredibly easy, the latter is an exercise in frustration. But you won't know judging by the feature lists alone. Especially if you don't know what shaders are going in.

For now, pick Unity and make your game. If have difficulty doing something or Unity doesn't support it, look up how you would do it in another engine. If that engine is better, then switch. Repeat until you find the engine that's best for you.

Thanks for the advice, friend. I'm glad I posted here today, I know it wasn't much that you said but it has helped tremendously. I'll use Unity.

[hexdump]

Really surprised no one pointed to Godot engine. Open source, free, awesome editor, multiplatform, etc....

https://godotengine.org/

They are into actively moving to version 3.0 that will render previous projects (<2.x projects) no valid. But I see no problem with that. You can see all the great things 3.0 will bring. For example GI, PBR materials, etc... It is like a lightweight unity3d game solution.

Cheers.

[tanis]

Really surprised no one pointed to Godot engine. Open source, free, awesome editor, multiplatform, etc....

The main reason I never took Godot into consideration is that it uses its own scripting language and that's a no-go for me.
On top of that, how many commercial games have you seen that have been developed with that engine?

[hexdump]

Really surprised no one pointed to Godot engine. Open source, free, awesome editor, multiplatform, etc....

The main reason I never took Godot into consideration is that it uses its own scripting language and that's a no-go for me.
On top of that, how many commercial games have you seen that have been developed with that engine?

1) Godot uses its own language if you want. C++ engine is available and ready for you to use as any other C++ engine. Speaking of GDScript, it a really simple language optimized for creating games. It is a DSL language not a generalist one like C# or C++ so, it is really simple to take and to the point. But, I can understand you don't want to get into another language.

2) It seems from your question that no one can make a comercial game if we don't use a very well known engine with thousands of commercial games created with it. Well, a lot of us have commercial games (more in the 90's) created with little home-made engines, they don't even have a name :D. Godot is not a small engine, it is really lightweight and with a lot of things packed-in. If there are not a lot of 2D games created with it is just because people don't know it or prefer to go with the more visible (publicity) ones. I'm not saying Godot is the best engine for 2D but it is really capable and improving. What I can't stand are engines that say that can be used for 2D and don't let me work in pixels... hate it. Godot allows that like a lot of others.

Anyway, I'm using unity3d at the moment for my games because they are all 3D. It is really capable too but not as comfortable as Godot (IMO).

Like other has said, take one, try to create a game and check for yourself witch works best for you .

Cheers.