Choosing a multiplatform engine for developing mobile games (part 1)

Mobile application development is a very promising and profitable occupation. One of the most interesting directions are games. However, games are quite complex applications, and given that there are at least two mobile platforms on the market that you should be guided by, the complexity increases doubly. Therefore, we need to somehow ease our already hard work.

Multiplatform engines to the rescue

There are several interesting solutions on the market today that allow us to forget (or almost forget) the need to develop separate, independent gaming applications for each platform. And so we meet our heroes ...

Marmalade (in the recent past was called Airplay SDK)

Website: www.madewithmarmalade.com
Documentation: www.madewithmarmalade.com/devnet/docs
Supported platforms: ios (3.0+), Android (1.5+), Symbian, bada, webOS. Also should appear support for BlackBerry Tablet OS. In addition, Marmalade supports a number of platforms in the beta stage.
Programming language: C / C ++
Minimum price: $ 149 / year.
Demo version: 90 day test copy is available for non-commercial use.

It looks like a very serious thing, for serious games. I noticed Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2011 and Need for Speed ​​Shift. You must admit that very serious products from well-known companies that would not choose a dull fake for their creations. However, Marmalade is rather not the engine, but the Framework for creating its own engines (example below). In addition, it allows you to use various C / C ++ libraries that you have (or in the public domain).
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In general, a serious product for serious uncles. One C / C + + not everyone masters. Although for many it will be a huge plus.

PS The title says that Marmalade was recently renamed, and also went up in price, and now its acceptable version costs $ 499 .

Corona

Website: www.anscamobile.com
Documentation: www.anscamobile.com/resources (there are many possibilities in the API).
Supported platforms: iOS, Android.
Programming language: Lua
Minimum price: $ 199 / year for one platform. Or $ 349 for both.
Demo version: unlimited test copy available for non-commercial use.

Corona is a 2d engine for creating games in the spirit of Angry Birds. An example is the Bubble Ball, which was written by a 14 year old boy from America.

Corona has an extensive API for all occasions, which allows you to easily implement all your Wishlist. However, it’s not possible to foresee everything in api and it’s likely that sooner or later you will want to use some native Android or IOS feature. Then you will be disappointed - Corona does not have such opportunities. But for Flash developers there is a good news. The creators of the engine argue that those who write games on Flash, it will not be difficult to switch to Corona, because they are very similar.

Unity3d

Website: unity3d.com
Documentation: unity3d.com/support/documentation
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, desktop, Web, game consoles.
Programming language: C #, JavaScript, Boo
Minimum price: $ 400 / year for one platform in the standard edition.
Demo version: you can use the full PRO version for 30 days.

Unity3d has incorporated a bunch of various interesting technologies that are used in the expensive engines, and presented them to us. Albeit not free.

The engine has many built-in features, as well as a number of interesting third-party plug-ins that add the missing functionality. Also, can you use the libraries? written in native platform language (say Java for android), which is very important for serious projects. Also in the arsenal of Unity3d there is a visual editor with a huge number of all sorts of settings.

PS To ensure multiplatform use of MonoTouch.

ShiVa3D

Website: www.stonetrip.com
Documentation: www.stonetrip.com/developer/doc
Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Palm, Wii, Web.
Programming language: Lua
Minimum price: € 169.00 / year in standard edition.
Demo version: you can use as much as you like, but when you want to put your creation in the store? then have to buy.

ShiVa3D is an engine with a built-in visual editor (as in Unity3d). To implement multiplatform engine uses Marmalade (see above). The engine has many built-in features, there are third-party plug-ins and the ability to use libraries written in the native language for the platform (say Java for android).

And a bit more

Flash

Recently there was a new version of AIR, in which there is the possibility of developing for iOS, Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. The new version brought more stability and performance. Although as a demonstration, I saw only the usual applications (NOT games). Also, while there is no possibility of using native libraries. And the API itself is also not very rich.

It also seems very strange to the fact that they are not in too much of a hurry to develop all this. But like a serious company and if they want, they can catch up and overtake competitors in two accounts. In general, it is also worth taking note.

Kobold2D (due in summer 2011)

Website: www.kobold2d.org
Cost: Free (MIT License).
Supported platforms: iOS.
Programming language: Lua

A wrapper over Cocos2D that should make it easy to develop games for those who don't know Objective-C.

Conclusion

Probably, I was mistaken somewhere and did not look at something. If so, the edits are accepted. Good luck to your game!

The second part is read here: Choosing a multiplatform engine for developing mobile games (part 2)