Hi everyone,

Although I am a full time .net (C#) web developer, I am pretty new to game development, having released just one game so far.

I created the flash game using FlashPunk framework (AS3). I feel I missed out on being able to release it for the android. Performance & framework wise, the game won't port over to the android without a huge rewrite. In hindsight, FlashPunk was very easy to use (especially for an actionscript newbie), but it feels like a dead-end when it comes to porting it over for android.

For my next game, I really want to be able to publish to both flash and android. I have read about a lot of the tools/frameworks I could use and have even given a few (Starling, GameMaker, HAXE) a preliminary tryout. There's also Unity which is very popular but I haven't come around to using it because learning the IDE and the workflow will take too long just for trying out. I just don't know enough about any of them to decide on one.

Some of the things that matter to me (in order of importance):

1. Publishing to flash (sponsorships) and android (possible monetization + huge user base)

2. If not free, hopefully a low cost to starting out (I would be okay with paying extra later once the game was ready to be released)

3. Not too bad a learning curve (with a full time job and family, there's only so much time I can give to this hobby)

4. Maybe use the years of experience I have with C# or the one year of time invested in FlashPunk

Based on this information, could you all share your knowledge and experience and help me decide? Of course, first hand experience would help a lot in telling me what you liked or disliked about any of these. But even if you were in a similar boat as I am in, and have researched on these, feel free to talk about it.

Any help or guidance is most appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks. I did try out GM and liked it for the ease. For one, I don't think it has a Flash export. And without paying a couple hundred dollars upfront, there is no way for me to even see what issues I may have with exporting to android.

I understand the tools are not as important. But if I had to learn a tool, I would rather know it does what I need it to do, and that I won't have to switch to something else in a year's time.

I have given that a try too. It looks nice for a simple game, but once the game gets complex I fear the drag and drop interface is going to be very messy to handle :(

Also, not sure about the performance of html on a mobile with games with tons of entities colliding with tons of others (tower defense type games)

Have you personally used Construct or GameMaker?

I have given that a try too. It looks nice for a simple game, but once the game gets complex I fear the drag and drop interface is going to be very messy to handle :(
Also, not sure about the performance of html on a mobile with games with tons of entities colliding with tons of others (tower defense type games)

Have you personally used Construct or GameMaker?

Did you take a look at the game I released for flash? Do you feel (from your personal experience) either of Construct or GameMaker would be able to create those and make them work on a mobile device?

Did you take a look at the game I released for flash? Do you feel (from your personal experience) either of Construct or GameMaker would be able to create those and make them work on a mobile device?

That's nice to know. So based on your experience what are some things that you didn't like about it, or know it can't do very well? Could be things like "it can't handle tens of layers very well" or "it can't handle lots of collisions too well" etc.

The reason I ask these is I don't want to end up developing a game, paying hundreds of dollars and realizing the performance won't hold. You see what my concerns are?

If Gamemaker provided demo/trial versions of their mobile export, I wouldn't mind giving it a fair try myself.