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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGeneral2D dev: upgrade to GMS 2 or choose a free engine (Godot, Duality, Defold)?
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Author Topic: 2D dev: upgrade to GMS 2 or choose a free engine (Godot, Duality, Defold)?  (Read 6108 times)
ldmn
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« on: March 26, 2017, 08:52:04 AM »

Greets.

Would be happy to read some open-minded and/or battle-hardened thougts on the subject above.

Have read several threads (reddit, slant, etc.), but there are seemingly too many factors to take into consideration (technical, support, community, usability, .... personal taste).

My main doubts on these free engines: poor documentation, unforseeable support, possilble deployment / runtime issues (on different platforms).
(Unity would be overkill and too complicated for aiming 2D, I guess)

I have a 40% discount if upgrading GMS 1 (bought on Humble Bundle) to GMS 2 (till 9 April), which means a quite affordable price of 60 USD. Not too great sum for desktop-oriented development even for a poorish country's citizen...

...But don't know how YoyoGames biz. strategy evolves, further platform deployment demands could arise, etc. After a few weeks, I have nothing against using GMS 1, seems to be sufficient for my 2D dev. needs.

Thus being curious, if some alternavites you can wholeheartedly suggest - like the Engines / Frameworks in the subject, as I would not touch pure programming languages (C, Python) with libraries (Pygame, ...) any more - or recommend sticking with Yoyo and upgrading to GMS 2...

Thanx
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JWK5
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« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2017, 10:02:36 AM »

I upgraded from GMS 1 to 2 and the change is not huge, mostly just improvements in a lot of areas (notably the room editor and how it works, bringing it a little closer to where a good majority of other 2D development suites already are with their room/level editors). It is worth it to upgrade if you can do so at a discount and you like GMS1 but there may be other options out there (I am comfortable with GM and its various incarnations and have no overwhelming desire to use anything else really).

Honestly, it really comes down to what you are planning to make and how you like to work. It also helps to know what GM is failing to do for you that has you contemplating another tool (if it is the room editor GMS2 improves a lot of things and makes things much easier in that department).
« Last Edit: March 27, 2017, 08:35:46 AM by JWK5 » Logged

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cynicalsandel
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« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2017, 07:52:45 AM »

I can pretty much only speak for Godot, but it really depends. Godot uses a node based system which is very different feeling than most other engines. Some people prefer that, others don't. It can take an adjustment period as games are structured far differently, at least in my opinion. One major thing is Godot works natively on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Currently, there is a Mac beta for GMS2, but Mac development had barely been an afterthought for Yoyo until now. I don't think they'll support development on Linux. Personally, I think GMS2 is a bit easier for my non-programmer brain to handle, but I definitely prefer Godot to other engines I've tried like Unity. The upcoming 3.0 update for Godot looks like it's going to be massive. Also, it's ultra lightweight compared to other engines.

I was going to try Defold, but I didn't like having to sign up for an account with King, and I don't like connecting my google account to things. I'm just a weird guy.

Haven't tried Duality because it's Windows only.

Game Maker Studio 2 isn't so expensive that it's a hurdle, especially if you don't need any of the mobile, web, or uwp add-ons. However, the open source alternatives are free, so the only thing it costs is your time.

Edit: I should probably add that if you rely heavily on help from others, Game Maker has a vast amount of users. If you use Godot, the community is tiny relatively, so any speed bump you run into, you might just be on your own.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2017, 08:01:38 AM by cynicalsandel » Logged

ldmn
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« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2017, 09:53:02 AM »

Greets + many thanx for opinions!

So with my tiny gamedev experience methinks, most precious:

- well placed effort & time investment (learning-curve, easy migration through versions)
- in a promising engine (?) (sg with an UI, no Drag & Drop is necessary) + OK language
- which can scale well for larger, non-casual game projects, too.
- also not derailing the user to bad habits (with much click/drag/drop kind of development)
- lastly: platform targets.

Godot seems to get high praises, it is really attractive from outside, from every aspect, except for community / document-wise, also who knows its future?

Defold + Duality then perhaps too unkonwn products - no planning with them.

As for GMS, I was contemplating mostly on its product management, ie: how often must one pay for upgrades. Also, its language seems to be too beginner-oriented / even childish, and its "create a variable anywhere without declaration" is unserious, annoying. I don't know, how larger projects
could be handled, but hopefully GMS 2 aims toward more professional coders with modifs, enhancing language.
So perhaps as a last resort, I should buy its main (desktop) upgrade, if FOSS tools wouldn't be fine. If GMS is accepted as a professional dev. tool, I don't know.

Methinks, Unity has mixed reputation in 2D - dev. department.

EDIT: Heard, a Market Place can also be very useful for the engine.

Correct me, if thougts are very wrong.   Gentleman
« Last Edit: March 28, 2017, 10:57:27 AM by ldmn » Logged
Pinqu!
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« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2017, 11:27:56 AM »

I have a 40% discount if upgrading GMS 1 (bought on Humble Bundle) to GMS 2 (till 9 April), which means a quite affordable price of 60 USD. Not too great sum for desktop-oriented development even for a poorish country's citizen...

This.

/edit
Also the upgrade discount is available until April 30, 2017 not till 9. Says this http://www.yoyogames.com/get
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-Ross
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« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2017, 02:58:19 PM »

I've used four or five different game engines by now. There aren't any perfect game engines out there, so I would say stick with Game Maker unless you have serious problems with it (I haven't used it myself). If you ever plan to release a commercial game, the few dollars you spend on GM2 and export templates or whatever will be inconsequential.

- Duality I fiddled with for a couple days. It seemed small but fairly nice, but the lack of easy cross-platform support made me drop it.

- Godot I used for several months. I made several prototype games and one semi-complete game with it. It's OK. The python-ish scripting language is very easy to use and the totally modular node/scene system is really nice. Its documentation is pretty bad, something like 30% of the API docs are totally missing, and most of the existing descriptions are very unhelpful. There are a growing number of tutorials for it though. Its community is rapidly growing and quite fanatical, I'm not sure why that is, I guess because it's open-source and the editor runs on all platforms. It's moderately buggy, though it's perfectly possible that things will get fixed while you work on your game (or they will add more), or you can fix them yourself if you can compile for your platforms. It has quite a lot of features for a free, open-source engine, though it has some of the open-source-hodge-podge syndrome. Its home-brew physics suck. It exports pretty easily to all three desktop platforms, with not huge but not tiny builds (~15MB empty). I gather mobile builds take a bit of work and I could never get the web build to do anything. The thing that killed it for me (besides all the bugs) was poor performance, since I want to make small, fast, action games. Its scripting language is quite slow, and the engine takes a while to start up.  

- Defold is my engine of choice right now, but its far from perfect. It's got a very small feature set compared to Godot, Unity, UE4, etc., you have to do most things yourself (it's kind of in-between "engine" and "framework"). However it's more stable and bug-free than any of those other engines in my experience. It's also pretty fast. From my tests, it runs about 40% faster than Godot, and starts up almost instantly. Its builds are smallish, about 35-60% the size of Godot's. It has a very quick and twit-proof export to desktop, web, and mobile. The design of the engine is a bit unusual and takes some getting used to, but it's not limiting. Its documentation is the best I've ever seen. It's a small API so that helps, but still. It's complete, there's example code for every function, and explanation pages for everything. There aren't many tutorials out there for Defold, but they have a full-time staff member dedicated to support on their forums (and Slack I think). There are some weird or missing things with the editor, it's not very advanced. Also, Defold is definitely mobile-focused. There are some missing features for professional desktop games that are not on their priority list right now.

I hope some of this massive monologue helps you with your choice, haha. Good luck! Smiley
« Last Edit: April 04, 2017, 03:12:08 PM by -Ross » Logged

ldmn
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« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2017, 11:26:13 PM »

/edit
Also the upgrade discount is available until April 30, 2017 not till 9. Says this http://www.yoyogames.com/get

aye, it is extended: https://www.yoyogames.com/blog/417

I hope some of this massive monologue helps you with your choice,

Ross, many thanx for great insights. 
Unfortunately for me, after having visited thy art-website, and having seen that you've even created a half-complete game, I succeeded in realizing that I am a total hopeless contender in the crowd of gamedev aspirants.

Anyway, after a little search also seen who (ex-DMA Design) are behind GameMaker, which is quite convincing, promising.

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eyeliner
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« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2017, 07:57:54 AM »

The only thing I have against GMS is that, for some reason, the physics in my computer are slow.
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Yeah.
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