I'm currently working on a commercial, cross-platform 2D game. The game is a defend-your-base type, similar to plants vs zombies. It will use Box2D and 2D skeletal animation. The baddies get turned into rag dolls when killed and then the physics engine takes care of the rest. As for the level editor, I will use Inkscape.
I've made a very basic prototype using PyGame and now I'm ready to build it in C++. I'm planning to use cocos2dx for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile, but I'm still not sure what engine I should use for Windows, Linux and OS X. It looks like Ogre3D might be a good option because it has been used for quite a few commercial games and it could easily be used for just 2D rendering.
What engines do other indie developers use or recommend?
Open source engine for commercial, cross platform 2D game
Personally i prefer C# and XNA 4.0 for simple 2D stuff such as this, but on the downside you will need to bundle the xna runtime and .net 4.0 framework in your installer and you will need to write two versions: One in C++ (your cocos2dx one for iDevices) and the other one in C#
The upside to all this is once you've written it, you not only have a windows version, but you can also deploy that identical code to windows phone 7 and xbox live indie games on xbox 360, so it opens up another 3 platforms for you instead of one.
EDIT: Although, if you dont run windows at all, this might stick a fork in this plan... YMMV :-)
The upside to all this is once you've written it, you not only have a windows version, but you can also deploy that identical code to windows phone 7 and xbox live indie games on xbox 360, so it opens up another 3 platforms for you instead of one.
EDIT: Although, if you dont run windows at all, this might stick a fork in this plan... YMMV :-)
I'm currently working on a commercial, cross-platform 2D game. The game is a defend-your-base type, similar to plants vs zombies. It will use Box2D and 2D skeletal animation. The baddies get turned into rag dolls when killed and then the physics engine takes care of the rest. As for the level editor, I will use Inkscape.
I've made a very basic prototype using PyGame and now I'm ready to build it in C++. I'm planning to use cocos2dx for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile, but I'm still not sure what engine I should use for Windows, Linux and OS X. It looks like Ogre3D might be a good option because it has been used for quite a few commercial games and it could easily be used for just 2D rendering.
What engines do other indie developers use or recommend?
For Cross platform, I'd check out SFML (sfml-dev.org). I personally think it is the best 3rd party SDK for graphics, audio, and input, and it's in C++.
I recommend UDK.
You can use it in PC AND Mobile.
but you have to learn Unreal Script :\ but is very similar to Java/c++
You can use it in PC AND Mobile.
but you have to learn Unreal Script :\ but is very similar to Java/c++
Author
Thanks for all your replies. I'm going to check out the UDK and NeoAxis (based on Ogre3D) engines and see which one works best for my game. I know another option is Unity, but that doesn't seem to support Linux.
Thanks for all your replies. I'm going to check out the UDK and NeoAxis (based on Ogre3D) engines and see which one works best for my game. I know another option is Unity, but that doesn't seem to support Linux.
Why would you consider Unity, Ogre3d, or UDK for 2d games? None of those target 2d development... of course you can use them, but there are better 2d solutions I would think.
Author
@joeparrilla
I agree that these engines are a little overkill for my game, but they should save me a lot of development time. What 2D engines would you recommend for deploying to most computer, console and mobile platforms? I could use something lightweight like SDL, but then there is so much I have to do from scratch. I really wish I could write the whole game using cocos2dx, but I don't know how much work will be involved in porting that to computer platforms and consoles.
I agree that these engines are a little overkill for my game, but they should save me a lot of development time. What 2D engines would you recommend for deploying to most computer, console and mobile platforms? I could use something lightweight like SDL, but then there is so much I have to do from scratch. I really wish I could write the whole game using cocos2dx, but I don't know how much work will be involved in porting that to computer platforms and consoles.
@joeparrilla
I agree that these engines are a little overkill for my game, but they should save me a lot of development time. What 2D engines would you recommend for deploying to most computer, console and mobile platforms? I could use something lightweight like SDL, but then there is so much I have to do from scratch. I really wish I could write the whole game using cocos2dx, but I don't know how much work will be involved in porting that to computer platforms and consoles.
You do bring up a good point.. I'm more of a lightweight framework guy when it comes to 2d, so I'm not well versed in pre built engine knowledge. I would just imagine that there HAS to be some good ones... its just inevitable. I know people use game maker a lot... although that's more than just an engine.. its a full blown tool. I see what you're saying though... I really can't provide.any suggestions but I'm sure someone can.
Now that I remembered, if you wanted to use java, there's martengine which is built on slick2d. It seems pretty cool. I'm not sure if you consider java though... but its an option
@joeparrilla
I agree that these engines are a little overkill for my game, but they should save me a lot of development time. What 2D engines would you recommend for deploying to most computer, console and mobile platforms? I could use something lightweight like SDL, but then there is so much I have to do from scratch. I really wish I could write the whole game using cocos2dx, but I don't know how much work will be involved in porting that to computer platforms and consoles.
You can use Box2d (or chipmunk-physics, which is the 2d physics engine I use) with SFML (I would suggest not using SDL) to make up your graphics/physics engine.
I agree that these engines are a little overkill for my game, but they should save me a lot of development time. What 2D engines would you recommend for deploying to most computer, console and mobile platforms? I could use something lightweight like SDL, but then there is so much I have to do from scratch. I really wish I could write the whole game using cocos2dx, but I don't know how much work will be involved in porting that to computer platforms and consoles.
I know it's been quite some time but I wanted to tell you that some friends and I are working on an open source C++ engine (RedBox engine) that would fit perfectly with what you need. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux and iOs (soon on Android). It manage all the basic needs for a 2D game and more cool features like (sprite emitters, render batches and tweening) We are about to send a new stable version.
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