AGK2 - anyone using it? Or something else for mobile?
Community Forums/Developer Stations/AGK2 - anyone using it? Or something else for mobile?
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| Ok, so after asking for GameMaker Studio a while ago, here's another one. Can anyone recommend AGK2? I'm still looking for a 2d framework which is future proof and will work and being maintained for the next 5 years. What other 2d frameworks can you recommend? It should be able to target Android and iOS. Thanks! |
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| I think the kicker is "maintained for five years" with so much uncertainty these days nobody can jump up and say this over that. |
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| I'd say HaxeFlixel, LibGDX and Monogame are all pretty good bets. |
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| Godot? |
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| I think choosing a game engine is a personal thing, you're best to try the ones you like and see. This is a nice list https://www.slant.co/topics/1476/~2d-game-engines-for-android Being future proof wouldn't be so important to me but if you look at the product's history that might reveal how dedicated the developers are. For me the main points would be: language features, resources or community support, performance, stability, workflow. Unity uses C#, Javascript or Boo for scripting but is slow for 2d as it's really a 3d engine, Godot has GDScript which is like Python+Javascript and is free, libGDX is in Java (which is pretty hard) so has performance issues with the JVM, Oxygine is in C++ but hasn't much community, Corona is in Lua which is apparently fast. Monkey X translates the monkey language to native code so no VM so code executes faster but not in-development any more. I have to say Monkey X is the most appealing overall but I'd like to try Corona (and Godot). |
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| AGK has a very nice lib, covers ads, steam integration, Facebook, net working, 3D/2D, box 2d physics, bullet 3D physics etc. But the basic interpreter is pretty shocking. It's circu 1970s MS basic featurwise. Fortunately you can use c++ with AGK too. |
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| How fast is AGK2 in comparison to Blitz? |
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| AGK2 the library is very fast. It's interpreter compiles the basic source into byte code, these byte codes are sent to a giant c++ switch/case statement with every API commands byte code in a "case". The params are pushed on and off a stack before calling the relevant AGK2 API command. So, it's kinda unsophisticated and brute force but it's fast enough for an interpreter. Not as fast as Blitz though as Blitz is a proper native code compiler. The real problem with this approach is that I doubt there will ever be any OO/overloading/templates ect. added to the language as this single pass interpreter method makes it very hard to do anything other than simple languages. |
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| Thanks guys, well I don't need OOP, it's often overrated anyway. And when you want OO you can use C++ anyway. :) Actually I feel much more like "home" with that good ol' Basic like with BB3D the days back. |
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